The Festival of BERNARD MIZEKI
(Play the video of the Soweto Gospel Choir as you read this summary from today’s Lectionary Readings How I would love to be able to attend this festival!)
BERNARD MIZEKI
CATECHIST AND MARTYR IN AFRICA (18 JUNE 1896)
Bernard Mizeki was born in Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) in about 1861. When he was twelve or a little older, he left his home and went to Capetown, South Africa, where for the next ten years he worked as a laborer, living in the slums of Capetown, but (perceiving the disastrous effects of drunkenness on many workers in the slums) firmly refusing to drink alcohol, and remaining largely uncorrupted by his surroundings. After his day’s work, he attended night classes at an Anglican school.
Under the influence of his teachers, from the Society of Saint John the Evangelist (SSJE, an Anglican religious order for men, popularly called the Cowley Fathers), he became a Christian and was baptized on 9 March 1886. Besides the fundamentals of European schooling, he mastered English, French, high Dutch, and at least eight local African languages. In time he would be an invaluable assistant when the Anglican church began translating its sacred texts into African languages.
After graduating from the school, he accompanied Bishop Knight-Bruce to Mashonaland, a tribal area in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), to work there as a lay catechist. In 1891 the bishop assigned him to Nhowe, the village of paramount-chief Mangwende, and there he built a mission-complex. He prayed the Anglican hours each day, tended his subsistence garden, studied the local language (which he mastered better than any other foreigner in his day), and cultivated friendships with the villagers. He eventually opened a school, and won the hearts of many of the Mashona through his love for their children.
He moved his mission complex up onto a nearby plateau, next to a grove of trees sacred to the ancestral spirits of the Mashona. Although he had the chief’s permission, he angered the local religious leaders when he cut some of the trees down and carved crosses into others. Although he opposed some local traditional religious customs, Bernard was very attentive to the nuances of the Shona Spirit religion. He developed an approach that built on people’s already monotheistic faith in one God, Mwari, and on their sensitivity to spirit life, while at the same time he forthrightly proclaimed the Christ. Over the next five years (1891-1896), the mission at Nhowe produced an abundance of converts.
Many black African nationalists regarded all missionaries as working for the European colonial governments. During an uprising in 1896, Bernard was warned to flee. He refused, since he did not regard himself as working for anyone but Christ, and he would not desert his converts or his post.
On 18 June 1896, he was fatally speared outside his hut. His wife and a helper went to get food and blankets for him. They later reported that, from a distance, they saw a blinding light on the hillside where he had been lying, and heard a rushing sound, as though of many wings. When they returned to the spot his body had disappeared. The place of his death has become a focus of great devotion for Anglicans and other Christians, and one of the greatest of all Christian festivals in Africa takes place there every year around the feast day that marks the anniversary of his martyrdom, June 18.
More Deaths than Birth for White Americans, a Minority in Three Decades
Don’t you love demographics? Demographics are a great forecasting tool, if you have the courage to use them. Demographics forced change on the United States military, forcing them to include women in more roles, recently increasing their job opportunities as the demographic pool dwindles. The same demographics are hurting the military budget now, as the huge bulge of baby-boomers retires, takes pensions and guaranteed free medical care, living a LONG time with more serious age-related illnesses, while the military struggles to allocate scarce resources.
Here is a fascinating factoid from The New York Times, a journal which notices small – but significant – changes, and gives us a little idea what the impact may be.
Census Benchmark for White Americans: More Deaths Than Births
By SAM ROBERTS
Published: June 13, 2013 232 Comments
Deaths exceeded births among non-Hispanic white Americans for the first time in at least a century, according to new census data, a benchmark that heralds profound demographic change.
The disparity was tiny — only about 12,000 — and was more than made up by a gain of 188,000 as a result of immigration from abroad. But the decrease for the year ending July 1, 2012, coupled with the fact that a majority of births in the United States are now to Hispanic, black and Asian mothers, is further evidence that white Americans will become a minority nationwide within about three decades.
Over all, the number of non-Hispanic white Americans is expected to begin declining by the end of this decade.
