Al Jisr, a group of Saudi comedians, recently produced and performed a video poking fun at the kafala system in Gulf countries. The video has recently gone viral, with over 1.5 million views on YouTube. It depicts the relationships between workers and their sponsors, features Gulf Pidgin Arabic and includes a brief homage to the Bernie dance.

The Gazelle Opinion Desk asked NYUAD students who were either from the Gulf or had an interest in viral video production and rap to comment on the video. Below, find a translation of the video as well as their individual opinions.
“Kafeel” — Abdul Khaliq — Al Jisr Translated by Mohammed Al Mubarak and Ahmad Yacout

[Indian music playing]

Saudi Man: La wallah [used as a disingenuous expression of amazement]! Oh really! You thought we brought you from Pakistan to read a newspaper? Oh no, continue watching your TV show. Want me to bring you some dinner too?

Pakistani Laborer: Nobody told me ‘bout no work.

Saudi Man: Where are the things madam told you to get?

Pakistani Laborer: I could only bring half.

Saudi Man: If the madam asks you to bring things you go and buy them.

Pakistani Laborer: Yes, but I had no money.

Saudi Man: Here’s your goddamn money. Why are you still sitting here! I’m not paying you to chat with me.

Pakistani Laborer: Okay, okay.

Saudi Man: Astaghfirullah. [I seek forgiveness from Allah, said when one is angry.]

[Introduction ends; music begins]

Pakistani Laborer: Everyone needs to listen to me.

[Chorus]

I carry everything on me. I carry everything on me. I lift everything over my head. I can do all the work. If I leave, you're finished. I’m not afraid of the kafeel. I’m not afraid of the kafeel.

[Verse 1; Pakistani Laborer]

Carry the AC. Fix the AC. Fix the vacuum, mixer, marble. Saudis are way too lame. Think I'm afraid? I see everything you do.

[Chorus]

I’m not afraid of the kafeel. I’m not afraid of the kafeel. I carry everything on me. I carry everything on me. I lift everything over my head. I can do all the work.

[Verse 2; Bengali Laborer]

Saudis talk way too much. Every Saudi thinks he’s the boss. “Take your visa, do a good job and ma al salama.” Who does all the work in Saudi? Who works on the infrastructure? Who works 100 percent? You say all Bengalis are thieves. You're not 100 percent, not 100 percent. Who made the sewage system, who? Who takes the trash away? Who works in the grocery? All Saudis forget Who works in their taxis. All Saudis forget who works in their taxis. Everyday I carry a suitcase. Everyday I clean. Me, he threatens to deport. I’m not afraid of the kafeel.

[Chorus]

I’m not afraid of the kafeel. I’m not afraid of the kafeel. I carry everything on me. I carry everything on me. I lift everything over my head. It’s enough that I do all this work.

Mohammed Al-Mubarak, freshman

The Kafeel video uses the backdrop of the kafala system to make an entertaining video that takes a closer look at the underappreciated accomplishments that the migrant population has added to the development of the Gulf. Satire has a special way of criticizing certain aspects of society that can bring people to action; and being aware is the first step to that. It’s a blast.
Krishan Mistry, junior

Yes, it’s a catchy song, but upon further reflection, I have some potential reservations about the Kafeel video. The aesthetics and production quality of the video — HD slow-mo complete with glitch art transitions and a generic, but of-the-moment trap beat — clearly point to the fact that the authors of the video are backed by enough money that they probably aren’t members or observers in migrant worker communities in the Gulf Region. Thus, while I can stand behind what they’re trying to critique in contemporary Saudi society, I can’t help but find problems in the position from which they are doing it and the way they use popular depictions of South Asian laborers to do so. I think we should always be wary of any time a deviant subsection of the dominant group uses caricatures of a subordinated group in defense or advancement of that group. We should be especially wary when the way they try to do this takes the form of an internet-friendly rap song that’s begging to go viral.
Ahmad Yacout, sophomore

I don't think there is much to add to the comments on the video. People are going to be happy to hear the story from a person actually under the kafala system, or at least that is what the makers have framed it as. It's always nice to get a new perspective, and I think the fact that this exists shows that pressure on Gulf countries from abroad may have resulted in more transparency, or reluctance to prosecute out of fear of producing outrage. While that is all fine and good, I fear the Internet warrior phenomenon is going to take hold of this issue.

