Hala February Starts in January
From Al Watan
KUWAIT: The festival of Hala February for 2009 will be held from Jan. 29 until Feb. 24, said the festival”s high committee Sunday.
The committee”s general coordinator Waleed AlـJassem told the press that the event would coincide with the third year of reign for His Highnes the Amir Sheikh Sabah AlـAhmad AlـSabah, affirming that the festival would focus on highlighting the nationalistic values among citizens.
An opening carnival, which last for three days, would illuminate this year”s celebrations, he revealed.
Head of the committee”s media team Waleed AlـSagobi said that families could enjoy the festival due to the fact that the event coincide with the spring break for schools, affirming that the festival would be supported by a strong media campaign. ـKUNA
Among a whole lot of other things, as part of my job for a non-profit, I once wrote press releases. As I learned the ropes, I also learned that the newspapers will print almost anything you provide them, as long as you have proven your credibility, and the information is “print ready.” One TV station did a weekly news item on articles I would send – it wasn’t rocket science.
I am so sorry to say this, but if you are having an event, it is worth your while to take advantage of this. If you provide news sources with an event schedule, guess what? They will print it! If they print it, people will come.
If you print it in English, even more people will come! Isn’t Kuwait looking for tourism? Is there now a Hala February website, with an event schedule in English? Wouldn’t that have been a perfect opportunity, if not to publish the schedule of events (hey, having the schedule ready one month in advance is not that hard) AND a website to go to for event additions.
I really try not to be critical. I really try not to be sarcastic. Forgive me.
Kuwait Times on Morality Police
Wooo HOOOO on you, Jamie Etheridge; you bring grammar, tone and content to the Kuwait Times
Kuwait’s illegal morality police
Published Date: January 02, 2009
By Jamie Etheridge
Two female students were attacked by two youths this past week in Hawally, reportedly for not wearing the hijab. The girls were standing outside their school when two bearded young men jumped from an SUV, whacked them with a stick and then jumped back into their truck and took off. The incident sparked outrage and triggered discussions across Kuwait about the self-proclaimed morality police encouraged by a radical Islamist cleric Mubarak Al-Bathali.
In late December, Al-Bathali announced that he had established a voluntary committee for the “Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice” along the lines of the dreaded Saudi mutaween. The mutaween are a sort of religious police that patrol the streets in the villages and cities of Saudi Arabia, ensuring that women are covered from head to toe, that men go to the mosque to pray and that unmarried men and women do not mix in public. They also enforce other important moral strictures, like no mixed dancing or playing rock and roll music.
Al-Bathali said that his ‘vice’ squad will patrol the Sulaibikhat area first and then slowly spread out to other areas. It’s not clear who was behind the attacks in Hawally. Some have argued that it might have been just a couple of youths having fun and playing a trick on the girls by whacking them like the mutaween in Saudi do.
Let’s hope it was a bad joke by bored teens. God help us if random groups of men suddenly start forming ‘morality’ patrols and beating women on the streets of Kuwait. A Kuwaiti mutaween would create a host of problems.
First, the morality police would be trying to enforce a brand of radical Islam and ideology many in Kuwait – both citizens and expats – do not follow. Many Muslim women in this country do not wear hijab and there are no laws that require them to do so – despite the best efforts of the fundamentalists in parliament.
Second, Kuwaitis are highly protective of their female family members and few are likely to accept strange men whacking their mothers, sisters, daughters, wives and aunts in public areas. Following the 1990-1991 Iraqi invasion and occupation, some radical Islamists tried to establish a religious police and had begun even stationing ‘officers’ outside the Co-ops in Jabriya, Surra and elsewhere.
These mullahs carried short sticks and would strike women coming out of the Co-ops who they deemed to be dressed inappropriately. The women, of course, immediately called their male relatives who then rushed to the Co-ops and attacked the mullahs for attacking the women. The resulting chaos led to the banning of the self proclaimed morality cops.
Third, an ad hoc security force running loose around the country poses a real and present danger to the forces of the Interior Minister and by extension, the stability and security of Kuwait as a whole.
Nearly 20 years later, the radicals have reemerged and wider popularity – as evidenced by the fundamentalists victory in parliamentary polls – has encouraged them to reassert their plans for greater social control.