“These new census estimates are an early signal alerting us to the impending decline in the white population that will characterize most of the 21st century,” said William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution.
The transition will mean that “today’s racial and ethnic minorities will no longer be dependent on older whites for their economic well-being,” Dr. Frey said. In fact, the situation may be reversed. “It makes more vivid than ever the fact that we will be reliant on younger minorities and immigrants for our future demographic and economic growth,” he said.
The viability of programs like Social Security and Medicare, Dr. Frey said, “will be reliant on the success of waves of young Hispanics, Asians and blacks who will become the bulwark of our labor force.” The issues of minorities, he added, “will hold greater sway than ever before.”
In 2010, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, more non-Hispanic whites died than were born in 11 states, including California, Florida and Pennsylvania. White deaths exceeded births in a majority of counties, including Los Angeles, the most populous.
The disparity between deaths and births in the year that ended last July surprised experts. They expected that the aging white population would eventually shrink, as it has done in many European countries, but not for another decade or so.
Nationally, said Kenneth M. Johnson, the senior demographer at the Carsey Institute, a research center based at the University of New Hampshire, “the onset of natural decrease between 2011 and 2012 was not anticipated.” He attributed the precipitous shift in part to the recession, adding that “the growing number of older non-Hispanic whites, which will accelerate rapidly as the baby boom ages, guarantees that non-Hispanic white natural decrease will be a significant part of the nation’s demographic future.”
Professor Johnson said there were 320,000 more births than deaths among non-Hispanic whites in the year beginning July 2006, just before the recession. From 2010 to 2011, the natural increase among non-Hispanic whites had shrunk to 29,000.
Census Bureau estimates indicate that there were 1.9 million non-Hispanic white births in the year ending July 1, 2012, compared with 2.3 million from July 2006 to 2007 during the economic boom, a 13.3 percent decline. Non-Hispanic white deaths increased only modestly during the same period, by 1.6 percent.
The census population estimates released Thursday also affirmed that Asians were the fastest-growing major ethnic or racial group. Their ranks grew by 2.9 percent, or 530,000, with immigration from overseas accounting for 60 percent of that growth.
The Hispanic population grew by 2.2 percent, or more than 1.1 million, the most of any group, with 76 percent resulting from natural increase.
The non-Hispanic white population expanded by only 175,000, or 0.09 percent, and blacks by 559,000, or 1.3 percent.
The median age rose to 37.5 from 37.3, but the median declined in Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, North Dakota and Oklahoma. It ranged from 64.8 in Sumter, Fla., to 23 in Madison, Idaho.
The number of centenarians nationally neared 62,000.
BBC Secret Life of Cats Article: Hilarious Site With Mobile Cat Web Cams
First, you have to go to this BBC Science Website, where cats in a Surrey village were tracked by the Royal Veterinary College to see where they would go during 24 hour periods. You click on each cat to see the route they followed – some are amazing – and then you can click on a video to have a glimpse of cat life, usually including the underside of a cat chin. It is fascinating and hilarious.
11,800 Deported: Kuwait Deportations Continue “Without an End Date”
I still have a large contingent of loyal readers from Kuwait, but by early this morning, I could see something was up:
It’s not often that I have 132 Kuwait hits before noon.
So I checked the Kuwait Times:
Expat deportations will continue: Traffic chief – 11,800 deported in two-and-a-half months
KUWAIT: Major General Abdulfattah Al-Ali’s name has become synonymous with extensive traffic campaigns, aimed at enforcing the law at all costs, including implementation of mass deportations. The senior Interior Ministry official, who takes pride in deporting 11,800 people and impounding 3,000 vehicles during his tenure as head of the Ahmadi Security Department over the past two and a half years, told a local daily that deporting expatriates for serious violations will continue without an end date. “Administrative deportation of violating expatriates is not going to stop, especially of those carrying passengers illegally, in which case a person would be in violation of traffic and labor regulations,” Maj Gen Al-Ali, the Interior Ministry’s Assistant Undersecretary for Traffic Affairs, told Al-Rai on Friday.
