KUWAITI KALEIDESCOPE: May Day 2008, Elections, and other Insights
KUWAITI KALEIDESCOPE: May Day 2008, Elections, and other Insights
By Kevin Anthony Stoda, notes from Kuwait
As dockworkers in both the USA and in Iraq struck for a few hours on May1 against the ongoing Iraq War, Kuwaiti witnessed May Day demonstrations, too. However, these were strikes for workers’ rights in Kuwait were carried out by foreign laborers in a land that has been rife in non-payments to thousands of laborers—i.e. laborers who keep the city clean, help run families of wealthy Kuwaitis, and keep their businesses running every day.
The May 2, 2008 FRIDAY TIMES front page story and headline focused on the unfair treatment and lack of pay for hundreds of Bangladeshi cleaners, who have not been paid for many months. Meanwhile, their contractor and the Kuwait government ministries have allowed hundreds of these laborers to find that their expired visas and Civil I.Ds have been expired since 2008. This situation puts them all in jeopardy of arrest. Nonetheless, these laborers chose May Day to once again protest publicly.
These (mostly female) cleaners had protested earlier in the week, too, in front of the Ministry of Education, and that ministry had paid their firm immediately the back-pay through March 2008.
Having still not received that pay from their contractors, these Bangladeshi protesters on May 1 once again peacefully protested and held a sit in at the entrance to the Kuwait Society of Human Rights (KSHR).
Journalist Naware Fattahova notes, “Laborers in Kuwait, however, have limited rights and often face difficulty in ensuring their salaries are paid on time and their residencies kept currant.”
She adds, “The Bangledeshi workers, for instance, work from 4:30am to 2:00pm, and they receive KD 19 [appx. US$73] per month. A few work from 4:30am up to midnight, and receive KD 30 [appx. US$110] per month, earning about 700 fils [about $2.35] per day.”
The concerned Secretary General of the KSHR, Amer Al-Tamimi, stated that his agency helped the protestors write letters to the Ministry of Education and has contacted the Interior Ministry for immediate help in these matters.
Speaking on behalf of the protesting laborers, Muneer Misleh Aldeen, stated, “About 20-25 of us live in one room. We sleep on three or four floors bed [bunk bed], and some even on floor next to each other. Although our contract expired, the company still asks us to work. They are keeping our passports, and our IDs expired. We only demand our financial rights and want to go back to Bangladesh.”
Many of these cleaners were lured to Kuwait with promises that they would receive nearly four times their current actual pay by ruthless recruiters and bad company representatives, owned by Kuwaitis.
It is in this context that it has to be pointed out that this current situation, whereby the Kuwait ministries have not renewed visas in a timely fashion and whereby contract rigging is widespread in Kuwait has led many workers in this land to seek employment elsewhere or to flee for their homes.
Let me explain. Therefore, many people who had never had any intention of working in Iraq, sometimes finally agree to do so. Under duress of not receiving the pay or job they were offered prior to coming to Kuwait and after pressure from their Kuwaiti contractors, some of them agree to serve U.S. military personnel as subcontracted laborers in neighboring Iraq. This abuse had gone on for over five years.
Note: In other words, who wouldn’t sometimes to gamble on working (and surviving) at a Taco Bell situated on a U.S. military facility in Iraq during a war--whereby the pay is 50 to 150 percent better--i.e. rather than to hang around Kuwait looking for pay months-and-months on end as these poor cleaners have had to do?
KUWAITI MAY 2008 ELECTIONS & THE PRESS
On Wednesday this past week, a dust-filled sky turned to an astounding orange one just hours after another tiny tornado hit Kuwait. There were many residents wondering if at that moment Armageddon had arrived.
http://intlxpatr.wordpress.com/2007/05/
This is not a joke.
A friend at church got called about the phenomena and heard several serious queries about Armageddon and the signs of the end-of-time.
I suppose with the incessant talk of the possibility that Iran (and other states) might bring nuclear weapons to the Gulf is making people nervous. So, perhaps Cheney, Clinton, and cohorts should stop rattling their sabers so loudly about having a war on Iran in the neighborhood, too.
On a lighter note, elections are bringing out a lot of good reporting on Kuwait society and interesting editorials in the local press this month.
