A new blog called "re: Kuwait, An Urban Analysis" put up an image of a proposed Kuwait Metrorail Map. Will we live to see the day? Check it out by clicking here. Very interesting blog dedicated to a sustainable built environment in Kuwait and greater urban renewal projects.
Next weekend I will be visiting Bahrain. I have been one time but did not stay long enough to do much. I am trying to find information on three things:
Yesterday, I was walking around in a little shopping complex near Al-Fanar when I stumbled across these mannequins of gargantuan proportion. The person I was with shushed me not to laugh because apparently these are plus-sized models. To add insult to injury, one of them was dressed in a strange matching shirt-short combination consisting of a print with the Union 76 gasoline station logo...its screaming for some sort of a symbolic interpretation!
Hey, Mr. Khalaf, oh bastion of wisdom and patriot premiere, you know whats the difference between citizenship and patriotism? Or rather the barrier between one leading to the other? People like you who see citizenship as a freaking cartel and people who see the government as merely a deliverer of services ande easy money. Patriotism is caring about your country enough to not just live for the day, blow money and guzzle resources denying future generations a chance to grow. Patriotism is having a strong work ethic. Patriotism is civic duty that goes beyond military defense. Patriotism is caring about your fellow person.
Link here to article Abdullah Khalaf |
| The concepts of citizenship and patriotism differ from the concepts of belonging and loyalty. Although a sense of belonging and loyalty are both part of patriotism, the concept of belonging is limited as compared to the concept of loyalty. In the first case, an individual might not love his country but when the need arises; sacrifices his life for its security because he is connected to his country by a sacred bond and that is loyalty. In the other case an individual might belong to a particular country, but does not feel the necessity to sacrifice his life for his nation and that person only has a sense of belonging. These are the people who abandon their country and run for their lives when they sense danger looming in front of them. There are also those who get the citizenship of another country particularly for this purpose. These people will eventually have to fight for the other countries as the laws of those countries require them to defend the countries in times of danger. They also boast about their second countries openly and shamelessly in the press and on radio and television. Dr. Issa AlـShammas is quoted as saying: "Loyalty is true belonging and thus loyalty and belonging blend together and it becomes very difficult to separate them." "Although people belong to the countries where they were born; loyalty to the country is not born within a man but is imbibed into one''s personality through the educational process which begins in the family, is nurtured through the educational process in schools and finally matured in the wider society where the individual begins to feel that he is a fundamental part of the country." (Civil society, citizenship and democracy: By Dr. Issa AlـShammas, Chapter II: Citizenship). One of the worst defeatist antiـnational phenomena is abandoning the country when it is at risk or under occupation as was the case when Palestine was occupied by the Zionists and Kuwait by the Iraqi Baathist regime, in which the Iraqis committed horrible acts of thefts and crime and devastated the country with the support of the Iraqi army and forced several people to leave the country. Showing loyalty to the country is expressed by citizens in both situations; peace and war by enlisting in military service; whether in the homeland or in any Arab land that has been victim to foreign aggression. The Kuwaiti army supported Egypt and Syria on the outskirts of Palestine where many Kuwaiti martyrs met their end. Now, that military service has been made compulsory in Kuwait; does it mean that the national sentiment and fervor has become stronger? During the recent parliamentary election, the issue of dual citizenship was raised several times. The State must address this duality, which is prohibited by law. It is an offense to the State of Kuwait as well as the other State to which holders of the dual nationalities belong to because they deceitfully benefit from both the States. They receive salaries and enjoy the privileges from both countries but when either of the two countries is at risk; they abandon that country and board the first flight to go to the other country. During the recent elections, many citizens returned from abroad to participate in the election process and elect the members of Parliament and despite the fact that these people do not live in Kuwait, they receive government houses and other benefits offered by the State. They lease their houses here in Kuwait and return to their second countries. They receive ration cards from the government that enable them to get subsidized foodstuff and also receive plots of land at low prices for agricultural purposes and to raise livestock. They rent out these plots of lands too because they live in other countries. This issue of dual citizenship should be addressed by the National Assembly in cooperation with the Interior Ministry. It is time to get rid of all those holders of dual citizenship whether they are living in Kuwait or outside Kuwait. |
I know that M.I.A.'s Kala is old news, but I really almost believe that this song completely represents the idiosyncratic sites of the Gulf Road...
I stumbled accross a blog called http://q8istuff.blogspot.com, and it a great vault of old clips and photographs, as well as plenty of images of the Kuwait football team in the 80s. Here is one of the pictures from the site.
The following is an article from the Al-Watan Daily today. This is actually quite sad because I have been excited about the Heritage Village Project opening up. Little hints of negligence are peppered throughout. Why were the workers not being supervised so that more help would be readily available? In this kind of heat, especially, there should be people monitoring in case of faintness, dehydration or other "scorching"-temperature related health problems. How did they "slip"? Why is the Al-Watan Daily so quick to assume that "verry little could be done"?