He added that any ticket can be disputed “by a request to refer the case for traffic department investigations”. In the series of crackdowns that started late April, at least 2,000 traffic violations were registered, including 1,000 tickets issued directly on the street, while thousands of people were reportedly deported. Moreover, Maj Gen Al-Ali revealed that the ministry collected KD4 million, out of the KD24 million owed in traffic fines, during the same period. In that regard, the senior official pointed out that only KD8 million worth of fines are registered against individuals, while the rest are against companies and state departments. Out of the KD8 million, KD6 million is registered against expatriates, Maj Gen Al-Ali said. “Cases are soon to be filed with the traffic court in order to issue travel ban orders against people with more than KD80 in fines owed to the ministry,” he added.
Al-Rai published Maj Gen Al-Ali’s statement yesterday, along with a transcript of an interview with Al- Watan TV during which he defended the ongoing campaigns. “Our procedures are necessary to save lives, with average statistics indicating that 450 people are killed and 3,000 are injured annually due to traffic accidents,” he explained. During the interview, Maj Gen Al-Ali insisted that all drivers are equal when it comes to implementation of the law. “There have been doctors among the people deported, including a surgeon caught driving without a license for three years,” he said, before confirming news reports that he had taken a decision to impound a vehicle owned by Minister of Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Mohammad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah on grounds of repeated violations committed by his personal driver. Meanwhile, the senior official urged any person who had obtained a license through illegal means to dispose of it “because once caught, they are going to be charged with forgery”. —Al-Rai, Al-Watan
Pensacola: Fiesta of Five Flag Parade
I’ve never lived anywhere with so many parades, and as Pensacola cools down a little and an offshore breeze blows away the heat of the day, a parade sounds like fun. Tonight is the Fiesta of Five Flags Parade. I can’t think of a parade since Lent, so maybe this is the kick off of the new season. Pensacola has an active and lively social scene, with all these Mardi Gras Krewes, and the older our grandson gets, the more of the parade we get to see! I think we got through three quarters of the parade tonight, and oh what fun.
The people on the floats are having a great time. They have these great alter-egos, get to wear elaborate costumes, and there may be some alcohol involved, LOL. The people on the ground are having a great time, you can really get into the waving and trying to catch the beads. Some of the beads are prettier than others, but as AdventureMan says, it’s all plastic. Having said that, you should see him scramble! He is good at catching beads.
And oh my, they are so good to the kids, with stuffed toys, beads, ice cream bars, frisbees, trinkets, including pieces of eight!
Honestly, there are some things in life I will never get tired of – parades and fireworks. I feel so blessed to live in Pensacola.
These photos are not in the right order because I just did a group dump into the photo gallery, and it scrambled them when they were inserted into the blog entry.
The parade always starts with the Pensacola motorcycle police, with flashing lights and roaring engines!
I love that they decorate the horses tails:
And then AdventureMan pointed out they also rubbed glitter into the horses haunches to make them pretty 🙂
So many beads! We got to the parade a mere ten minutes before it began, but it was more lightly attended, and we were able to be right up front. Our little grandson had a great view, and people were so kind giving him beads, throwing him beads, toys, etc.
Look at all those beads they plan to throw! There was a throne on this float with King Tut!
These ladies were having a grand time!
The Mayoki Indians seemed to be the Krewe having the best time of all, with two floats loaded with beads, and more ‘foot Indians’ handing and throwing beads into the crowds:
The flame throwing baton twirler got lots of applause:
We saw our little grandson rubbing his eyes and asked if he was ready to go home, and he was. One of these days he will be old enough we will see an entire parade. I had a minor concern that Tropical Storm Andrea would blow in bad weather and make the parade unlikely, but nothing of the sort, we had great weather, a lovely evening and a wonderful time making good memories with our little grandson.
Your Calls – Every One – Reported to the Government
I found this on AOL News/Tech Crunch this morning. Post 9/11, did we know that the Homeland Security legislation would give the government so much power? To gather so much information on individual citizens who are not remotely suspected of committing a crime against the United States seems excessive to me.