Badrya Darwish wrote an editorial making fun of one comment made by a female politician in her district, who “promised women voters that if she wins a seat in parliament, it will be a priority on her agenda to forbid Kuwaiti men from hiring beautiful housemaids.”
Darwish admits that the candidate, Nawal Al-Muqaihit, was perhaps joking--but the local press hasn’t been clear on the matter.
Darwish asks, “Imagine, what a joke. No good-looking maids allowed in Kuwait. Why, because we’re afraid our men might flirt and marry them? And that will spoil the Kuwait race for the future. As if Kuwait is one race only. Kuwait by now is like living in the United Nations. From all walks of life, from all nationalities. Persian, Syrian, Iraqi, from the Arabian Peninsula, American-mixed, British-mixed, European-mixed, Asian-mixed, Indian-mixed, Russian-mixed and African-mixed and on and on.
Darwish concludes, “And honestly speaking, I’ve noticed that the mixed breed children are usually good looking, healthy and smart. So a few Kuwaiti men marrying Sri Lanka or Filipinas won’t upset the balance. Sorry, Ms. Muqaithit …Try to find a major issue that concerns us.”
This is what Americans need to be telling their politicians now, too. Get to the issues!
Americans today are in fear of their country changing too-much during the next generation as the immigrated population to its shores becomes even bigger.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/1/us_citizens_lawful_residents_sue_us
Already legal immigrants are being mistreated in the USA, too. There are all kinds of threatening raids near the borders and around the U.S. this decade-- indicating that a sort of Nightmare on Elm Street reality or mentality is taking over both media and political dialogue.
WHERE IS LOVE STREET?
National elections in Kuwait are scheduled for two weeks from now. As the average age of Kuwaitis is about 20 years of age, it is appropriate at election time to seek out this youngest voting majority to find out what makes them tick this election season.
In his article “Political Landscape at KU Reflect Larger Societal Divisions”, Hussain Al-Qatari writes, although the views on the campus of Kuwait University, the largest one in the country, reflect the political realities of the country, it also demonstrates how things are evolving differently in the longer term here.
Al-Qatari states, “While Kuwait lives the hustle and bustle of the upcoming elections, anticipating the event with unceasing interest, college students in the country are weighing in a different way.”
Qatari notes that, as in “Kuwait as a whole, Islamists dominate, liberals are divided and other minority groups exist but fail to achieve key positions of power.”
Note: It does sound a little bit like the USA today, esp. if we replace Islamists with “conservative Christian” Republican types.
Qatari tells the reader, “When you enter the Faculty of Arts from its main gate, you notice to your left a garden with benches where students of both sexes sport the latest fashion trends and sit in groups for long hours. It's the hangout, or as we were told when we were freshmen, 'Love Street.' Students who sit there are not the ones that you want to talk with about politics or the Parliament. The guys there are fluent in sports cars and motorbikes, hair trends and football games. Even so, they all have sympathies or affiliations
with certain political blocs within KU itself.”
As a whole, many students at KU live out a “disconnect between their personal and political ties”. On the one hand, some of the students are alienated by the political landscape that their parents and older siblings have created.
One student named Ahmad shares, “I think there is no use of voting unless you want a direct benefit from the man you are voting for. The seats in the majlis have nametags already. You shouldn't waste your time with over-thinking,"
Nevertheless, Ahmad explained he will vote this year. "I still don't know to whom I'll vote. My family is voting for Tabtabae. It's crazy, I know, but my father is very conservative." Many young men and women who are liberal in their thinking are breaking away from family's restricted beliefs.”
Ex- parliamentarian Waleed Al-Tabtabae is the man referred to. He lives within the district where the university is located, and the many Islamist parties and peoples of related tribal groups end up supporting whomever this kingmaker says they should vote for.
AROUND THE CORNER FROM LOVE STREET
On the other hand, Qatari writes that many young men and women are breaking away from family tradition and beliefs.
One female student said she would support Aseel Al-Awadhi, a female candidate this election. "I love her so much! We need people like her to fix this country before it turns into a wasteland!"
This same student, named Aisha, also explained that even though her mother supports one “religious candidate who is a distant relative”, she tells her mother to think about Dr. Aseel.
