On Tuesday night outside Kuwait’s Parliament, sandwiched between the Persian Gulf and Kuwait’s eponymous Arabian Gulf Road, around 100 Kuwaitis gathered to protest the disappearance and detention of Hussain Al-Fudalah. A year ago to the day, Al-Fudalah along with two Indian men were sailing in the Persian Gulf when they were apparently arrested by Iranian authorities. Since then, despite the Kuwaiti Ambassador seeing Al-Fudalah in an Iranian jail, the Iranian authorities have denied knowledge of his arrest and whereabouts.
This was, however, a very Kuwaiti protest. Against the backdrop of the elegant Parliament building’s facade and the ever-growing skyline of downtown Kuwait, chairs were neatly arranged and covered with linen as if for a wedding party. With the media in attendance, members of the family, opposition and pro-government MPs stepped up to deliver essentially the same speech: this is a human rights issue, not a political one; this could happen to any Kuwaiti and the government is clearly not doing enough to secure his release. The only differences stemmed largely from the divisions that exist within Kuwait’s Parliament, with opposition MPs being harsher in their criticism than more conciliatory pro-government MPs. As in Kuwaiti society more generally, the fate of the two Indians with the Kuwaiti was largely ignored.
At a time where Iran is in the international spotlight for the detention of workers at the British Embassy in Tehran and the French student Clotilde Reiss, this highlights the arbitrary nature of the Iranian justice system. For whilst there would appear to be political pressure to secure what might be described as foreign scapegoats for the recent protests, Iran appears to be not overly discriminatory in whom it will jail for no apparent reason.
Kuwait’s dark side
Whilst Al-Fudalah’s detention is a tragedy and one feels for the grieving and worry-stricken family, it is more difficult to summon empathy than perhaps it ought to be. At the protest, aside from a few brief remarks, there was precious little information given and certainly no concern shown for the fate of the two Indians accompanying Al-Fudalah. This is emblematic of Kuwaiti society more generally. Migrant workers from the sub-continent or North Africa are officially to be neither seen nor heard, though stories of their plight abound, thanks to the robust state of Kuwait’s press. One page of one newspaper on one day last week saw reports of two women from the Philippines and one from India trying to commit suicide by swallowing Clorex drain cleaner, by ingesting pesticide and by drinking Dettol bleach.
Only the Indian maid swallowing the Clorox was successful. These stories are, quite literally, daily occurrences.
Yet such stories do not appear to stir much emotion in Kuwaitis. Ask them about such instances or about abuse of migrant workers more generally and whilst some will denounce their fellow countrymen and women and severely castigate them, alas the majority switch the subject to stories of maids killing Kuwaiti babies and toddlers. Many of these stories often appear to take something of an apocryphal tinge and resemble a cautionary fairy-tale more than reality. Moreover, if Kuwaitis were really that concerned they could always raise their own children themselves.
Nevertheless, I can well imagine that, unfortunately, crimes such as these do take place, all be it extremely infrequently. If this is the case, the question that leaps to mind immediately is what drove the maids or nannies to it? If they had some illness that made them commit such unspeakable crimes, why come to Kuwait to do it?
In short, the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn is that the maids or nannies, if these crimes really exist, must have been driven to it by abuse themselves. Just think about what kind of treatment the afore mentioned Philippine and Indian maids would have had to have suffered where the option of drinking neat bleach was preferable. Moreover, for the sake of argument, say that there are such horrific incidents involving maids and nannies. Do such random and highly infrequent criminal acts sanction, mitigate or even remotely excuse the routine behaviour of swathes of society? Needless to say, to those with a conscience and a respect of human rights, no it does not.
Kuwait is, of course, not alone in dealing with this problem. Much of the Gulf is plagued with it though it is only Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran that are in the US State Department’s third and last tier for the worst offenders.
As for a vague silver lining, there are certainly signs that within Kuwait the issue is getting more and more coverage and such reprehensible behaviour is becoming increasingly frowned-upon. Yet, there is a fantastically long way to go and, quite frankly, I do not look forward to pickup up tomorrow’s paper.
David B Roberts is a doctoral student at the University of Durham, UK. He has written for Daily News Egypt, the Kuwait Times and Asia News Online. His blog can be found at www.thegulfblog.com