Success for the mullahs will mean failure for Kuwait’s experiment with democracy. Unlike the rest of the Gulf Arab states, Kuwait isn’t just beginning this experiment. For nearly half a century, this diminutive Muslim country has balanced tribal mores and religious identity with the Islamic and democratic ideals of freedom, dignity and self respect. Allowing roving bands of self appointed religious police to patrol the streets of Kuwait will undermine all of the country’s efforts toward balancing tradition
and modernity.
Some Forecasters See a Fast Economic Recovery
From today’s New York Times: Business:
Economics as the dismal science? Not in some quarters.
In the midst of the deepest recession in the experience of most Americans, many professional forecasters are optimistically heading into the new year declaring that the worst may soon be over.
For this rosy picture to play out, they are counting on the Obama administration and Congress to come through with a substantial stimulus package, at least $675 billion over two years.
They say that will get the economy moving again in the face of persistently weak spending by consumers and businesses, not to mention banks that are reluctant to extend credit.
If the dominoes fall the right way, the economy should bottom out and start growing again in small steps by July, according to the December survey of 50 professional forecasters by Blue Chip Economic Indicators. Investors seemed to be in a similarly optimistic mood on Friday, bidding up stocks by about 3 percent.
But in the absence of that government stimulus, the grim economic headlines of 2008 will probably continue for some time, these forecasters acknowledge.
Read the entire article HERE
Vigilante Volunteers
“Helping out the Ministry of Interior”
From today’s Kuwait Times
Kuwaiti activist establishes voluntary religious police
Published Date: December 27, 2008
KUWAIT: Islamist activist Mubarak Al-Bathali announced that he has established a voluntary Kuwaiti Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, like the Saudi Mutaween or religious police.
Al-Bathali said the Kuwait committee would begin its religious tasks in the Sulaibikhat area before spreading to other areas of the country. He explained that he was inspired to adopt the idea after a number of devout young people complained to him about seeing inappropriate and immoral behavior in Kuwait’s streets.
He emphasized that the committee members would focus only on advising people to avoid irreligious and immoral behavior and would never implement harsh or violent treatment on anyone.
Among the types of treatment which Al-Bathali protested against was the alleged drinking of alcohol, banned in Kuwait, at Christmas parties in the country. He reiterated that those who wished to drink alcohol should go outside Kuwait to do so.
Al-Bathali emphasized that the committee’s work would not conflict with the Ministry of Interior’s, saying that on the contrary it would help the MoI to uphold public morality and values.
From today’s Arab Times:
WE DON’T WANT YOUR HELP GUARDING PUBLIC MORALITY! responds MOI
Interior Ministry hits out at new ‘guardians of freedom’
KUWAIT, Dec 26, (KUNA): “Kuwait is an institutional state governed by law”, a statement by the Ministry of Interior said on Friday. The statement came in response to a press statement published on the front page of a local daily earlier today. The press statement talked about a group that allocated itself as “guardian” of people’s personal freedoms guaranteed by law, the ministry statement noted. The statement stressed that the ministry was the only directorate tasked with implementing and preserving the law in the country through imposing security and order, as well as safeguarding public morals. “The Kuwaiti society is a conservative, Arab and Muslim one that maintains refined morals and abides by its customs and traditions,” it pointed out.
“The ministry will counter such ‘radical’ calls with firmness,” the statement said, adding that the ministry would not allow anyone, whether individuals or groups, to interfere in the public’s personal freedoms, describing the calls as a “loud” infringement of the law as it also defied the state’s constitutional institutions. The statement concluded by saying that the ministry would take needed legal and security procedures to counter these calls and maintain the nation’s safety under the leadership of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.
Meanwhile, the Citizenship and Passport Affairs Department at the Ministry of Interior has announced that citizenship will not be granted to Kuwaiti children born abroad, if they hold any other nationality, reports Al-Rai daily. The department said since Kuwait doesn’t accept dual citizenship, children born abroad, especially in western countries where citizenship is given on birth, will not be granted Kuwaiti citizenship if they accept another country’s citizenship. It applies even on children of diplomats and “the department will not grant citizenship to such children unless they give up their previous citizenship.”