Aisha moans that her mom simply responds, “I should either be helping this distant relative of ours or not vote at all." Aisha, herself, has also been politically active on campus before, running for office two years earlier.
The polarizations in Kuwaiti politics make it hard for many Kuwaiti youth to choose to move from one political affiliation to another.
One student, Jaber, who doesn’t really like what the conservative religious parties do votes for them any way. Jaber explains why: “My friends [on the conservative tickets] ask me to work with them in putting up the posters and preparing the headquarters in campus. And [meanwhile] the guys from Mostaqilla and Wasat (aka Democratic Circle) have an appalling attitude to you if you look like a conservative or if you befriend people who do.”
Moreover, in the bitter socio-political landscape of tribes and Kuwaitis it is easier to fall back on tradition for some.
Jaber concurs, saying “that when it comes to parliamentary elections, he has no choice other than voting for whomever his father and uncles are voting for. It is more of a tradition to follow the elders, he said, and admitted that it should not be that way anymore, especially in today's Kuwait.”
On the other hand, some students do, in fact, leave the Islamist blocs.
Afnan, who is a British-Kuwaiti, noted, “No matter how different [you are and feel], though, you can always find someone to accept these differences.”
Qatari notes, “Afnan, who is half-British, half-Kuwaiti, is a supporter of the Democratic Circle. She says that throughout her five years in KU, she worked with Al-Islamiyah, a Shiite bloc that clearly supports Shiite MPs, and then moved to Mostaqillah [Independence group], and finally started to work for the Circle.”
Afnan adds, “I don't get harsh judgment from people here in the Circle because of the way I look or of my bad Arabic. They never make me feel like I'm a stranger. I feel as if I'm a member of a cult where everyone accepts everyone's difference and where they don't bullsh** you, but actually work with you transparently.”
Finally, Afnan concluded by saying “she is going to as many candidates' headquarters as possible this year. She will base her judgment on their principles and goals afterwards.”
She declares, "I already short listed a few," she said.
OTHER NEWS FROM KUWAIT AND IRAQ
All the weekend newspapers in the Gulf covered the report that a Kuwaiti, who had been released from the infamous prison at Guantanamo Bay, had killed himself and others in a suicide bombing attack in Iraq in April.
“A cousin said Abdullah Saleh Al-Ajmi, a Kuwaiti who was released from Guantánamo in 2005, was reported missing two weeks ago. His family learned of his death Thursday through a friend in Iraq, al-Arabiya said.” In short, Al-Ajimi had been released from Gitmo without charge, indicating that there had been known grounds for charging him found after three years of incarceration there.
Al-Ajmi had been missing for several weeks this past month before his family in Kuwait learned of the former-army man’s death in Iraq.
That’s right. Al-Ajmi had been on leave from the Kuwait military at the time he was captured in Pakistan in 2002, and he was there ostensibly doing volunteer work-- helping children in Pakistan.
No one in Kuwait is openly stating or charging that whatever psychological scars he might have received at Gitmo may have led to Al-Ajmi’s recent journey to Syria and his killing himself in a bombing in Iraq.
UM ALI
The “Mother of Ali” is a famous fortune teller in Kuwait. Perhaps Kuwaitis could turn her for answers about whether Al-Ajmi had earned the heart and soul of a suicide bomber before or after his three years in Gitmo.
“Um Ali” is a term of endearment for a women who is raising interest in the occult in Kuwait through her ability to predict the future. For example, she says that the new “parliament's members will be new faces” after this election.
As a Kuwaiti figure, Um Ali is quite popular and has been predicting the future based on dreams since her early childhood. She comes from a great tradition in Kuwait of such fortune tellers, including one from the royal al-Sabah family who predicted the location of oil in the Kuwaiti desert in the 1930s.
