‘The journey has just begun’
‘What is Turkish future with Kurds ?’
“I FIND myself confused when it comes to either supporting or rejecting the Turkish intervention in northern Syria, because the Turkish position was not to support an Islamic or Arab cause, but it came in response to a Turkish public pressure that rejects the establishment of a Kurdish entity on the borders of Turkey, which paves the way for the establishment of an independent Kurdish state as long as the Kurds dreamed of and did a lot to achieve it,” columnist, Dean of Technological Studies College at the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET) and the Deputy Chairman of the Islamic Heritage Revival Society (IHRS) Dr Wael AlHassawi wrote for Al-Rai daily.
“We have followed the movement of (Abdullah Ocalan) Chairman of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a leftist Marxist party seeking a form of autonomy from the Turkish authority and build a liberal democratic society.
“His party began military activity in 1984 and fought bitter conflicts with the Turkish government, until he was arrested and sent to Turkey. In 1999, he was charged with high treason and sentenced to death. His death sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment, in compliance with the European Union laws, as Turkey made attempts to join the EU, although the latter shut the door in Ankara’s face.
“The best thing about the Turkish intervention in northern Syria is that the Free Syrian Army (FSA) stands with Ankara and the participation of thousands of Syrian soldiers in the Turkish move. These represent Syrian legitimacy. They were ready to take over after the fall of the criminal Baathist regime, but the great powers are calling for aborting their revolution and leaving them alone in the field despite the sacrifices. Turkey has handed over the areas it liberated from the Kurds to the FSA and the latter hoisted their flag.
“The positions of the Arab and Western countries on the Turkish intervention were contradictory, and we saw the hypocrisy of most of them. The Arab League held its emergency meeting to condemn the Turkish intervention and considered it vicious invasion while it kept blind eye at the Russian intervention and invasion to Syria, bombed the Syrian cities and hospitals and killed hundreds of civilians.
The Arab League kept silent at the Israeli violation of the Syrian airspace and destroying the weapons of Hezbollah and Iran intervened, occupied the Syrian cities, displaced its people and plundered its wealth, but did not say a word when Bashar al-Assad killed one million Syrians, demolished their cities and displaced the people of Syria and arrested thousands of them.
“The hypocritical West has revealed the truth of the freedoms it defends. While punishing those who organized the Catalan referendum on Spain’s secession with 13 years in prison, the Americans have armed the Syrian Kurds with all kinds of weapons and equipment under the pretext of confronting ISIS, and then abandoned them.
“The US President Donald Trump said in his famous speech: ‘The Kurds did well but they took the price of their work by arming them. Trump then withdrew the US military from northern Syria and gave Erdogan the green light to invade northern Syria. After the Western countries and the Americans revolted, he ordered to punish Turkey economically, and then sought to stop the Turkish intervention.
“The European countries, which did not seek a day the interests of the Syrian people, are concerned with preventing Syrian refugees from reaching their homes.
“There is no doubt that the Western countries are still not ready to give the Turks the right to establish their state, but they just manipulate their feeling and use them for their interests.
The story is long, but we are still at the beginning of the journey.”
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“Recently, the social media published the video clips of one of the deputies showing off his service centers and his staff who provide services exclusively to his tribe and his voters in addition to showing off his assets and comparing them to the period before he became a member of Parliament and after,” columnist, professor at Kuwait University’s Political Science Department, Dr Haila Hamad Al-Mekaimi wrote for Annahar daily.
“This is not surprising but it is a mechanism that has been used by the government for some time as a kind of tool to buy loyalty and parliamentary support through this behavior instead of introducing a real development program and betting on the development of the human to develop the state.
“It is the real goal that everyone is seeking. But the government has preferred to buy loyalty, a mechanism that is difficult to sustain under stiff conditions and in the face of declining oil revenues and talk of major global financial and economic crises early next year. It is a mechanism that in the future will deepen the gap between the social classes.
“But the funny thing is that at the same time when the government opens its doors for deputies of services it is also seeking to hold anti-corruption and reform conferences, forgetting that the root solution in the fight against corruption lies in governance, administration and e-government, a feature that is widespread in many countries of the world, including those that we still believe in.
“They are classified as Third World countries, but the reality confirms that due to e-government and administrative governance procedures, these countries have moved quickly to the ranks of developed countries.
“The motive of these countries for transparency of the procedures was to attract foreign investment and capital, but the situation in Kuwait seems to be still confused between the equation of government and governance, which is difficult to achieve a real shift in the state administration.
“Will our government seek to achieve this on the ground, or are they slogans to cover the nurturing of state entities and shadow administrations and continue to develop policies on different social identities, whether or sectarian?
“These identities may be a temporary solution to manage matters and gain loyalty, but it is not possible to achieve long-term stability. Social division, as we have seen and continue to see, is the fastest way to commit suicide by engaging in civil wars, internal unrest and crises that emerge from time to time. Yes, the road to reform is long, but it is safer.”
“Most of the supporters of the government cannot deny the tentative situations that Kuwait has witnessed in the recent years. I mean there have been achievements alongside shortcomings,” Dahem Al Qahtani wrote for Al-Qabas daily.
“At the time when Kuwait witnessed wonderful achievements in terms of establishment of new roads and bridges, we saw the issue of flying gravel was not solved despite the fact that it emerged four years ago. Many of the main roads and most of the streets in the internal areas are in urgent need for repair.