There is nothing wrong with labeling this as a humanitarian crisis, but the problem with internet discourse is that it oversimplifies issues. You'll see people from Paris and London asking their governments to intervene in this issue, calling Arab states barbaric oil-guzzling sloths and praising the moral superiority of postwar Europe and liberty and all that bullshit. You end up expecting the kafala system to stop abruptly because of pressure from the West.

Maybe let's look at this as a piece of the image, a really important piece, but let's step back and look at the issue in a way that involves the complex political and economic factors affecting every single level of this operation. That being said, I think the video is valuable in showing one very important, pretty much central part of the image, and it is one that we really need to explore more in depth. The problem wouldn't exist if, at one part of the cycle, there was no incentive for people to participate.
Fadhl Eryani, senior

“The video is yet another masterpiece by the extremely talented group of collaborating Saudi comedians, producers and filmmakers who have been cracking up Saudis and the wider Gulf audience since the Arab revolutions of 2011. We can see these videos as purely entertainment, as I'm sure many do, and they're definitely not the calls for direct action and revolt that many sort of hope them to be. But I would argue that these videos are one of the most important mechanisms for social change. I wouldn't say they tackle social issues of systematic racism and inequality directly, but they nudge and expand the limits of what can be said in a country that has the highest per capita viewers of YouTube in the world. Good humor, and its subversive, subtle and nebulous nature, pushes the envelope, creating a much-needed mechanism for what Middle Eastern scholar Asef Bayat calls the ‘quiet encroachment of the ordinary.’

Plus, this video is fucking awesome. Some YouTube commenters seem to think that this video is a reply to a rap diss by another artist called Slow Moe, in which Slow Moe calls Ibrahim Al Kheirallah, the man playing the main worker character in the song, fat and girly. The song is called Taq Teeq Sheel Rokeb, roughly: bam boom, carry and fix, which I roughly understand to mean that he will beat him up like a worker. It’s brilliant: instead of replying to Slow Moe directly with petty disses, Al Kheirallah's reply is, ‘I am not scared of the kafeel.’ It couldn't be more devastating for Slow Moe, because what Ibrahim is essentially telling him is that he can both hit back using his artistic genius to comment on real social issues and enjoy more popularity than Slow Moe will ever have. Fucking genius.

In many ways, the reason the video is funny is because one would never expect a worker to say, ‘I have no fear of the kafeel.’ It’s unthinkable, absurd. But how absurd is it actually? Finding that funny reveals that we don't think it’s something they do. It means that we think that the only solution is for us to take action on their behalf. It ignores the agency that workers have in navigating their own situations, and ignores the social action that also drives change on their terms, things that I must admit I'm lamentably ignorant about. This goes back to something that bothers me, that I haven't quite worked out yet in my head. In a Gazelle article about housing for ADNH staff, the article applauds the efforts that members of the community have taken to ensure workers are being treated properly, but does not question our intermediary role in speaking on their behalf. For example, ‘The compliance team checks in with every employee to make sure that living conditions are acceptable and not just meeting the bare minimum but acceptable in terms of what we would expect as a student body.’

All in all it leaves me confused. I don't think that should stop us from appreciating those efforts, but we should remain self-reflexive at all times.

They're definitely not the calls for direct action and revolt that many of us spirited activists and so-called liberators hope them to be. But I would argue that these videos are far more important mechanisms for social change.”
Sam Ball, sophomore, opinion editor

Beyond what the other commenters here have already iterated, one fascinating thing about the video is the similarity to the overall aesthetic of US American rap music. The song’s chorus is not only eerily reminiscent of O.T. Genasis’ ode to cocaine, “CoCo,” but directly lifts the cadence and delivery from the fall 2014 viral hit. The dancing, menacing glares and swagger found in the kafeel video are rooted more in the viral aesthetics of US American trap music than anything native to the Gulf. There is a definite appropriation of these aesthetics in order to present one side of Gulf Pidgin Arabic and the kafala system. Another level of comedy is added, because it is entirely unimaginable to the target audience that laborers would be listening to trap and then decide to replicate it in a Saudi context. Of course, in a world where the internet readily delivers the aesthetics of particular subcultures to others, the video should not come as that much of a surprise. It does, however, raise an interesting question about speaking for others: does this video portray those it does an occasionally poor job of representing — a Pakistani laborer is reading a newspaper in what appears to be Malayalam — in the way they would present themselves? Does it do so with aesthetics that would resonate with the people who actually “fix the AC,” and not just those who saw the video referenced on BBC? Can it be productive outside of that as a method to raise awareness? Does it matter?