Report: NSA Secretly Collecting Phone Records Of All U.S. Verizon Calls
Gregory Ferenstein
The National Security Administration is secretly collecting phone record information for all U.S. calls on the Verizon network. “Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls,” reports The Guardian, which broke the story of the top-secret project after it obtained record of a court order mandating Verizon hand over the information.
The contents of the call are not recorded and it is also not known whether Verizon is the only cell-phone carrier complying with the massive spying project. The court order concerns all calls to, from, and within the United States.
With this so-called “metadata,” the government knows “the identity of every person with whom an individual communicates electronically, how long they spoke, and their location at the time of the communication,” explains the Guardian.
The Senate’s tech-savviest member, Ron Wyden (CrunchGov Grade: A), has been discretely warning citizens of these kinds of secretive government projects. “There is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows,” wrote Wyden and Senator Mark Udall to embattled Attorney Eric Holder.
The order apparently draws from a 2001 Bush-era provision in the Patriot Act (50 USC section 1861). The revelation dovetails similar exposes on massive government spying projects, including one project to combine federal datasets and look for patterns on anything which could be related to terrorism.
Anesthesia Linked to Dementia Risk in Seniors
It may not be dementia. It may be a reaction to a medication in the elderly that LOOKS like dementia.
My father was 87, and doing pretty well for a man 87. He still walked on his own, using a walker when he had to, and very rarely, a wheelchair if we were going a long ways. He went into the hospital for a minor surgery. The tube inserted in his hand for the anesthetic became infected. Dad was acting weird, he was having hallucinations, and my sister rightly identified that Dad had a reaction to the diuretic drug Lasix; when they switched him to an alternative, the raving and hallucinations stopped.
He was transferred to a rehabilitation unit, where for two days, they put him back on Lasix. Poor communication between hospital and the rehab facility, plus standardization of drug regimens – they switched him without telling him, or us. Once again, he went loony tunes, and at the same time, his right hand began to swell until it looked like a lobster claw. He kept saying it hurt, and it was big and red, and the rehab people kept saying it would get better.
Dad was rushed to another hospital, one the rehab clinic worked with, and the doctors told us he had a ‘cascade of problems’ and which were the primary three we wanted them to work with?
Get him off the Lasix, first thing, we all agreed, and find a way to have it annotated on any record that he is never to have Lasix. (It did no good; the next hospitalization, back at the first hospital, they gave him Lasix again, which made him crazy and masked all the other symptoms.)
Long story short, there were a cascade of hospital mistakes – not one hospital, two hospitals and the rehab clinic – where miscommunications, inattentions and shortage of trained personnel resulted in a cascade of issues that led to my father’s death later that year. The other lesson learned is that if you go into a hospital, make sure you have a good support system, someone with you who will bravely ask questions, and remind someone if an inappropriate medication is prescribed. You need a family member with you for protection against inattention, mistakes, miscommunications and personnel shortages.
It’s not like there’s anyone to bring a lawsuit against; they were all doing the best they could, but Dad was old. My bet is that he might have lived another couple years, at the very least, had he not gone in for that first non-essential minor surgery. To me, the moral of the story is if you want to live a long life, stay away from hospitals.
Anesthesia Linked to Increased Dementia Risk in Seniors
Exposure to anesthesia has been linked to a 35 percent increase of dementia in patients over age 65, according to a new study.
By Jeffrey Kopman, Everyday Health Staff Writer
FRIDAY, May 31, 2013 — Caregivers and seniors struggling with the dilemmas of elder care have another risk to weigh against potential rewards — senior patients exposed to general anesthesia face an increased risk of dementia, according to research presented at Euroanaesthesia, the annual congress of the European Society of Anaesthesiology (ESA).
Researchers reviewed the medical information of 9,294 French patients over the age of 65. The patients were interviewed several times over a ten year period to determine their cognitive status.
After two years, 33 percent of participants had been exposed to anesthesia. Most of the exposed patients (19 percent overall) were exposed to general anesthesia — a medically induced coma. The rest were exposed to local/locoregional — any technique to relieve pain in the body — anesthesia.