“The second example that I would like to point out is the boasting of Public Authority of Housing Welfare (PAHW) in saying the waiting list of applicants for houses is zero, since it was decided to accept applications of the citizens who married in August 2019 to apply for the project of South Sabah Al-Ahmad City.
“However, the authority did not mention that the reason behind boycotting the application is that the space of the plots has been reduced from 600 square meters to 400 square meters by the year 2000. PAHW did not mention the reasons behind the suspension of the housing project of South Saad Al-Abdullah City despite the fact that it was allocated long time ago.
“The third example that I want to mention is that the economic situation and the condition of Kuwait Stock Exchange is deteriorating despite the repeated speech about the economic reform and the occupation of advanced places by Kuwait in the international indexes. “The newborn companies of Kuwaiti youth did not find real opportunities in the projects of the government or others. The reason is that the relevant authorities focus on achievements relevant to the advancement according to global indicators.
It is clear that there is a dispute among different components of the current government. We noticed that some ministers work separately without coordinating with other ministries.
“Actually, the government does not have a definite work plan to be executed. All the plans issued by Supreme Council for Planning and Development are not responded to by the relevant ministries.
“The reason behind this is the lack of efficient senior officials who conduct the work of the government without submitting to any pressures.
“The reason behind the lack of such efficient officials is the “parachute appointments” which convert loyalty towards public interest to loyalty for personal interests. Of course, there are some senior officials whose loyalty is devoted to the nation, but they are not effective enough.”
“Kuwaitis have been congratulating each other over the safe return of His Highness the Amir to the country after his medical treatment abroad,” Talal Al-Saeed wrote for Al-Seyassah daily.
“Everybody is happy about the safe return of their dear leader, and they have been exchanging pleasantries. This is an expression from the bottom of their hearts without anybody coercing them with sticks.
“They were not gathered by detectives or the police, but out of natural love. It is a pure expression of love and loyalty for the successful leader and sagacious commander whose wisdom the entire world attested for led the country to the safe coast. He rescued the country and its people from the bottleneck in difficult situations.
“We will not discuss in this article the achievements of the Amir since the time of his inclusion in the nucleus of the government until his ascension to the position of authority.
“That will be a daunting task to describe verbally or write in a book of history. His Highness the Amir has his clear footprints in the daily affairs of the country since independence, rather during the period of independence till date.
“We will only talk about the most difficult time when Kuwait nearly lost its sovereignty but was rescued by Allah Almighty as well as by the wisdom of the Amir, who has proven in history that Kuwait is refractory for anybody who plans evil against it.”
“The issue is not what Dr Shafiq Al-Ghabra wrote in his book “The Nakba and the Emergence of the Palestinian Diaspora in Kuwait”, so we are not writing in his defense or against him. But the main subject that concerns us as Kuwaitis is the decision of the prosecution and its opinion in the complaint against Dr. Al-Ghabra and what he wrote in his book. This is a sensitive subject for Kuwaitis, which is the subject of the invasion and occupation, about what happened during the period and the position of the Palestinian community regarding that invasion,” Waleed Al-Rujaib wrote for Al-Rai daily.
“We are well aware of the sensitivity of this matter for the Kuwaiti people who have suffered and tasted the bitterness of treason, persecution, oppression and homelessness. We were those who decided to stay in Kuwait, despite the difficulties and danger to our lives and the lives of our children. We were aware of those who stood for and against Kuwait from inside and outside the country. Not only did we not want to surrender to emotions, but we want to arbitrate reason, logic and truth.
“It is the Palestinian community and its organizations with some other communities who have also stood openly against Kuwait. Some had even set up armed checkpoints. On the other hand, there were some who helped and protected Kuwaitis, and saved the country that accommodated them on its land and provided them with safety and decent livelihoods.
“There were even Kuwaitis who took advantage of the disaster by stealing other Kuwaitis’ properties. There were Kuwaitis who stole the aid provided by the brotherly countries after the liberation, whether food or others. Some falsified the documents in order to get assistance provided by the government to the steadfast or to those who decided to go out and live in other countries. There were those who tried to assassinate national figures by taking advantage of the chaos after liberation. There were those who falsely attributed lies and heroics to themselves by denying the steadfast people of resistance and civil disobedience against the occupiers, and other Kuwaiti and non-Kuwaiti models.
“There was a lot of confusion in the attitudes and feelings, and there are a lot of lost facts, all of which does not concern us in this article. However, our concern is the honorable position of the Public Prosecution and its victory for freedom of opinion and expression. It is a position that made us feel Kuwait is still fine and that everyone has the right to express an opinion, as long as it does not include obscenity by expression or personal abuse.
“The prosecution considered that scientific research, which the Constitution stipulates to encourage the right of complainant and that academic freedom includes the right to express, without fear of repression from the state or any other sector, while expressions should not be removed separately from the context of talk in any scientific book.
“Freedom of opinion and expression is one of the main pillars of every civilized democratic country, and no renaissance can be achieved without enlightenment and acceptance of the opinion and opinion of the other.
“Regardless of what we think about what was written, we see that the Kuwaiti judiciary is still the champion of freedom of opinion, regardless of the laws restricting freedoms and imposed by the legislative and executive authorities. It is not the first time that the judiciary triumphed for freedom of opinion and expression. Kuwaiti novelists have previously benefitted from the freedom against censorship that prevented their creative works.”