This is probably the shortest article in the history of the newspaper, but at least it is being noted that there is a bus strike. I hope it runs successfully and their claims are heard. In other news, Kuwait spoke at the United Nations, urging the international community to help with the formation of a Palestinian State. While I agree with the need for this, I think Kuwait needs to reflect deeply on its own stateless population as well."Bus drivers of the Kuwait Public Transport Co. (KPTC) stage a sitـin to demand better salaries at the main station in Kuwait City, May 24, 2009. All of the company drivers are expatriates from Arab and Asian countries"
The State of Maharashtra's sledgehammer henchmen have now demolished the home of Rubina Ali, who plays the young Latika in the movie Slumdog Millionaire. This same state government had promised these two child actors new homes. What is going on? If this does not set an example of the twistedness of Marashtra's Slum Rehabilitation Authority, I do not know what will. Again, the slumarazzi were there to capture the event on camera. Here is one of the photos.
Today I witnessed something incredible. There was a Kuwaiti man, his child (a girl of about three) and a South Asian nanny who were in queue to get visas. For the nanny, a interview was required. At first the nanny brought the child in with her, but then the father was ordered to take care of his own child in the lobby while the nanny was being interviewed. As the father reached out his hands to take his daughter in his arms, the girl recoiled and started frantically grasping onto the nanny's neck; she obviously did not want to be away from her side and preferred to be with her than with her father.
About a month ago, I visited the area that would be the proposed site for this mega-project to build a new, planned city in Kuwait. It is a quiet coastal flatland with sparse estuaries, seagulls, shell critters and crabs. Here are some pictures that I took from the tranquil, sunset stop in the middle of nowhere.
According to the developers, a group called civicarts (click here for link to full description of the planned city) the tower will be:
"Women won four seats in the Kuwaiti parliamentary elections over the weekend, a historic first and one of several electoral surprises that appeared to reflect a deep popular frustration with the political deadlock in the oil-rich gulf state of Kuwait. Liberal Kuwaitis celebrated the landmark with fireworks and parties after the elections on Saturday. Women gained the right to vote and run for office in 2005, but none had been elected until now. Many conservatives resisted the idea, and in recent weeks Islamists urged voters not to elect women to the 50-seat assembly." (for full link, click here)
"KUWAIT: The six Gulf States have been subject to severe criticism over the sponsorship system, also known as the kafeel system.
I wrote my Master's thesis last year on slum demolition campaigns in Indian megacities, looking at the local political motivations behind bulldozing and the informalization of poor housing. I had become interested in the topic after learning about the Yamuna Pushta River eviction in Delhi in 2004-2005 and the Shanghaization of Mumbai in that same year. Both these drives saw thousands of families displaced. Demolitions without notice are about the politics of control-whether looking at Mugabe's Operation Murambatsvina or demolitions of houses against Palestinians by the Israeli government. Indian cities, however, are a paradox-the combination of slumdwellers being some of the biggest voting blocks, as well as forming the majority the population of urban cities in globalizing cities such as Mumbai makes demolition drives difficult to comprehend.
I will be travelling today to Beirut for the weekend later today. I hope to be able to update a little bit and write up on some of the things I see there, especially in the run-up to elections.
This entry is a bit more anecdotal than per my usual writing, but I wanted to relate an experience I had today attempting to redeem a mail parcel my well-intentioned friend in Lebanon sent to me by post...yes actual, traditional snail mail.
She had sent me from Beirut a book that I had searched the city up and down for during my visit to see her a couple months back. I had combed several bookshops, but eventually gave up, figuring that it simple was not written in my stars to find that book during my time in Lebanon in March.
So, she decided to send me a copy of the book via post, not DHL, not AREMEX--rather the traditional public post office. She put my residential address as the destination, not having my P.O. box number at the time. Three weeks had passed by since she sent it, and today I went in the morning in taxi to the Post Office in Dasmaan to try to localize it.
A post office in Dasmaan you may wonder? Yes, there is. It is located in the same shopping complex as a co-op grocery store and a Naif Chicken. Perhaps the most unique feature of the office is that in order to find its entrance, one must first go through a Kid's Chuck-e-Cheese-esque Cartoon Network-themed discovery zone indoor playpen, turn at the claw machine, through the double doors, and into a strange service corridor--which also happens to have a post office with a crumbling hand-written sign on it. I bet it is the only post office in the world of its kind.
Sure enough, I was directed to the MAIN post office branch in Safat. The woman at the counter even offered to drive me there, but as I had a taxi waiting, I decided to continue on my adventure on auto-pilot. At the Safat post office, I interrupt and office of perhaps twelve Kuwaiti men sitting and chatting over tea in a tiny room to ask about where to pick up mail. They direct me to the front counter, the customer representatives of whom direct me to a hallway to the left. I enter into another office and am offered several options of refreshing beverage.
The lady who attends to me tells me that there is no way of looking for my package, but that she guesses it probably has gone to the "post office" in Shaab, which is closest to my residence. I ask her if she could tell me where this office is located, to which I am told, beside the main supermarket. I then ask her if she is able to simply call the office and see if they can find the package on the phone to avoid an extra trip...no one at the central post office has the number to this office.
