Thu 27 Jan 2005
This may seem like a weird question, but do we really know the history of our country??
I work with an American, and she was asking some stuff from Kuwait’s history, like how and when it started, and more questions like that…..
To my own surprise, I didn’t know the answer to most questions, I mean I know the general information, but the details and dates were beyond me.
That got me to thinking, why do I know more about World War II, American history, and even history of the ancient Egyptians and Romans more than I know about Kuwait’s history! There are many reasons for this -
- University education in the US, which included several history classes including American history and government.
- My addiction to chanels like the History chanel and Discovery Civilization chanel, which show alot of documentaries about recent Western and ancient history, but nothing more.
- Lack of documentation of our history? Maybe its not fair to say that since I did get a few recommendations on books about Kuwait history after asking around some specialists, but not hearing about these books, or them not being visible is a problem.
- Most importantly, school education. History classes when I was a kid were basically propaganda brochures instead of insightful information! I learned more about Kuwait in two days of reading, than everything I learned about our history as a kid.
Anyway, back to my main point, do you think that the Kuwaiti population in general knows enough about its country’s history?? I shall be reading further about it and will probably post information that I think is useful.
P.S.- While trying to find information online was very difficult, one website really stood out and deserves a look. www.kuwaitpast.com From the main page, enter the arabic version, very interesting information there!
33 Responses to “Do we know our history?”
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January 27th, 2005 at 2:50 pm
Q,
No, we don’t.
I’d write a longer comment but have to fetch our 2 grilled nagroors for lunch.. later inshalla
I’m so enjoying your blog these days..
January 27th, 2005 at 3:01 pm
I second Shurooq, we don’t
The last point is probably the main reason for that.
January 27th, 2005 at 3:16 pm
Shurouq, yalla bon appetite o bil3aafya muqaddaman
Im glad ur enjoyed my blog, and plz come back to hear ur opinion after lunch!
January 27th, 2005 at 3:28 pm
Peach, its funny, in highschool, we took world history in one class, and اجتماعيات in another class, and it was like two totally different subjects! World history was interesting, there so many stories, u just kept reading and reading…while in اجتماعيات they were asking us to memorize how much cotton was produced in Egypt or the size of Qatar or something else that was incredibly boring and absolutely useless!! Its unbelievable how boring they were able to make that subject!
January 27th, 2005 at 3:43 pm
Even if our history was well documented and preserved, do you think it will reflect the “true” history as it happened, or simply a one-sided version of it?
Before you embark on researching our history, or any country’s past, bear in mind that all recollections, documentations, and narratives are biased, and you have to dicern what’s true and what’s false, which is a process that is harder than you think.
This is one of the things I learned from “The History of Modern Kuwait” course taught by professor who is an MP right now. His version of our history is what I was fed, and it was up to me to dig up what has been silenced, and to keep it to myself if I truly wanted an “A”.
Anyhow, good luck in your research!
January 27th, 2005 at 4:03 pm
shosho, thats the case with history almost always, its the winner’s point of view of events. You know whats sad? That when I asked some historian expert about the best books to read, he mentioned 3 books, two of which have been written by non-Kuwaities. sad.
January 27th, 2005 at 4:32 pm
و الله يا كيو امس السؤال كان على بالى…
كنت مار جنب مجلس الامه و شفت لوحه مكتوب عليها قرية يوم البحار…
يعنى اكو خلط و تسطيح اكثر من هذا…شدخل القريه بتراثنا؟
هل الكل يعرف التركيبه الاجتماعيه للكويتيين قبل النفط؟
لو تسال اى واحد عن تاريخ الكويت الجواب 100% الغوص على اللؤلؤ:)
كتاب ممتع اسمه من هنا بدات الكويت
و ايضا مذكرات العدسانى
اعتقد ان السبب الاساسى هو ان تاريخ الكويت للاسف غير موثق بشكل علمى و السبب الثانى كسلنا عن البحث
تصدق انى استمتع و انا اتمشى مع الوالد فى الديره و هو يصف لى حدود الفرجان و كل مكان مشهور بشنو..
اعتقد ان التوثيق بشكل علمى و صادق امر مهم و اساسى
January 27th, 2005 at 5:08 pm
Q
Your Question is right on the spot. The main issue here is a culture issue. All we know is when the Amir(s) came to power and superficial dates as such.
Let me give you an exmaple. Mr. Ahmed Dyain wrote in AlRai-Alaam an article on the 25th of Jan called “لنترحم على 25 يناير”
January 25 was the 38 anniversary of the first Election fraud in Kuwait’s history. Who else mentioned that? No one.
Alwatan had an article about 25th of January (7adatha fe mithl hatha ilyawm), they said Jan 25 in 1967, Kuwait had its elections and they mentioned the total turnout without even mentioning the Fraud.
People in kuwait are living for the moment. They dont ee the future, they neglect the past, they are going to die sorry
مبتدئ
January 27th, 2005 at 5:36 pm
Next time you get a question from someone give them a book and fek 3omrk.