Some of Um Ali’s 2008 Predictions include:
Political/Social
* Condoleezza Rice will get married
* Most of the parliament's members will be new faces
* An increase in the number of females in the government
* Instability in Kuwait's security, in the city and on the borders with Iraq
* Terrorist attempts in Kuwait, ending peacefully
* The spread of a contagious disease in Kuwait in the coming few days
* An earthquake will hit Kuwait
* A blackout in Kuwait
* Disputes between Iraq and Kuwait
* Deputy Prime Minister of a GCC country will not last in office
* Two GCC ministers (Interior and Foreign) will not stay in office
* Unusual instability in Saudi Arabia's security
* A severe earthquake will hit Egypt causing the collapse of several buildings and a high death toll
* Next US President will not be better than the previous one and will hold the worst for the world
* A terrorist attack on the US
* Instability in UK's security
* Unusual political protests and instability in Egypt
* Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh will not stay in office
* Iraqi President Jalal Talabani will not stay in office
* Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will not stay in office
* Amr Mousa will not stay in office
Box
Deaths/Assassinations
* The death of two political personalities in a Gulf country
* The death of a well known GCC princess
* The death of two Arab-African presidents
* The death of George H W Bush
* The death of Madeline Albright, Queen Elizabeth, Margaret Thatcher
* The death of Fidel Castro
* The death of the Pope
* The death of Tareq Aziz
* The death of Lebanese singer Sabah
* An assassination attempt on current US President George W Bush
* An assassination attempt on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
* Another assassination attempt on Afghani President Hamed Karazai
* Assassination attempt on Ismael Haniyya
* The assassination of famous Iraqi singer Kathem Al-Saher
Considering the U.S. Democrats can’t even claim to know who their next presidential candidate will be at the end of this month, let’s give Um Ali a try. Perhaps, after that, we can ask her to predict when and whether U.S. troops will ever be pulled out of Iraq.
NOTES
“25,000 Dockworkers Shut Down the West Coast Ports in Historic Antiwar Protest”, http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/2/25_000_dockworkers_shut_down_west
Badrya Darwish, “Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder,” http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=ODkzMzU5OTA=
Fattahova, Naware, “Protest in Kuwait, Global rallies, Violence and hint of hope,” FRIDAY TIMES (May 2, 2008), p.1.
Goma, Eman, “Seeing in the Future: Um Ali’s Predictions for 2008”, http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=NjMwMzcyNzYx
Al-Qatari, Hussain, ““Political Landscape at KU Reflect Larger Societal Divisions”, FRIDAY TIMES (May 2, 2008), p.8.
“Report: Ex-Gitmo Turned Suicide Bomber”, http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/story/518419.html
“U.S. Citizens, Lawful Residents Sue Government for Illegal Detention in Immigration Aid”, http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/1/us_citizens_lawful_residents_sue_us
By Kevin Anthony Stoda, notes from Kuwait
As dockworkers in both the USA and in Iraq struck for a few hours on May1 against the ongoing Iraq War, Kuwaiti witnessed May Day demonstrations, too. However, these were strikes for workers’ rights in Kuwait were carried out by foreign laborers in a land that has been rife in non-payments to thousands of laborers—i.e. laborers who keep the city clean, help run families of wealthy Kuwaitis, and keep their businesses running every day.
The May 2, 2008 FRIDAY TIMES front page story and headline focused on the unfair treatment and lack of pay for hundreds of Bangladeshi cleaners, who have not been paid for many months. Meanwhile, their contractor and the Kuwait government ministries have allowed hundreds of these laborers to find that their expired visas and Civil I.Ds have been expired since 2008. This situation puts them all in jeopardy of arrest. Nonetheless, these laborers chose May Day to once again protest publicly.
These (mostly female) cleaners had protested earlier in the week, too, in front of the Ministry of Education, and that ministry had paid their firm immediately the back-pay through March 2008.
Having still not received that pay from their contractors, these Bangladeshi protesters on May 1 once again peacefully protested and held a sit in at the entrance to the Kuwait Society of Human Rights (KSHR).
Journalist Naware Fattahova notes, “Laborers in Kuwait, however, have limited rights and often face difficulty in ensuring their salaries are paid on time and their residencies kept currant.”
She adds, “The Bangledeshi workers, for instance, work from 4:30am to 2:00pm, and they receive KD 19 [appx. US$73] per month. A few work from 4:30am up to midnight, and receive KD 30 [appx. US$110] per month, earning about 700 fils [about $2.35] per day.”
The concerned Secretary General of the KSHR, Amer Al-Tamimi, stated that his agency helped the protestors write letters to the Ministry of Education and has contacted the Interior Ministry for immediate help in these matters.
