By Lidia Al Qattan

In the early morning of the 2nd of August 1990, Professor Badriya Al Awadhi arrived at Osaka, on invitation by the Japanese Government. She was to deliver a lecture on Framework for the Protection of the Environment in the Gulf region, for which she wrote 40 pages and prepared slides for presentation during lecture, when on landing she heard that Iraq invaded Kuwait, the shock was such that she could not believe what was happening or what she was hearing. In spite of she being quite tired from her long journey her immediate reaction was to board the first plane back home.

Her first stop on the way was at Hong Kong; there she waited nine long hours for the next plane to Dubai. While waiting she was following the news with growing trepidation and anxiety. A conglomeration of thoughts were coming to her mind as she was reviewing the scenario of past events when Kuwait underwent other threats of Iraqi aggression.

She was a young teenager and a student in her last years of secondary school, when soon after the declaration of Kuwait independence on the 19th of June 1961, Abdul Karim Qasim, the Iraqi president at that time was threatening to invade Kuwait.

Taken by the patriotic flare that affected everyone in town in those days, she never forgot the incident or the emotional experience she went through.

Perhaps it was that event in her crucial stage of mental development that affected her outlook on life and was instrumental in triggering her propensity for all legal issues, which became her love and passion later on!