In total, 632 participants developed dementia eight years after the study began. A majority of these patients, 512, were diagnosed with probable or possible Alzheimer’s disease. The remainder had non-Alzheimer’s dementia.
The gap between dementia related to general anesthesia (22 percent) and non-dementia patients (19 percent) was associated with a 35 percent increased risk of developing dementia. This risk was linked to at least one general anesthesia.
“Elderly patients are at an increased risk for complications following anesthesia and surgery,” said Jeffrey H. Silverstein, MD, MS, and vice chair for research at the Department of Anesthesiology at Mount Sinai in New York City. “[They] are particularly prone to postoperative delirium, which is a loss of orientation and attention. Anesthesiologists have been evaluating higher cognitive functions (for example, memory and executive processing) and found that a substantial number have decreases in one or more of these areas after a surgical procedure.”
Researchers hope this study will lead to more awareness for surgeons.
“Recognition of postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) is essential in the perioperative management of elderly patients,” said study author Dr. Francois Sztark, INSERM and University of Bordeaux, France, in a press release. “A long-term follow-up of these patients should be planned.”
Elderly Care: Risk vs. Reward
Senior citizens and their caregivers might be willing to accept an increased risk of dementia if it means getting necessary anesthesia for an important medical procedure. Dementia is a relatively common occurrence in old age: One in three seniors has Alzheimer’s disease or dementia by the time of their death.
But surgery at old age can also carry more severe, and less common, health risks. In fact, simply surviving surgery can be difficult for elderly patients, especially those over the age of 80.
While the numbers vary depending on procedure, researchers have found that mortality risk tied to elective major surgeries increases with age. The risk more than doubles for patients over 80 compared to patients ages 65 to 69.
But other surgery complications are even more common in seniors.
“The major risk for elderly patients following surgery is pneumonia,” said Dr. Silverstein. “Cardiac complications are next most common.”
However, Dr. Silverstein still feels that if surgery is deemed necessary, patients should not fear the risks.
“In theory, only necessary surgery is done,” he said. “Knowing how [patients] reacted to anesthesia and surgery in the past may give them some idea of their postoperative course.”
Last Updated: 05/31/2013
It’s Why We’re Here: Lunch at Taco Rock
There is a graciousness in Pensacola that reminds me of life in the Middle East, although the local Pensacolians would be astounded to be compared with the Middle East. If you look closely, though, you can see the similarities.
There is politeness and civility toward others, even strangers. When workmen are in your home, you offer them ice water, or iced tea, and you ask about their families before they start work. It seems to us that when we call for help, we get the same service people coming to our house; I don’t think it is an accident.
People chat a little before they get down to business. I think many a Pensacolian would feel comfortable in the souks, sitting and drinking a little tea before they start to discuss the appropriate price level for the bauble they are considering. They ask about a person’s health, and they ask about your family. They take meals to those who are suffering or recovering.
People spend time with family. Families go to church together, families have meals together, families share child rearing. Multi-generations live near one another. People who went to school together more than fifty years ago form their own kind of family, sharing deeply, attending the funerals of one another’s kin. Funerals are well attended. Very Arab, if only they knew.
There are pockets in the United States where you find groups of Arab nationals; Pensacola has these groups, even a discreet mosque or two. There are stores selling international supplies, including zaat’r and sumak and harissa, chana dal, bulger, wuhammara . . . and restaurants billing themselves as ‘Mediterannean’ whose food would be recognizable to those in the Levant and the Gulf.
There is almost always a breeze off the Gulf to fight the heat and humidity and mosquitoes, and, by the grace of God, there is air conditioning and ice water coming out of the refrigerators. Life is sweet.
Life is all the sweeter because we can get together with our son and his family on the spur of the moment, and end up at a great family place like Taco Rock, where our little grandson can get down when he gets restless, and where there is plenty of time for us to chat, discuss Django Unchained, discuss new developments in entertainment technology, discuss upcoming vacations and arrangements – there is that great luxury of time together, and tasty food at reasonable prices. LOL, this is the Pensacola equivalent of a Michelin Red R, good local cuisine at reasonable prices. Hmmmm, Mexican is probably not qualified as good local food at reasonable prices, but close enough . . .