Speaking on behalf of the protesting laborers, Muneer Misleh Aldeen, stated, “About 20-25 of us live in one room. We sleep on three or four floors bed [bunk bed], and some even on floor next to each other. Although our contract expired, the company still asks us to work. They are keeping our passports, and our IDs expired. We only demand our financial rights and want to go back to Bangladesh.”
Many of these cleaners were lured to Kuwait with promises that they would receive nearly four times their current actual pay by ruthless recruiters and bad company representatives, owned by Kuwaitis.
It is in this context that it has to be pointed out that this current situation, whereby the Kuwait ministries have not renewed visas in a timely fashion and whereby contract rigging is widespread in Kuwait has led many workers in this land to seek employment elsewhere or to flee for their homes.
Let me explain. Therefore, many people who had never had any intention of working in Iraq, sometimes finally agree to do so. Under duress of not receiving the pay or job they were offered prior to coming to Kuwait and after pressure from their Kuwaiti contractors, some of them agree to serve U.S. military personnel as subcontracted laborers in neighboring Iraq. This abuse had gone on for over five years.
Note: In other words, who wouldn’t sometimes to gamble on working (and surviving) at a Taco Bell situated on a U.S. military facility in Iraq during a war--whereby the pay is 50 to 150 percent better--i.e. rather than to hang around Kuwait looking for pay months-and-months on end as these poor cleaners have had to do?
KUWAITI MAY 2008 ELECTIONS & THE PRESS
On Wednesday this past week, a dust-filled sky turned to an astounding orange one just hours after another tiny tornado hit Kuwait. There were many residents wondering if at that moment Armageddon had arrived.
http://intlxpatr.wordpress.com/2007/05/
This is not a joke.
A friend at church got called about the phenomena and heard several serious queries about Armageddon and the signs of the end-of-time.
I suppose with the incessant talk of the possibility that Iran (and other states) might bring nuclear weapons to the Gulf is making people nervous. So, perhaps Cheney, Clinton, and cohorts should stop rattling their sabers so loudly about having a war on Iran in the neighborhood, too.
On a lighter note, elections are bringing out a lot of good reporting on Kuwait society and interesting editorials in the local press this month.
Badrya Darwish wrote an editorial making fun of one comment made by a female politician in her district, who “promised women voters that if she wins a seat in parliament, it will be a priority on her agenda to forbid Kuwaiti men from hiring beautiful housemaids.”
Darwish admits that the candidate, Nawal Al-Muqaihit, was perhaps joking--but the local press hasn’t been clear on the matter.
Darwish asks, “Imagine, what a joke. No good-looking maids allowed in Kuwait. Why, because we’re afraid our men might flirt and marry them? And that will spoil the Kuwait race for the future. As if Kuwait is one race only. Kuwait by now is like living in the United Nations. From all walks of life, from all nationalities. Persian, Syrian, Iraqi, from the Arabian Peninsula, American-mixed, British-mixed, European-mixed, Asian-mixed, Indian-mixed, Russian-mixed and African-mixed and on and on.
Darwish concludes, “And honestly speaking, I’ve noticed that the mixed breed children are usually good looking, healthy and smart. So a few Kuwaiti men marrying Sri Lanka or Filipinas won’t upset the balance. Sorry, Ms. Muqaithit …Try to find a major issue that concerns us.”
This is what Americans need to be telling their politicians now, too. Get to the issues!
Americans today are in fear of their country changing too-much during the next generation as the immigrated population to its shores becomes even bigger.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/1/us_citizens_lawful_residents_sue_us
Already legal immigrants are being mistreated in the USA, too. There are all kinds of threatening raids near the borders and around the U.S. this decade-- indicating that a sort of Nightmare on Elm Street reality or mentality is taking over both media and political dialogue.
WHERE IS LOVE STREET?
National elections in Kuwait are scheduled for two weeks from now. As the average age of Kuwaitis is about 20 years of age, it is appropriate at election time to seek out this youngest voting majority to find out what makes them tick this election season.
In his article “Political Landscape at KU Reflect Larger Societal Divisions”, Hussain Al-Qatari writes, although the views on the campus of Kuwait University, the largest one in the country, reflect the political realities of the country, it also demonstrates how things are evolving differently in the longer term here.
Al-Qatari states, “While Kuwait lives the hustle and bustle of the upcoming elections, anticipating the event with unceasing interest, college students in the country are weighing in a different way.”
