Kuwaiti students and the West
Away from violations and mistakes that remain in the education ministry, we will focus on one of them - scholarship students. We will not talk about the way our children’s schooling is going, and our lines will not be sharp arrows towards bogus universities, and our words will not include old issues that did not find solutions and are forgotten, bearing in mind that they are lingering and continue until now, but our cause today with education is about the treatment of our students by the West.
The political situation between Islam and European countries worsened this month following the Paris attacks. We are not political analysts here for what happened and may happen in the future, but what was and will be is now threatening our students in Western countries, as following the attacks, the West started to look at Islam as a form of terrorism that is destroying their countries and people, ignoring what Arab and particularly Gulf countries have given in the form of many assistances during their catastrophes and good times.
The story began on Monday morning following the Paris attacks in most Western countries, when some of their citizens ambushed our students in their universities, as some of them shouted unsuitable words about Islam and their countries, while others resorted to beatings. The stranger thing is that some professors in various universities in European countries ridiculed Arabs and Islam during their lectures, ignoring that those they are insulting and accusing them of others’ mistakes are the children of countries that built hospitals and schools for them. Here we say - where is the role of the cultural offices accredited to our embassies?
The issue does not need official letters between countries, and does not require written complaints by scholarship students - rather the issue is searching for political, cultural and media savvy, but with regret, most of those who are placed in those offices only carry the letter “W”.
We are not giving solutions for education, rather we place the issue in the society’s hands to pressure officials to find solutions for our students abroad, and demand the government to commit Western countries to respect our students and have them comply with human rights and respect religions. Those lines came out of the sounds and complaints of our scholarship students, and our solutions and demands came out of the slogans of Westerners, you the educated people!
A last word: “All people are equal in human dignity, and in public rights and duties before the law, without distinction as to race, origin, language or religion”. (Article 29 of the constitution). This is what we learned, and I taught to our students, you the education ministry! — Translated by Kuwait Times