Kuwait Machine Gun?
From yesterday’s Kuwait Times.
Three Shot at by Teenagers
Two Kuwaiti citizens and a bedoon man were transferred to Jahra hospital after three teenagers shot them using a machine gun and ran away. The victims stressed they did not know why the assailants, who were travelling in a Japanese car, shot at them. The case is under investigation.
My comment: My husband, when I told him about this story, says that most people don’t know the difference between a machine gun and an automatic weapon, which can fire a series of shots in rapid succession. Somehow, the distinction fails to reassure me. Teenagers – children – with automatic weapons?? Where are these weapons coming from? How did they get their hands on them?
There has been a big to-do over Muna Al-Fuzai’s tongue-in-cheek article about Kuwait and subsequent defense of what she said.
Guys: Stop talking and listen for a change. Yes, Kuwait is a wonderful place, she is not saying differently. She is Kuwaiti and she loves Kuwait. She has a right to say what she sees and hears, and she has taken a courageous and controversial stand. You don’t have to agree with her, and she still has a right to her opinion. Did you notice? Her column is OPINION.
You are also entitled to your opinion.
First – Take a deep breath. Ask your mother, your wife, your sister, your maid – how safe she feels taking a taxi alone at night – if that is even an option. Ask her if she is careful where she walks. Ask her about her experiences with the police. Ask her if she will go to any ATM, or only “safe” ones.
As I see it, Kuwait has a huge bachelor population, and few options for these bachelors. Women here know to travel in groups, to be watchful, and to be wary. There is a problem.
And it’s not women, it is also children. It’s unthinkable.
Couple this with weak regard for the law and weak enforcement of the law, and you will see that there is a problem.
And where did these kids get automatic weapons? ? ? These problems are all connected to weak law enforcement, lack of respect for the law and a sense of entitlement. Entitled to take an automatic and shoot people? ? Entitled to TAKE sex from someone smaller and weaker than you? ?
It’s not just lack of respect for the law, it’s the law of the jungle.
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alot of the automatic weapons here are ak47’s that the iraqis abandoned when they left in 91. they literally dropped their guns and scrammbled to get across the border. in the first few days after liberation you could go to the beach where they made trenches and pick up RPG’s, grenades, ammunition, ak47’s and anti aircraft ammunition as well.
some people handed them in a few years ago, but i’m sure alot of them are still in circulation or just hidden.
oh and i think quite a few are coming across the border from iraq. they only cost a couple hundred dollars, which is alot of money in iraq. and since they have a similar right to bear arms like in the us, almost everyhouse in iraq had atleast one assault rifle.
i was quite ammused when i was going thru the annual report of a listed company whose shares we have up in iraq,… 4 ak47’s were listed as a capital expense for security 😛
and i agree on your take of the mona article and i agree with the article’s intent itself. but what shocked me was the response from both expats and locals who clearly dont know whats going on in their own country or how bad its gotten.
could you please put up a link to the op-ed piece so we (by which I mean “I”) can read it:-)?
Here is a link posted by Mark, at 2:48 am (the B-side) to the original editorial, which, according to to bloggers, is no longer available on the Kuwait Times page:
What Not to Do in Kuwait
It’s not particularly well written, but it is something women have been talking about here and the talk is growing – at first it was mostly domestics, snatched from parking lots, malls, along the streets, but more and more, it is happening to wives, daughters, children, young boys – the perceived weak and powerless. Women are fearful about walking in all but a few well lit, well trafficed places, especially after dark. The most dangerous time of all, according to statistics, is 4 – 6 in the morning!
Women are snatched and taken to apartments rented solely for drinking and sex, raped multiple times, passed along to friends. Women are taken to desert camps and raped, and the rapists call their friends to come join the party. The victims tell me that the rape itself is nothing, but that the fear of not living through it is terrifying.
Police have a hard time arrensting offenders, because of wasta. Prosecutors have problems prosecuting these cases – many times there is pressure to drop the cases from family members in high places. The innocent victims suffer a disgrace they never earned. And many victims are told that they INVITED the rape, by their clothing, by their behavior – one was told “when you look a man in the eye, what do you expect?”
I was shocked, too, Skunk, at the hostility. And denial is almost always the first step, isn’t it, and then anger? People don’t want this problem to exist. The Kuwaitis are good people who protect the weaker members of society. I know they, too, must be sickened by this trend.
I hadn’t read the Kuwaiti Times recently…this is frightening. Frightening because it’s a long ways yet before this kind of thing would be at least harshly dealt with.
Kuwaitis may be good people – many of them are, I believe – but they also completely protect their own, even when wrong happens, and that is something that is a BIG problem here.