Qatari notes that, as in “Kuwait as a whole, Islamists dominate, liberals are divided and other minority groups exist but fail to achieve key positions of power.”
Note: It does sound a little bit like the USA today, esp. if we replace Islamists with “conservative Christian” Republican types.
Qatari tells the reader, “When you enter the Faculty of Arts from its main gate, you notice to your left a garden with benches where students of both sexes sport the latest fashion trends and sit in groups for long hours. It's the hangout, or as we were told when we were freshmen, 'Love Street.' Students who sit there are not the ones that you want to talk with about politics or the Parliament. The guys there are fluent in sports cars and motorbikes, hair trends and football games. Even so, they all have sympathies or affiliations
with certain political blocs within KU itself.”
As a whole, many students at KU live out a “disconnect between their personal and political ties”. On the one hand, some of the students are alienated by the political landscape that their parents and older siblings have created.
One student named Ahmad shares, “I think there is no use of voting unless you want a direct benefit from the man you are voting for. The seats in the majlis have nametags already. You shouldn't waste your time with over-thinking,"
Nevertheless, Ahmad explained he will vote this year. "I still don't know to whom I'll vote. My family is voting for Tabtabae. It's crazy, I know, but my father is very conservative." Many young men and women who are liberal in their thinking are breaking away from family's restricted beliefs.”
Ex- parliamentarian Waleed Al-Tabtabae is the man referred to. He lives within the district where the university is located, and the many Islamist parties and peoples of related tribal groups end up supporting whomever this kingmaker says they should vote for.
AROUND THE CORNER FROM LOVE STREET
On the other hand, Qatari writes that many young men and women are breaking away from family tradition and beliefs.
One female student said she would support Aseel Al-Awadhi, a female candidate this election. "I love her so much! We need people like her to fix this country before it turns into a wasteland!"
This same student, named Aisha, also explained that even though her mother supports one “religious candidate who is a distant relative”, she tells her mother to think about Dr. Aseel.
Aisha moans that her mom simply responds, “I should either be helping this distant relative of ours or not vote at all." Aisha, herself, has also been politically active on campus before, running for office two years earlier.
The polarizations in Kuwaiti politics make it hard for many Kuwaiti youth to choose to move from one political affiliation to another.
One student, Jaber, who doesn’t really like what the conservative religious parties do votes for them any way. Jaber explains why: “My friends [on the conservative tickets] ask me to work with them in putting up the posters and preparing the headquarters in campus. And [meanwhile] the guys from Mostaqilla and Wasat (aka Democratic Circle) have an appalling attitude to you if you look like a conservative or if you befriend people who do.”
Moreover, in the bitter socio-political landscape of tribes and Kuwaitis it is easier to fall back on tradition for some.
Jaber concurs, saying “that when it comes to parliamentary elections, he has no choice other than voting for whomever his father and uncles are voting for. It is more of a tradition to follow the elders, he said, and admitted that it should not be that way anymore, especially in today's Kuwait.”
On the other hand, some students do, in fact, leave the Islamist blocs.
Afnan, who is a British-Kuwaiti, noted, “No matter how different [you are and feel], though, you can always find someone to accept these differences.”
Qatari notes, “Afnan, who is half-British, half-Kuwaiti, is a supporter of the Democratic Circle. She says that throughout her five years in KU, she worked with Al-Islamiyah, a Shiite bloc that clearly supports Shiite MPs, and then moved to Mostaqillah [Independence group], and finally started to work for the Circle.”
Afnan adds, “I don't get harsh judgment from people here in the Circle because of the way I look or of my bad Arabic. They never make me feel like I'm a stranger. I feel as if I'm a member of a cult where everyone accepts everyone's difference and where they don't bullsh** you, but actually work with you transparently.”
Finally, Afnan concluded by saying “she is going to as many candidates' headquarters as possible this year. She will base her judgment on their principles and goals afterwards.”
She declares, "I already short listed a few," she said.
OTHER NEWS FROM KUWAIT AND IRAQ
All the weekend newspapers in the Gulf covered the report that a Kuwaiti, who had been released from the infamous prison at Guantanamo Bay, had killed himself and others in a suicide bombing attack in Iraq in April.