It is easy to discover nationality from birth certificates, say sources. In another development, Iraqi authorities have extended invitation to Kuwait officials to visit Baghdad to locate the whereabouts of their compatriots captured during the August 1990 Iraqi invasion, reports Arrouaih daily quoting reliable Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry sources as saying. Sources added the step demonstrates the serious determination of Iraqis to see to an amicable resolution of the issues and to put to end the lingering suffering of many families who lost their loved ones during the war.
PS. I don’t want your help, either, morality volunteers, guarding my morality. My morality is between me and God. I obey the laws of the country I live in – the laws of the country, not your idea of what the laws should be. “Volunteers” guarding morality are vigilantes, pure and simple.
The Coventry Carole
In the midst of this miraculous birth, a tragedy. The wise men warn the family that they must flee, and King Herod issues an edict that all babies 2 and under will be slain. Mary tries to keep her baby quiet and hidden as they escape to Egypt:
An Eye for an Eye – Does Revenge Change Anything?
I have been following my own post with interest. The truth is, there is a huge part of me that agrees with you, agrees with Ameneh, who wants her attacker to suffer as she has suffered, to pay for the life he has stolen from her.
I used to be a lot more idealistic than I am now. I can remember the two times in my life I came face-to-face with who I am, viscerally, in my gut.
The first time, I was living in Jordan, and I awoke in the middle of the night. I heard gunfire. My husband was out of town – that happened a lot. Things like cars breaking down, heaters going out in the dead of winter, ants attacking (don’t even ask), those things always waited for my husband to be out of town. Now gunfire.
I finally called my British neighbors, who called their Security office, who said it was probably just the police shooting packs of dogs who attacked the sheep at night.
I knew, though, that night, that if I had a gun in the house, I would shoot anyone who came through the front door to protect my son. I had never thought of myself that way. I had never considered myself a killer. And I knew I could kill, without a second thought, to protect my son.
We all have times when we find out who we are, what we are made of. Men who go off to war and kill for a living have to live with their actions for the rest of their lives. Many, many live with regrets.
People who lived through the Invasion of Kuwait endured and suffered unimaginable horrors. Many won’t even talk about the things they saw or had to do.
Here is my problem with revenge – you have to live with the consequences.
If I had shot an intruder, even thinking it was a criminal, I would have to live with that the rest of my life. Even NOT shooting an intruder, I have to live with the thought that I would have, that I was fully prepared to kill. It still haunts me, even though I didn’t do anything, even though I just thought about it.
I like what This Lady said. I want this man punished, but if we choose to inflict the same punishment on him, don’t we lower ourselves to his level? I think life imprisonment would be worse. On another blog, dealing with the same topic, one Iranian woman wrote that if this man is blinded, some female in his family will be chosen to take care of him for the rest of his life, feeding him, preparing his meals. She, too, will be sacrificed, lose her own life to the obligation of taking care of this blinded villain for the rest of his life. Wouldn’t we all be better off if he were locked away, never to be free again?
I published the photo with the original article because I was shocked and intrigued by it. In spite of her blindness and disfigurement, this woman is laughing, and her mother is hugging her. In many ways, her life is blessed. Because God works in amazing and wonderful ways, we know that he can use this terrible act to do great things in her life, bring her peace, bring her new understanding . . . we don’t know what he can do, but we can trust that her life is not over, that he can still use her to fulfill his purpose in this world.
Reading your comments, trying to find my own response has been a challenge. As I said – if it were me, if it were my sister, God forbid – I know I would want revenge. I know that fiery outrage lives in all our hearts; the desire to take an eye for an eye. I know that dragon in my own heart.
And yet . . . I am left with this very uneasy feeling that revenge and retribution are neither deterrent, nor satisfying. I trust that if this sentence is carried out, God can even do great things with this violent assailant, that he can work in his heart and give him a new way of seeing, he can bring him to repentance, he can do great works, even in the heart of this sinner.
My greatest, gravest concern is for Ameneh. She seems to be a very stable, courageous woman. I fear that revenge can act as a poison in her soul, that the punishment, if inflicted, will eat away at all the goodness of her life. I fear for any of us who become obsessed with revenge at the cost of who we were created to be.