Accountability comes from exactly that – and no change will happen without accountability. As long as wasta is the game…
Oh, and to comment regarding the article of “what not to do in Kuwait” I had a crash course when I came here and I’m still in it. I stay home a lot – that might be the best comment that I could make.
We are living in a dying country. It might take 20 to 40 years until it finally happens, but we are living witnesses to this unique event. That, doesn’t happen often in human history.
The only reason it is not happening any sooner, is money. Let the people deny it or be protective all they want… the end is inevitable, and no amount of promises by the government to restore the rule of law and develop the country would change this fact.
Think of only this event. Kuwait Law enforcement is practically useless. It is made mainly of failed and criminal teenagers who failed to qualify for anything better. The only thing the police is good for is busting the occasional whore house. What would happen to these teenagers IF they get caught? most likely nothing, and MP would come to the rescue and they would be released.
This is happening in a country with wealth and nice people. Imagine what will happen as the population increases, and with it unemployment and poverty. All this with a government that doesn’t not know SHIT about how to develop and run a country, and which is bloated by stupid people who are working in it only because the government HAS to employ them by law!
Watch the death of a country!
A lot of automatic weapons can be found mostly between beduin families. Like sknkwrkz said, they were gulf war leftovers. Beduins tend to use them in weddings and festivals, which I can’t find a reason why.
If the incidents occurred in Jahra I’m quite sure those teenagers stole it from their parents/older siblings.
PS: Anonymous Coward has a point although I don’t agree 100%.
In the Herald Trib/Star yesterday, the gun was described as a “hunting” gun. I love reading all these accounts. There is another one, a Kuwaiti whose Indonesian maid tried to kill his baby – in two articles – it is a daughter, but in one, it is a son! When I read these papers, it is a real mystery; you have to try to figure out what the real story is.
I think we have corruption in every country – it seems to be a human nature kind of thing. And I believe we need laws to help us build a truly civilized nation, and strict but fair law enforcement.
I know there are some few police who take advantage of their position to get sex – “you do this for me and I will make that go away” – and then there are the others, the good cops, who arrest people but their superiors make it go away. It must be discouraging.
I think the problem with Muna Al-Fuzai’s article was not with the issues she brought up but rather with the way in which she wrote the article – her style tends to put one on the defensive rather than move people to DO something.
I think writing can be a very important mechanism through which to incite change if carefully used in the media.
No one denies the rise of crimes in Kuwait; it alarms me to say the least.
An opinion article like that should not have to be “interpreted” – or explained.
It was written in an inflammatory manner and she was not successful in getting her message across I think.
I have to agree with jewaira’s opinion that the article was not written in such a way to gain people’s support overall – my father used to say “it’s not what you say, it’s HOW you say it” and I think in this case, with what I read, all I came away with was a) poor english which was confusing at times and b)this woman is attacking aspects of her country, without any foundation to back it up.
There’s nothing wrong with the occasional verbal attack – at times it’s been known to succeed – but I think if you incite your audience to question themselves, to become more introspective and look around them, if you plant a rather large bug (such as the cockroaches-on-steroids that roam around Kuwait) in the ears, hopefully of the men (as they have the voice in government here) I think it would be more effective.
Why not offer a poll, for example, asking for each male in the family to give his opinion, after speaking honestly with his mother, his sisters, his cousins, his wife(s)?
Challenge the men to find answers, suggest that they might be surprised at the answers they are given by the women in this country.
Why not give them the opportunity to speak, encourage the average Kuwaiti to use his/her voice? They talk enough in the diwaniyas that go on every evening – bring up the “tough” subjects in such a way that those become the topics – get the religious leaders of Kuwait, the shaykh’s, the Imam’s – get them involved, and you will get the people involved.
I think the author went about it in the wrong way – whenever you have a strong opinion on a difficult subject, you need to have strong “backup” (if you will) to set the tone of your arguement. Getting fatwa on how to handle the corruption, how to enforce laws and encourage Kuwait to be a stronger islamic country – words like that have to come from people that Kuwaitis carry a strong respect for.
And I highly doubt that this one woman, in a single opinion article, has that kind of weight to throw around. I highly doubt that any one woman in Kuwait does – or any group of women, for that matter.
It’s a man’s world here – feed the egos of those men, let the righteous among them (and there ARE good Kuwaiti men masha Allaah) stand up and echo this woman’s opinions with words of their own.
I’m not saying that women shouldn’t have a voice – not at all – I’m just saying that I don’t think that a woman’s voice will have the same weight here as a man’s voice, and I want to see change happen – quickly insha Allaah. I don’t care if it comes from a female voice or a male voice, as long as it comes.
And I believe that in this culture, the way the country is run, that the men of this country have to decide to be proactive in the caring of their women, their workers, the running of their country overall.
Till then…