“A cousin said Abdullah Saleh Al-Ajmi, a Kuwaiti who was released from Guantánamo in 2005, was reported missing two weeks ago. His family learned of his death Thursday through a friend in Iraq, al-Arabiya said.” In short, Al-Ajimi had been released from Gitmo without charge, indicating that there had been known grounds for charging him found after three years of incarceration there.
Al-Ajmi had been missing for several weeks this past month before his family in Kuwait learned of the former-army man’s death in Iraq.
That’s right. Al-Ajmi had been on leave from the Kuwait military at the time he was captured in Pakistan in 2002, and he was there ostensibly doing volunteer work-- helping children in Pakistan.
No one in Kuwait is openly stating or charging that whatever psychological scars he might have received at Gitmo may have led to Al-Ajmi’s recent journey to Syria and his killing himself in a bombing in Iraq.
UM ALI
The “Mother of Ali” is a famous fortune teller in Kuwait. Perhaps Kuwaitis could turn her for answers about whether Al-Ajmi had earned the heart and soul of a suicide bomber before or after his three years in Gitmo.
“Um Ali” is a term of endearment for a women who is raising interest in the occult in Kuwait through her ability to predict the future. For example, she says that the new “parliament's members will be new faces” after this election.
As a Kuwaiti figure, Um Ali is quite popular and has been predicting the future based on dreams since her early childhood. She comes from a great tradition in Kuwait of such fortune tellers, including one from the royal al-Sabah family who predicted the location of oil in the Kuwaiti desert in the 1930s.
Some of Um Ali’s 2008 Predictions include:
Political/Social
* Condoleezza Rice will get married
* Most of the parliament's members will be new faces
* An increase in the number of females in the government
* Instability in Kuwait's security, in the city and on the borders with Iraq
* Terrorist attempts in Kuwait, ending peacefully
* The spread of a contagious disease in Kuwait in the coming few days
* An earthquake will hit Kuwait
* A blackout in Kuwait
* Disputes between Iraq and Kuwait
* Deputy Prime Minister of a GCC country will not last in office
* Two GCC ministers (Interior and Foreign) will not stay in office
* Unusual instability in Saudi Arabia's security
* A severe earthquake will hit Egypt causing the collapse of several buildings and a high death toll
* Next US President will not be better than the previous one and will hold the worst for the world
* A terrorist attack on the US
* Instability in UK's security
* Unusual political protests and instability in Egypt
* Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh will not stay in office
* Iraqi President Jalal Talabani will not stay in office
* Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will not stay in office
* Amr Mousa will not stay in office
Box
Deaths/Assassinations
* The death of two political personalities in a Gulf country
* The death of a well known GCC princess
* The death of two Arab-African presidents
* The death of George H W Bush
* The death of Madeline Albright, Queen Elizabeth, Margaret Thatcher
* The death of Fidel Castro
* The death of the Pope
* The death of Tareq Aziz
* The death of Lebanese singer Sabah
* An assassination attempt on current US President George W Bush
* An assassination attempt on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
* Another assassination attempt on Afghani President Hamed Karazai
* Assassination attempt on Ismael Haniyya
* The assassination of famous Iraqi singer Kathem Al-Saher
Considering the U.S. Democrats can’t even claim to know who their next presidential candidate will be at the end of this month, let’s give Um Ali a try. Perhaps, after that, we can ask her to predict when and whether U.S. troops will ever be pulled out of Iraq.
NOTES
“25,000 Dockworkers Shut Down the West Coast Ports in Historic Antiwar Protest”, http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/2/25_000_dockworkers_shut_down_west
Badrya Darwish, “Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder,” http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=ODkzMzU5OTA=
Fattahova, Naware, “Protest in Kuwait, Global rallies, Violence and hint of hope,” FRIDAY TIMES (May 2, 2008), p.1.
Goma, Eman, “Seeing in the Future: Um Ali’s Predictions for 2008”, http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=NjMwMzcyNzYx
Al-Qatari, Hussain, ““Political Landscape at KU Reflect Larger Societal Divisions”, FRIDAY TIMES (May 2, 2008), p.8.