He is such a delight, our little grandson, who calls the coming baby “that little girl,” as in “when that little girl comes, I’m going to teach her how to float on her back!”
This week, there is another parade! Pensacola must be the parade capital of the world; so many parades! We’ll pick up our grandson, stand on the corner and wave our arms until they throw us some beads. Great fun and good exercise. 🙂
This post is really a great excuse to post some new photos of our grandson 🙂
Continued Efforts to Deal with Expats in Kuwait
93,000 illegals in Kuwait?
Minimum wage KD500 for Dependency Visa?
Forced retirements?
During my years in Kuwait, I saw many sorry situations. It doesn’t matter where you are on the social scale, if you are not Kuwaiti, you are expat labor. When management, for whatever reason, wants you to go, you go. People who have lived in Kuwait 50 years, who are elderly, sent home, and sent home quickly, barely time to sell what you can’t take with you, people who have had a health setback and can’t work anymore, handed their papers and told their visas will no longer be valid in 30 days.
There is no point in romanticizing your position. You’re hired help. You think you have friends, but your friends are not going to help you live out your days and die in Kuwait. When your usefulness is over, they want you gone.
We often had to get special permission to bring in professional workers for critical jobs who were over – or even approaching – 60 years old. Long-in-the-tooth is not a highly valued characteristic for imported labor.
Have an exit strategy.
The Kuwait Times title for this photo is “Illegals”
Embassies push for deportees’ rights – KD500 minimum wage proposed for dependency visa
From 30 May 2013 Kuwait Times:
KUWAIT: Two Asian embassies complained to Kuwaiti officials about the “arbitrary actions” taken during the deportation of illegal residents and lawbreakers, who were arrested in a series of crackdowns over the past few weeks across the country, a local daily reported yesterday, quoting sources with knowledge of the case.
Nearly 1,260 people of Arab and Asian nationalities have been deported since Kuwait launched crackdowns on traffic violators late last month. The General Traffic Department stated that deportation was enforced in cases of repeat offenders.
Thousands of others have been detained in simultaneous crackdowns targeting people with expired visas or those working in violation of labor regulations. But according to a report published yesterday by Al-Qabas daily, the Ministry of Interior received complaints from the embassies of India and Bangladesh, regarding the swift deportation of a large number of their nationals without them getting the opportunity to receive what they were owed from their employers.
The sources, who spoke to Al-Qabas on the condition of anonymity, said many of the deportees were sent back home through the use of travel documents released by their respective embassies, instead of their original passports that, in most cases, are kept by their sponsors. “The Indian and Bangladeshi embassies are currently taking legal recourse to secure the rights of the deported nationals, including their original passports”, the sources said.
Many expatriates arrested during the recent traffic crackdowns reportedly remain in custody, as their respective embassies refuse to grant authorities travel documents on the grounds that their visas are still valid. In that regard, the sources revealed the ministry had been trying to reach the employers in order to retrieve the passports of the soon-to-be-deported expatriates.
Meanwhile, a senior Interior Ministry official defended Kuwait’s right to deport illegal residents or foreigners who break the law. “It is the right of every country to deport expatriates who violate its residency laws or its laws in general, or take legal action against them, in order to maintain safety and security, in line with human rights principles,” Assistant Director of the ministry’s General Training Department, Brigadier General Adel Al-Saadoun, was quoted by Al-Jarida yesterday. He made these comments at a workshop on Tuesday, organized by the International Organization for Migration office in Kuwait.
In other news, Undersecretary Assistant for Citizenship and Passports Affairs, Major General Sheikh Faisal Al-Nawaf Al-Sabah, during a meeting with directors of migration departments in Kuwait, called for “tougher procedures” with regard to the issuance of visitor visas, so marginal labourers would not be able to gain access into the country.
He made the demand amid a discussion on efforts to address Kuwait’s demographic imbalance, which senior ministry officials described as “a main duty” for his department. “Maj Gen Al-Sabah told the directors that labor forces in countries having internal struggles should not be able to move to Kuwait, and that Kuwait should not become a shelter for them and their problems,” said sources quoted in an Al-Rai report yesterday.