I think to myself off-hand: As much as I appreciate to be served with drinks and offered a free ride, I would trade all this hospitality for there to simply exist a system to at least make it so that my package can be looked for. I was not expecting the package to ever be found, and I knew I was facing an uphill battle, but they must really just throw all the mail in a hole in the ground for there not to be any storage room to examine. So, what do these employees do? What functions does the post office have?
On another note, I realized I had spent 4.500 dinars and one and a half hours on a failed outcome. This made me think-there are many people living in Kuwait who cannot afford to send everything through something as expensive as DHL, especially sending packages abroad, which matters most to to many laborers. Low-income foreign nationals are shut out of the postal systems-both the public one, for its high risk costs and incompetence, and the private services, which are reliable, but expensive.
Furthermore, while we are in the digital age and witnessing greater egalitarianism of internet use, not everyone has a computer in their household for easy correspondence. One of the greatest e-revolutions of the last years has been the development of Skype for communication. However, for many who reside in Kuwait and are well aware of the issue, skype is blocked by the Ministry of Communications-further adding cost to overseas communication. These policies isolate the sections of an already marginalized majority in this country, and hurt the poor the hardest. Are they merely unfortunate casualties of an indept and protectionist bureaucracy or is there a deliberate attempt to keep communications delivery as a public good low in the country? I am curious to know how the rest of the Gulf compare.
Numbers Matter.Many of our most important decisions are logically weighed and decided on by factoring numbers into our most difficult choices—whether we admit it or not. A decision to attend one university and forgo another might come down to the best financial aid package offer put forward in the admissions letter. Whether we arrive on time or late for that first, intimidating job interview is captured in those few seconds that were lost fumbling for change at the ticket machine to catch the metro train. Numbers carry weight and can evoke irrecoverable consequences, so we must respect their great power to change our lives.
Numbers perhaps matter the most to the vulnerable members of society—those sitting precariously near the poverty line, the illegal and the unaccounted for and victims of injustice. One simple number can make a great difference in the fate of their lives. Enticing promises of a better situation are often made with luring numbers. On the other hand, fear of numbers can also keep people from reaching out and speaking up when they are in a bad situation: fear of loan debts amounts, years of a prison sentence, salary cuts, etc.
Each year, thousands of migrants travel from countries around the world (such as Egypt, India, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, Pakistan Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) in hopes of a better economic future working in low-skilled labor posts in the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. The six Gulf Cooperation Council (or GCC) States include Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. These immigrants come to work in many sectors that form the backbone of the economy. Their occupations include construction workers, domestic aid, cleaners, guards, taxi drivers and other forms of basic services.
However, these migrants are often the victims of verbal and physical abuse, sex crimes, visa and loan money scams, and overall discrimination. The threat of deportation and the practice of many visa sponsors of confiscating their passports put many of these workers in a situation from which they cannot escape, as paperless prisoners in the country or as indentured servants. Furthermore, many employers withhold full payments of salaries as a manipulation tactic. Much of the quick development of these rapidly globalizing and urbanizing desert kingdoms has been made by turning a blind eye to international labor standards. However, international criticism and attention on the plight of these workers is now forcing these countries to reflect on their policies.
According to the World Bank, as of 2007 Kuwait ranks second after Luxembourg in the world in terms of gross national income per capita according to purchasing power parity.[i] Here are some numbers that make a difference in this country:
Real Numbers
· 2/3
The portion of the population in Kuwait that is comprised of non-Kuwaitis, foreign workers and expatriots –the majority of the country’s residents
· 3
The tier rating of Kuwait in the 2008 US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report.[ii] This is the lowest ranking (1 being the highest), shared by Algeria, Burma, Cuba, Fiji, Iran, Moldova, North Korea, Oman, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Syria. These countries’ governments “do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so.”
Irrational Numbers
· 40 KD (151 USD)
This is the minimum wage per month set for laborers, in a country where the average income per month for a local Kuwaiti family is 2,200 KD (7,565 USD)[iii]
· 50°C (122°F)
The temperature at which all outdoor activity must stop by law, although there are allegations of the government’s Meteorological Division falsifying the readings to underestimate the true temperature[iv]
Imaginary Numbers
· ???
The true number of workplace-related accidents and deaths among migrant workers due to safety negligence and purposeful violations
· ???
The true number of hate-related crimes and discriminatory abuse, especially related to domestic violence, sexual offenses and heckling towards female migrant women
· ???
The true number of suicides per annum of migrant workers in Kuwait, as well as the amount of untreated cases clinical depression
You Count Too!
Knowledge is the first step to making a difference. In some ways, repeated focus of the western media on Dubai’s migrant problems has eclipsed attention on the greater Gulf region that also shares this labour question. The most challenging aspect of the problem is that it also takes the support of domestic citizens in these countries to rally for policy change—especially coming from a new, rights-focused youth. Some starting points for reading up on the rights of migrants and/or issues related to the Gulf include the following websites:
A Project of Mideastyouth : http://www.migrant-rights.org/
The Middle East/ North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch: http://www.hrw.org/middle-east/n-africa
The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights: http://www.bahrainrights.org
The International Labour Organization Migration Programme:http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/migrant/index.htm
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