“Report: Ex-Gitmo Turned Suicide Bomber”, http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/story/518419.html
“U.S. Citizens, Lawful Residents Sue Government for Illegal Detention in Immigration Aid”, http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/1/us_citizens_lawful_residents_sue_us
posted by Kevin Anthony Stoda at 3:29 PM
5 Comments:
Good News on the Trade Union front. Favel Jens in California sent out the following message this weekend. It’s always good to see laborers recognized and paid well.
Tentative Agreement Reached for
Tri-Counties Regional Center Workers Rally and Press Conference scheduled for Saturday, May 3 is canceled.
May 2, 2008 – SEIU Local 721 and the Tri-Counties Regional Center (TCRC) have reached a tentative agreement. The informational picket and press conference that was to be held in Santa Barbara outside of the TCRC board of directors meeting tomorrow has been canceled.
“This contract was not given to us, we earned it. The unity and solidarity that the members displayed was instrumental to our achieving this agreement and the support from the community and the people who we provide services for has been overwhelming positive” said Alice Forsythe, Chapter President and bargaining team member.
TCRC union members will be holding meetings and will vote on the tentative agreement at all six offices the week of May 5. Full contract details will be released upon ratification of the contract.
I realize that you consider yourself an expert on the "tribals" now, but you don't seem to understand that some Kuwaitis are "tribals" (Bedu) and some aren't. There are well-known Kuwaiti "tribes" like Al-Ajmi, Al-Enezi, Al-Mutairi, etc.; any Kuwaiti can recognize whether a name is Bedu or not. Even among Bedus, some vote for ideological reasons and not solely for someone from their tribe - although since they can choose ten names, they can probably do both. (And if Ted Kennedy were running for office, wouldn't most of his clan vote for him?)
The people who vote for someone like Dr. Waleed Tabtabaie aren't voting out of any tribal affiliation; the people who vote for "Islamists" vote for them because they want an Islamic government. If you find out about the "Islamist" candidates, you'll find that they're quite different from your average preacher in the "religious right" in the U.S.; for one thing, many of them are highly educated, often with PhDs. They have a lot of support, including (maybe especially) among women - not because these women are ignorant and duped, but because they want a society run by Islamic guidelines.
I'm sure you're aware that the news carried in the English newspapers is geared towards foreigners and doesn't give you real insight into Kuwaiti society.
Yes and no --on all counts.
For example, the KUWAIT TIMES is run, I believe by a man outside the mainstream but who might be more oriented to the islamicists than the status quo pro USA ARAB TIMES.
Note, that I was summarizing young writers who interpret their family members persuading them to vote for cousin or family who is supported by islamists. This means one sees a connection between tribes, family and islamists--which your narration ignores. (Yes, one can argue that islamists are pro government, too.)
Anyway, the good thing about the three local English language papers is that they all do better than 80% of U.S. dailies.
For example, the Diwaniya section summarizes the other 8 kuwaiti papers, every day. Imagine if U.S.A papers had such a roundup!
We could then tell the newspapers apart--not all printing the same story lines most of the times.
Well, I usually read the Arab Times if I read one, but I agree that it has much better coverage of international news than the average U.S. newspaper, including major ones like the NY Times or Washington Post.
But it's also true that the English newspapers here cover different stories than the Arabic newspapers; as for local news, when they do cover the same story, the coverage is very different.
Your point about voters asking their fathers, brothers and cousins for recommendations before voting is an important one, because I've seen news reports lamenting the fact that women ask their husbands and fathers. As one Kuwaiti woman told me when I mentioned that, "Of course! that's Kuwait... The men ask their fathers, uncles and brothers, too." It's a very small country, where it's likely that you or some relative knows the candidate personally (or members of his or her family), so it's normal that they ask, and that such personal information is a factor in deciding whom to vote for.
It is not just a phenomena of asking famiy whom to vote for. The problem is that peer pressure and family pressure and tribal pressure are apparently higher here for many young adults than in many arenas outside of Asia.
(1) That is youth are not just told whom to vote for, they are pressured. They also are pressured with things like family and tribal honor.
(2)They are pressured in the same way that peers in the USA an elsewhere are by peergroups to join one fad or another.
(3)They are outright told that they will be expelled or marked as a black sheep it they take such and such position.
(4)They are warned "Better not to vote at all than to vote against us and our chosen reps."
Alone
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