Nationals of Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen are currently banned from obtaining visas to work in or visit Kuwait. In that regard, Maj Gen Al-Sabah said the lifting of the ban on them in the future must be coupled with controls to regulate their entrance and prevent the country’s demographic imbalance from getting worse, said the sources, who spoke to Al-Rai on the condition of anonymity.
The meeting also discussed other suggestions aimed at reducing the number of expatriate workers in Kuwait, including Maj Gen Al-Sabah’s intentions to “prepare a memorandum about the benefits of raising the minimum cap for foreigners applying for dependency visas for relatives”. Currently, such visas can be obtained as long as a supporter earns a minimum of KD250 a month, but the Undersecretary Assistant reportedly suggested during the meeting that the cap be raised to KD500.
“Maj Gen Al-Sabah questioned the capability of a man who receives KD250 a month to meet the educational, health and living requirements of a family with children,” the sources explained. They added that the senior official also plans to refer a letter to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, recommending that it suspend issuing work visas to holders of commercial visit visas.
Minister of Social Affairs and Labor Thekra Al-Rashidi announced two months ago a plan to deport 100,000 foreigners every year, as part of a strategy to reduce the number of expatriates in the Gulf state by one million over a period of 10 years. Criticism sparked by the lack of details about the proposed plan prompted the minister to later clarify that the plan targeted illegal residents, whose numbers have reached 93,000, as per official statistics released last year. Kuwait is home to 2.6 million expatriates who account for 68 percent of the country’s total population of 3.8 million.
Meanwhile, minister Al-Rashidi released an order – with effect from July 1, 2013 – to terminate the services of expatriate employees who have worked for at least 30 years in the Social Affairs and Labor Ministry. According to sources familiar with the issue, the ministry has already started the process to end the services of nearly 70 foreigners by the beginning of July. The decision is in accordance with a government plan that requires forcing Kuwaitis who have held government posts for 30 years, including senior officials, into retirement. According to official statistics, published by Al-Qabas yesterday, 138 senior officials, including 11 women, will be subjected to this regulation. – Al-Qabas, Al-Jarida & Al-Rai
In a related article, measures are gaining support for withdrawing Kuwait citizenship from naturalized citizens for different reasons; below another article from the 30 May 2013 Kuwait Times Foreign spouses married to Kuwaitis watch these developments with trepidation.
MPs want citizenship revoked for breaching security – Long-time employees won’t be forced out
KUWAIT: A number of MPs yesterday proposed that Kuwaiti nationality should be withdrawn from naturalized Kuwaitis who abuse the country’s internal security or insult the country’s figures. The lawmakers also proposed that all benefits given to the naturalized person proven to have breached national security should be withdrawn and this measure should include withdrawing the citizenship of other people who gained the citizenship as a result of naturalizing that person. The proposal also suggests that people who applied for Kuwaiti citizenships and carried out similar offenses should have their applications rejected even if they fulfilled all the conditions for nationality.
To become effective, the proposal must be adopted by the concerned Assembly committees, mainly the legal and legislative and the interior and defense committees and then passed by the National Assembly and eventually accepted by the government. The proposal comes amid protests by opposition activists and former MPs and a crackdown on opposition tweeters – several of whom have received jail terms on charges of insulting the Amir. Meanwhile, MP Faisal Al-Duwaisan yesterday asked Justice Minister Sharida Al-Meosharji about implementing a law passed a few months ago to establish the Anti-Corruption Authority. Besides the corruption authority, the legislation also calls for wealth disclosure of ministers, MPs and top government officials. Duwaisan asked the minister about the steps that have been taken to implement the law and the obstacles facing it.
MP Yacoub Al-Sane said yesterday that he was informed by Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al- Sabah that top bureaucrats who served 30 years and above will not be forced to resign as has been published. The lawmaker said he told the premier that forcing such top officials to step down is “unconstitutional” and the prime minister replied that the government will not force them to resign but will grant them incentives and benefits to encourage them to resign. In the meantime, MP Saud Al- Huraiji questioned Finance Minister Mustafa Al-Shamali about the charges collected from expatriates for the health insurance scheme and other charges since applying the law in 1999. Huraiji said that he learned that KD522 million have been collected since that year but the ministry of finance has failed to utilize the funds in proper channels. He asked the minister if the ministry has any plan to spend the funds in the right way.
