Advices for us
It is a long journey from Motabba in Sharq to Beirut and London; from the Ja’fariya and Mubarakiya schools to the American University in Beirut and Oxford University in England through which Hamza Abbas; the first governor of the Central Bank of Kuwait, takes us down memory lanes and stops the train at certain childhood stops in Sharq and particularly at Bin Rashdan fabrics store next to his father’s. He once flew to Baghdad on a small chopper that got stuck in the sand at the old airport and all passengers had to step down to push it until it could successfully take off.
This goes unlike what happened to the state’s economy that seems to have got stuck in sand dunes making the young Hamza, as a central bank governor, step down and try to push the economy through pieces of advice that contradicted the interests of some influential people. Thus, his advice was ignored and the economy’s ‘plane’ is left stuck even further in the sand. Looking through Hamza Abbas’ train window, one can see so many people who have passed away while others are still striving and suffering the bitterness of being forgotten. Images of the late Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah appear several times on Hamza Abbas’ time train while he was tidying up and organizing state administrations’ budgets and never allowed anyone to violate budget limits when he was the finance minister and prime minister. He used to listen to wise people’s advice and kept them in the ministry because they were loyal, faithful and well-experienced people.
None of them violated public funds nor starred as a political icon. Through Abbas’ train window, one can also see Dr Fakhry Shehab; the economy professor at Oxford who did so much to have the Kuwait investment office established in London and Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development established. He served Kuwait so much in finance and economy. Do any of us still remember such an icon?
The train still goes past several other names including Faisal Al-Saleh, Hamad Al-Essa, Khalifa Al-Ghunaim, Haidar AlShahabi, Hamed Al-Essa, Sulieman Al-Mutawa and Fatima Hussein. Abbas met the love of his life; Lila Ahmad Jassem at the last couple’s house and he got married to her. Many others had great impact on this nation’s march and, as usual, are long forgotten now. Abbas warned of the bubble called the stock exchange market (also known as Souq Al-Manakh) and the economy based on biddings. He warned of a possible financial disaster but nobody listened.
Fake companies dominated the economy while Hamza and others seemed to be screaming from a distance. Later on, when the bubble burst open and many companies were declared bankrupt, he refused compensations and compromises, but again, none of the decision-makers listened to him. He had enhanced the Dinar’s power with a decision on a currencies basket but eventually, the money went to the elite VIP’s who devoured huge chunks of the state’s present and future funds.
Once again through his work in some financial committee after quitting the central bank with great depression, he warns of the decision to purchase debts after the liberation, which confused everything in a legal deal that resulted in making a few people richer while so many were only silenced by a few gifts. So many popular decisions were made, such as debts’ write off and increments tailored in parliament in collaboration with the government to buy some political loyalties and please others before fetus-like deals were made at the expense of children and a future devastated by greed, corruption and abuse of powers while nobody listens or even learns from such fatal mistakes.
‘I advised you’ is the title of Hamza Abbas’ diary in which he was not directing the advice to us because we are not political decision-makers to accept or refuse such advice. He was rather offering advice for our sake. So will anybody ever listen to Hamza Abbas?