If you want to know more about history, Kuwait or any other place, go to the UK and check the British Library, you will see documents after documents detailing events that you would never imagine happened or occured.
January 27th, 2005 at 8:50 pm
Q
Your reason are valid, I can not say anything more. However we have to consider other issues. We are a nation of non-readers. The concept of reading was not pressed in us.
Look at our (Kuwait) publishing restrictions, there is a committee that approves books and publications. Needless to say, that political or romance and other taboo subjects are hardly approved for publication.
The few available books are confined to certain period and we have several historians, but unfortunate are bias and not objective. Do you believe a historian that claims that all Kuwaiti are Sunni. What happened to the Shiiat and Christian Kuwaitis?
Thanks for bringing up the subject, and many thanks for the Kuwaiti Past site.
January 27th, 2005 at 10:02 pm
Reply to ur comment:
Include details of the pics, time, place, type of camera, ect… Cannot wait to see the pics 
Wow, Q!! sounds interesting… Yes, I always check my gmail. Send pics to q80girl@gmail.com but hey I am no expert at analyzing pics but I will see what is it
January 27th, 2005 at 11:40 pm
Actually, the stuff we were taught by the government is aint that bad, its just that the timing we were taught and mode of teaching was bad. I mean It would make more sense to learn about Kuwait’s history in highschool (maybe thaltha o rab3a) but not in mitwas6a back in our day. Q, the website you have a link has always been on my favourites!! I look at those pics and feel like crying! i love those old pics. Just sad to see all the buildings built in the 60s turn into glass highrise. They should atleast maintain some! Am still not over The qariya al turathya! I cant believe an Egyptian designed it - to all you out there it was supposed to be a replica of an old kuwaiti fireej based on an aerial photo taken in the 50s! well reality is that dude will just turn it into something that isnt really what it was. Q, if you want books on Kuwait lemme know (am afraid you wont return them though and lose em haha)I’ve read em atleast 3 times. Enjoy the old map of Kuwait (the long borderline)*sniff* *sniff*.
January 28th, 2005 at 12:14 am
هناك ايضا كتاب ممتاز لطارق رجب
به صور للكويت فى فتره ما بعد النفط
جدا ممتع
January 28th, 2005 at 1:28 am
Bah. Wrote a long post that got lost.
Rehash of main points:
Kuwait’s history is mostly oral, and not written, and as the older generation die, we lost that.
Arab of the Desert by HRP Dickson. great book that details Kuwaits life culture and politics.
KuWiki.org History page anyone can edit and update it to add to the information.
Wikipedia Kuwait page Its pretty good and like KuWiki growing.
Kuwait does has as department dedicated to finding cateloging and researching the history of Kuwait and they have tons of books and material that people can access.
They are also lots of private people that love to find old stuff about Kuwait.
A fun question, When was Kuwaits independence day from Great Britan?
January 28th, 2005 at 3:25 am
Nibaq - I think it’s 19/06 and definitly not 25/02. The reason why it was moved to an earlier date is to commemorate Shai5 Abdullah Al-Salim’s accession to the throne - that’s the official history.
However, according to my family’s oral history, passed down mother to daughter, 19/06 was regarded too hot to celebrate the country’s independance day, so they had to pick another date where the weather is more tolerable to rejoice over the occasion.
If my mother’s version of our history is true , then it proves that our forefathers did care about celebrations and having fun like normal people, unlike the bearded hooligans we have these days!!!!
January 28th, 2005 at 3:32 am
I had an interesting social studies teacher…propaganda is fun.
Most of what I was taught concerned the history of the royal family and our security pact with the british…the rest was mostly on the israeli conflict and OPEC/UN/-enter favourite useless organization here-
peace
perhaps kuwiki is a good place to start collecting this info..
January 28th, 2005 at 1:29 pm
Q…
It’s because all we learned is تاريخ الشيوخ, we didn’t learn ANYTHING about the struggles of our ancestors and we certainly didn’t learn about our constitution. And another thing… some countries’ history is simply more interesting than others. Lets face it
Shurouq.. I had Nagroor for lunch yesterday at my grandmothers. It was huge!
January 28th, 2005 at 2:25 pm
Q
No I don’t, was always a boring subject to me, blame it on the educational system in Q8, the whole system needs a master minded re-engineering shuffle. But at least I thank god that I was one of the lucky ones who studied abroad and developed the eye opening mind to know that knowledge is not a load of information you store in your brain and then recall with a push button, rather it’s a tool that facilitate you to get information whenever you want. Because no matter how much you think you know, you still know nothing.
January 28th, 2005 at 4:37 pm
Shosho, you are right… it was changed to feb 25th because its a better time to party hahaha. Atleast thats what i was told by granny.
February 1st, 2005 at 2:50 pm
Hey Amigo, you can try the following: http://adsanee.8m.com/
for some political History of Kuwait.
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