You have been very forceful in your expression of belief that the sentence should be imposed. Don’t you harbor any misgivings about this, no matter how small?
An Eye for an Eye in Iran – Penalty for Acid Disfigurement?
I found this today in the Washington Post
Woman Blinded by Spurned Man Invokes Islamic Retribution
By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, December 14, 2008; Page A01
TEHRAN — Ameneh Bahrami once enjoyed photography and mountain vistas. Her work for a medical equipment company gave her financial independence. Several men had asked for her hand in marriage, but the hazel-eyed electrical technician had refused them all. “I wanted to get married, but only to the man I really loved,” she said.
Four years ago, a spurned suitor poured a bucket of sulfuric acid over her head, leaving her blind and disfigured.
Late last month, an Iranian court ordered that five drops of the same chemical be placed in each of her attacker’s eyes, acceding to Bahrami’s demand that he be punished according to a principle in Islamic jurisprudence that allows a victim to seek retribution for a crime. The sentence has not yet been carried out.
You can read the rest of the article Here.
You may think you know how I feel about this. The man stole from this woman. He violated her very life. He stole her ability to see, her ability to support herself, he disfigured her for life and stole the likelihood of the love match she was holding out for. He treated her like property – if he can’t have her, then he will have revenge.
She fought – and won – for him to be blinded with the same acid she has been blinded with. She doesn’t ask that he be disfigured, only blinded. The court in Iran agreed. The sentence has not yet been carried out.
I’m interested in what YOU think. I feel sympathy for the woman, Ahmena Bahrami. I love the way she went after her attacker in the courts. I love it that she didn’t just collapse and be a victim.
On the other hand, I wish she had gone after something different. The thought of purposely blinding someone is SO repugnant to me, I can’t support it. I wish she had gone after his money, forcing him to support her at the level she was earning, for the rest of her life – and his. I find myself thinking – what good does it do to blind him?
He committed a heinous act. Hideous, unthinkable. And yet I find the punishment equally hideous, and unthinkable. I worry that in the future, she will regret having enforced this upon her assailant. I think that revenge, getting revenge, can extract it’s own price from our character. Do you think she will feel better? Do you think she will be happier knowing he was blinded in retrubution? I kinda sorta doubt it.
What do you think?
One Step Down
It was a real eye opener, being back in the USA. AdventureMan had an interesting observation, something he learned a long time ago in a sociology class. It has to do with dining in restaurants. When a guy eats his lunch out every day, he goes to one kind of place, and then when he takes his family out for a meal on Sunday, he goes one step up, takes them to a better restaurant than he would go to every day.
As we travelled in different parts of the United States, what we saw was just the opposite – one step down. People we know still have jobs, still make their house payments, still have the same income. The PERCEPTIONS however, are very different. People are nervous, maybe even a little worried about their jobs. They are not FEELING as prosperous as they felt last year, or the year before. They are spending less. They are going to eat out, but will eat out at that one-step-down restaurant, and not the higher priced restaurant.
As we Christmas shopped, we saw HUGE differences. The Macy’s and the Dillard’s and the big delightfully fancy stores are like ghost towns, and for good reason. They have drastically cut back on their inventory. Where you had to fight your way through the crowded racks a couple years ago, there is a lot of space this year. I didn’t see anything very exciting in terms of fashions or shoes. The Targets and the Fred Meyers (a Pacific Northwest chain) were packed with shoppers, prices were cut, and products were flying off the shelves.
A newspaper article said that what people are buying are . . . appliances. Things people really use – toasters, mixers, etc. The big difference is, they are insisting on appliances in COLOR – carmine reds, blueberrys, greens – chartreuse seems to be big this year, for Christmas, for clothing, and for decorations. Even for Christmas cookies. Chartreuse and pink are this year’s Christmasy red and green. Total hoot. But when people start drawing back from spending, they buy practical things – in fanciful colors. I remember reading once that when times get tough, lipstick sales soar. Women will spend on something small to make themselves feel good, and lipstick does the trick.