By B Izzak, Staff Writer
‘Hundreds’ deported for traffic offences
KUWAIT: Kuwait has deported hundreds of expats for traffic offences in the past month, a report said yesterday, drawing condemnation from a human rights group.
The Al-Anbaa newspaper cited a senior interior ministry official as saying that as many as 1,258 foreigners have been deported for traffic violations since a crackdown began about a month ago.
Foreign residents caught driving without a licence, using their cars to carry paying passengers, jumping a red light for a second time, or breaking the speed limit by more than 40 km per hour, can be deported without a court order. The Kuwait Society for Human Rights called on the government to halt the deportations describing them as “oppressive”. “The oppressive measure against expatriates… violates the basic principles of human rights,” it said.
The group warned that the measure could tarnish the state’s image abroad at a time when its human rights record is under scrutiny. Kuwait is home to 2.6 million expatriates who form 68 percent of the country’s 3.8 million population.
Kuwaiti nationals who commit similar offences have their vehicles seized and can be sent to court. Last month, Minister of Social Affairs and Labour Thekra Al-Rasheedi said the state plans to deport around 100,000 expatriates every year for the next decade to reduce the number of foreigners living in the Gulf state by one million. She did not say what measures she would adopt to carry out the plan.
Foreigners need to hold a university degree, earn KD 400 a month and have lived in Kuwait for at least two years to be eligible to apply for a driver’s licence, under a decision issued nearly a decade ago. —AFP
Making Idols
A confluence of events happened at a period in my life when I was paying attention, and those things coming together have influenced me enormously. The first was participation in a bible study conducted in a branch of Christianity not my own, whose dogma is occasionally repellant and repugnant to me, but whose study of the chapter in the bible is thorough. The second was my move back to the Islamic world, and my choice to study Arabic at the Qatar Center for the Presentation of Islam.
In both cases, what I learned is that we have more in common than we have differences. I also learned that if we focus on the differences, it can be devastating.
Both groups know the Bible. My Moslem sisters knew the bible better than I did, and when discussing such issues as covering hair and wearing abaya, could quote me verses from my own book which re-inforced their argument. It was mortifying – and edifying.
My Baptist friends also surprise me. For every one who rails against gay marriage or ordination of women, there was another who would laugh and quote scripture saying “did you notice the same penalty for a woman who cuts her hair? or wears pants in public?” I learned a lot about my own religion, my own beliefs, and the goodness of others by my interactions with both these groups.
One of the differences in the Moslem world was that many houses I went into (I was honored to be invited into their homes) were very plain. The furniture might be basic or elaborate, but often, the walls were bare. Maybe there might be a calligraphy with a Quranic verse on the wall – that was it. No paintings, especially no human figures – no idols, no images.
In my house, I am surrounded by images, photos, paintings, weavings – they give me joy, but I do not worship them. They are not idols, they are merely art or family – things that make me smile. I distinguish between idols and gods. Yesterday’s reading from Deuteronomy sticks with me, however, and I can hear my sweet teachers at QCPI saying to me “But doesn’t it say in Deuteronomy 4 that you are to have no idols?”
Deuteronomy 4:25-31
25 When you have had children and children’s children, and become complacent in the land, if you act corruptly by making an idol in the form of anything, thus doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, and provoking him to anger, 26I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to occupy; you will not live long on it, but will be utterly destroyed.
27The Lord will scatter you among the peoples; only a few of you will be left among the nations where the Lord will lead you. 28There you will serve other gods made by human hands, objects of wood and stone that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. 29From there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and soul. 30In your distress, when all these things have happened to you in time to come, you will return to the Lord your God and heed him. 31Because the Lord your God is a merciful God, he will neither abandon you nor destroy you; he will not forget the covenant with your ancestors that he swore to them.
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