‘Meddlers keep away, let GCC unite’

‘Qatar must return to its roots’

“THE differences between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt on one hand and the sisterly country of the State of Qatar on the other, has entered the fourth month,” columnist and former ambassador Ahmad Ghaith wrote for Al-Qabas daily.

“This happens although since the very beginning of this quarrel, all concerned parties including the State of Qatar had agreed for the mediation of HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad (we pray to Almighty Allah to protect him). Moreover, these parties had welcomed and appreciated this mediation in view of the Amir’s experience and knowledge that have always been a topic of appreciation on Arab and international levels.

“In this context, HH the Amir paid a visit to the United States of America to discuss the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) crisis and the two parties had shown a mutual understanding which was evident through the joint press conference that was held by the two leaders following their discussions at the White House.

“However, just a few hours after this press conference, the news agencies said HH the Amir of the State of Qatar communicated with HRH the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman and this talk was full of optimism, but unfortunately this did not last long following the news reports denying the purport of the communication in question.

“The denial was repeated more than once on evidence and the media were blamed for blowing it out of proportion.

“As a matter of fact, the consecutive events related to the crisis in question and the mediation signify that there is a difference in viewpoints over this crisis, with some people striving to get the same solved, while others preferring the crisis to continue motivated by their desire to join the camp of those who currently oppose any reconciliation between the conflicting parties.

“As a matter of fact, the differences with Qatar surfaced in March 2014 when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Bahrain summoned their ambassadors to Qatar to protest Doha’s failure to abide by some resolutions which had earlier been approved by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states.

“But in Nov 2014, the relations normalized among the relevant states and the ambassadors resumed their work in Doha. This happened after Qatar declared its commitment to some of the resolutions in question which were earlier approved by the GCC member states.

“However, in May 2017, the Qatar News Agency (QNA) published a statement that was issued by HH the Amir of Qatar in which he criticized what he termed anti-Iran ‘emotions’.

“The Qatari officials swiftly denied the statement and accused someone had hacked the QNA but the communication that followed between HH the Amir of Qatar and the Iranian President complicated the issue.

“Moreover, what was published from time to time on Qatar’s relations with some regional powers whose political attitudes don’t keep in line with that of the GCC member states and some Arab countries, once again complicated the differences, particularly since the non-Arab regional powers were striving to spread their influence on Arab countries.

“With regard to the Arab Islamic groups, they actually strive to come to power and

Ghaith

as such these groups are not different from some Arab parties which have come to power through military coups and have got hold of their respective countries’ resources as a result of which the people have been suffering from poverty and a state of weakness which still persist.

“Referring to the experiment of the Turkish Justice and Development Party, we say the success of this party’s experiment as clarified by the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan can be attributed to the fact that Islam doesn’t contravene with secularism and this is applicable to the Tunisian experiment – the country that has a deep heritage of secularism that was consecrated by its former president Al-Habib Bourguiba and for that reason the Islamists in Tunisia responded to the demands of the Tunisians and other local parties in the best interests of Tunisia.

“We hope a state of solidarity will govern the relations among all GCC countries. In the meantime, we hope the sisterly country of Qatar will return to its natural place – to its people and clan from the GCC states – because the latter shall indeed remain its natural place.”

“Since the very beginning of the Kuwaiti diplomatic activities that were aimed at settling the current crisis of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the entire region supported the blessed Kuwaiti initiative by all means to reunifying the GCC states and normalize the relations to the pre June 5, 2017, level,” columnist Waleed Abdullah Al-Ghanim wrote for Al-Jarida daily.

“In other words, all Arab and foreign nations in addition to international institutions said in a single voice ‘Yes’ for the Kuwaiti mediation. In this context, we elucidate that the Kuwaiti mediation does not represent a neutral attitude, because the word neutral here means those who stand idle in dealing with the crisis and refrain from giving suggestions to solve the crisis.

“Not just that, neutral here means the party which the people know nothing about its attitude. But for Kuwait, its diplomacy is too obvious and known for everybody. Moreover, the attitude of the Kuwaiti leadership and all Kuwaitis is known to all concerned parties, because the essence of this attitude is based on commitment to GCC unity.

“The Kuwaiti stand was too obvious through the speech of HH the Amir which he delivered in the United States of America on the GCC crisis. He clearly referred to the defects of this crisis and the principled obviousness of the State of Kuwait and its attitude to protect the GCC unity and this is an honor for every Kuwaiti.

“It is needless to say Kuwait’s keenness to protect the GCC unity and cohesion, is not strange because it is the State of Kuwait which had basically contributed to building the Gulf countries and work towards its development since the very beginning of the oil era. Moreover, the State of Kuwait is always keen to support its neighbors at every international forum.

“As such, we hope that the State of Kuwait – God willing – shall remain the safety valve of the GCC ‘nation’, particularly since we know the idea of founding the Gulf Cooperation Council emanated from the State of Kuwait and this reflects the strategic vision of the late Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad (we pray to Almighty Allah to bestow His mercy upon him) where he put forward the idea of establishing the GCC in 1976 when he was the prime minister and crown prince of the State of Kuwait.

“In the meantime, we shall not ignore the efforts and the sacrifices that were made by the GCC member states and leaders when our neighbor committed the crime – Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990.

“Such being the case, irrespective of the volume of the current GCC crisis, it is needless to say all of us motivated by our hope, will exert every possible effort to end the crisis because all of us sail in the same boat and all should be involved in protecting the route.”

“It is important for the government to prioritize work. This is the most important factor so as not to waste efforts and waste public money,” columnist Dr Badr Al-Dihani wrote for Al-Jarida daily.

“The long-term development plans in which priorities come according to their importance, in line with the general policy of the state and not according to the jurisprudence of the Minister, since the minister, for that matter any minister, is a member of the Council of Ministers constitutionally responsible for drawing up the general policies of the state.

“In this context, there is an imbalance in the priorities of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, where, according to the government’s development plan, it is assumed that the adjustment of the demographic and manpower structures and the countless problems including confronting the visa traffickers should have been a top priority to the ministry.

“It seems the Ministry considers that its priority is to devote time to cooperative societies and to dissolve some boards under the pretext of financial and administrative corruption, sometimes before the results of the internal investigations are announced, and before referral to the Prosecution, which should include specific charges accompanied by sufficient documents.

“It seems the government is adopting a new policy to liquidate the cooperatives sector by accelerating the process of privatization of this sector under the pretext of administrative and financial corruption in some of their departments instead of reforming the administration, developing and renewing cooperative work and ending corruption which is prevalent in a very few cooperative societies. In other words, the government policy is to kill instead of treating the patient.”

“In the 1990s, a Tunisian TV station hosted me and two other guests. The talk was about the culture and its concerns. One guest commented on the cultural scene and said it was on the declining side because of the control by political Islam,” columnist and former director of the Culture Department at the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters Waleed Al-Rujaib wrote for Al-Rai daily Monday.

“I replied saying culture never declines because it is cumulative and that there are two major kinds of the culture in societies, a prevailing culture in the official media, and the street culture, which is clear to us. The prevailing culture may be advanced, civilized and may be backward. It is a reflection of the political, social and economic situation.

“In parallel to this culture, there is another culture, but other cultures in the same society can be called metaphorically parallel culture, in other words intangible as a general appearance.

“Both the prevailing and parallel cultures take their positions at different times and different conditions in the same place according to the circumstances we have mentioned earlier.

“For example, a dictatorship based on religion, the absence of democracy and the transfer of power may contribute to cultural backwardness, while a free and democratic civil state is more civilized.”

— Compiled by Zaki Taleb