The trip was a real eye opener. AdventureMan has sticker shock. I just laugh. I think Kuwait is expensive! AdventureMan doesn’t buy groceries. I remember one time we were together at the Co-op and he couldn’t believe what we were spending on milk – but what are you going to do? Not buy milk? I have always used powdered milk for baking, but with the Chinese thing, I even worry about powdered milk.
Are you going through sticker shock? Are your spending habits changing? Do you eat in restaurants, or are you eating more at home?
“Seriously Bad Men”
AdventureMan and I are on a beach, and enjoyed one of the most magnificent sunsets we have ever seen, absolutely painterly, and I took lots of shots to share with you only to discover I don’t have my card reader/uploader little stick, so I have to wait until I can share them with you.
AdventureMan is having so much fun he has worn himself out, and today he came down with a bad cold. He spent some time napping while I spent some time out on the balcony, enjoying the sun and the crashing waves. When it came time for dinner, we decided some nice hot soup and hot tea would help him feel a lot better. Went down to the car, and our car is blocked by a huge white SUV, left running, doors locked, no driver.
For a minute we thought we were back in Kuwait.
There were three guys standing outside the office to the hotel, smoking and chatting (think Hank Hill) and we asked them if the car was their’s, and they said “No, it is the POLICE. There are some seriously bad men they are after, with guns!”
After about fifteen minutes, a couple beefy cops came by and one moved the car and parked it legally. We went and had a very delicious dinner at a Japanese restaurant where, when we told the owner we live in Kuwait, he said “Salaam A’aleikum” which astounded me, but he said he was Canadian-Japanese, and grew up with Arab immigrant kids. I love America.
On our way home, we stopped at a Publix, a very wonderful food market, where we picked up some green tea and coffee and bananas, just a little something to have in the room, and we also picked up some Thanksgiving bundles – how cool is this? Publix puts together grocery bags of Thanksgiving foods for the poor and needy, and has them on a stand by the check-out stands. You pick them up, pay for them, drop them in a bin and some needy family gets food for the holidays. They make it so easy to donate. We have so much for which we are thankful. I love this place.
When we got back to the motel, the cops were still surrounding the room (not in our building) where the seriously bad guys were holed up, and now, a couple hours later, there are two great big slow moving helicopters patrolling the beach area with huge spotlights, evidently trying to spot them on the move or something.
One of the bad buys is “SWAT trained” we were told.
The locks on our doors are not very serious locks. I am just hoping they catch them and go home so I can listen to the crashing of the waves in peace.
How To Turn Kuwaiti Youth Into Law Breakers:
Lord, have mercy! Who doesn’t know that the quickest way to get young people to want to read a book or watch a movie is to BAN it?? It’s just human nature! So you take smart, tech-savvy young people and FORBID them to watch YouTube, or hey! even better – block it – and watch how fast they find a way around every attempt to block it.
There are a lot of sayings that come to mind – like “That train done left the station” or “Like getting ketchup back in the bottle” – you might as well ban water from running downhill.
Lawyer to file case against ministry over failure to ban YouTube
Al Watan staff
and agencies
KUWAIT: A leading Kuwaiti lawyer Mubarak AlـTasha has said that he intends to file a case against the Ministry of Information for not blocking the Web site YouTube or at least blocking infamous clips that are considered as insulting to Islam and the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).
The lawyer said that since the ministry failed to carry out its promises, a law suit will be filed against it in order to ensure that this is legally binding, and added that the Kuwaiti Constitution protects freedom of expression, press and publication however such freedoms should not in any way insult Islam.
He added that the State needs to uphold the Constitution and respect it since law 70/2002 issued by the Information Ministry states that internet providers should not promote or encourage pornographic, indecent and antiـIslamic material.
A few months ago local newspapers reported that the ministry ordered local Internet service providers to block the Web site over clips that could offend Muslims.
“Since the Web site displays the Quran in the form of songs sung with the oud … and displays disrespectful pictures of the Prophet Mohammed … please proceed with immediate effect in blocking the Web site http://www.youtube.com,” read a copy of a memo obtained by Reuters.
However, following the circulation of this memo, the ministry went back on its decision and the site was subsequently not banned.
Last updated on Monday 24/11/2008
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