أول شي عذروني على الغيبة انشغلت هالأسبوع بأشياء كثيرة

عندي ثلاث مواضيع بدأت أكتب فيها بس في حدث كبير و مأساوي حصل قبل كم يوم و جدا منزعج من الخبر و منزعج أكثر من انعدام التغطية بالصحافة الكويتية

إعصار عنيف ضرب بورما / ميانمار قبل 3 أيام ….

آخر التصريحات تتوقع أكثر من 100,000 قتيل!!

100,000 ….

قرى بأكملها غرقت، و تقرير آخر يقول أن أغلب الضحايا من الأطفال ..

المحاصيل الزراعية تلفت بأكملها

أعداد المشردين مئات الآلاف بدون أكل أو مياه نظيفة

كارثة انسانية بكل المقاييس

صح؟

الصفحة الأولى بالراي و الوطن و الجريدة و السياسة و الأنباء بالأيام الثلاثة الماضية كانت خالية من أي خبر عن الإعصار!!

القبس كتبت شي صغير بالصفحة الأولى تحت …. و بس!

ندوة فلان و قال فلان أهم من كارثة بهالحجم؟؟

معقولة إحنا كشعب تافهين لدرجة أن الخبر ما يهمنا لأن الناس اللي ماتوا مو عرب أو أمريكان أو أوروبيين؟!

لازم الواحد بهالفترة ياخذ خطوة للوراء و يحاول يقيم الأولويات

هل الحياة البشرية أصبحت مالها قيمة و الـ 100,000 قتيل مجرد رقم كل يوم نسمع أرقام غيره في العراق و دارفور و التيبيت و كينيا و غيرها … ؟

هل قاعد تحوشنا مناعة ضد الإحساس بالانسانية؟؟

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صور للكارثة -

قبل الإعصار

بعد الإعصار

قبل

بعد

صور مخيفة للدمار

اليوم يوم غريب … من بدايته في شي مو طبيعي

قعدنا من النوم و سمعنا عن إلقاء القبض على أعضاء في لجان انتخابية في مقرات لجمال العمر و عصام الدبوس بتهمة شراء الأصوات! و الخبر يقول أن الداخلية كانت تراقبهم من فترة و صادوهم بالصوت و الصورة!

خبر غير متوقع و رائع … كل الكويت و حتى اللي خارج الكويت عارفين عن شراء الأصوات و منو اللي يشتري الأصوات، و الحكومة مع هذا كانت مغمضة أو تسوي روحها ما تدري لدرجة أن الأمر ما صار يعتبر أزمة أخلاقية أو قضية قانونية و بالعكس صارت الظاهرة تنتشر و الناس تقول بدون حياء أنها بتبيع صوتها … كانت الحكومة ساكتة لدرجة أن الناس صارت تتهم الحكومة بأنها وراء العملية و الناس ما تنلام على هذا التفكير 

و لما الناس تشوف فساد قانوني و انحلال أخلاقي بالعلن و الاعتقاد يكون أن الحكومة وراءه … أكيد ردة الفعل تكون حالة فقدان الثقة و فقدان أي أمل بالتقدم و الإصلاح بالبلد إذا حاميها حراميها

المهم …

طلعت من البيت و بطريقي للدوام أشوف سيارات المرور واقفة و يخالفون الناس اللي تستخدم حارة الأمان! يوميا أشوف ناس تستخدم حارة الأمان إذا الشارع زحمة بكل قلة أدب و استهتار بدون أي خوف أو رادع …. لدرجة أن حارة الأمان صارت زحمة!! اليوم كل الناس صاروا محترمين … أو على الأقل صاروا خايفين من العقوبة بعد ما شافوا سيارة المرور تخالف!

قبل لا أروح الدوام كان عندي مشوار سريع في مجمع الوزارات … وصلت لمواقف السيارات و أشوف رجال الأمن في المواقف يحطون ملصق “ستيكر” المخالفين على كل السيارات المخالفة! و الناس اللي داخلة المواقف كلهم صاروا يحترمون القانون و ينتظرون موقف قانوني فجأة!

 معقول كل هذا يصير بالكويت؟؟؟

القانون له هيبة؟؟ الناس صارت تطبق القانون؟؟

الدولة صارت تبي قانون؟؟

سهل الواحد يقول “وينكم من زمان” أو “تو الناس” أو “شالفايدة أكيد ما راح يتعاقبون” و يبدي يتحلطم ….

بس أنا أبي أتفاءل … كلنا نحتاج تفاؤل و أمل بتغيير جذري

خلونا نعيش اللحظة و خلونا نقول “برافو” يا وزارة الداخلية بيضتوا الوجه

أتمنى أشوف اليوم اللي الكويتي يحترم و يهاب القانون بديرته مثل ما يحترم القانون لما يسافر أي دولة ثانية

Today we had our mini version of a hurricane, and I decided to call it Hurricane Sibeecha, since all hurricanes have female names!

It was a ridiculous mixture of hail, rain, wind, dust, gusts …. etc.

Check out the damage from the pictures (and the video at the bottom) -

view on Gulf Road … and yes, that is all HAIL! (بردي) and the sidewalk is flooded.

Christmas time in Mid-April Kuwait

So .. who thinks global warming or environment will be discussed at all during the elections?

Flooding inside

Elysium board on the ground

I still dont understand how that happened!

Check out the roots of the tree!

Middle of the road!

There were many many more scenes like that which I couldnt take pictures of! I saw light posts on the ground, I saw scaffolding fallen from buildings onto the roads, I saw huge billboards plucked from the ground …

I really hope not many people were hurt, and thank God we have the law against the elections signs on the roads, otherwise it could have been even more disastrous!

My production about Hurricane Sibeecha, all video clips were taken by mobile phone -

هذا الإعلان من ركاز طلعلنا بكل مكان

طيب أنا عندي سؤال بسيط … شنو القيم اللي ممكن طفلة نفس اللي بالصورة ما تعدي العشر سنين (بالكثير) إنها تبنيها لنفسها بهذا العمر القصير؟؟

وين براءة الطفولة؟؟

و سؤال أهم …. منو الفئة المستهدفة بهذا الإعلان؟

اللي واضح أن الشريحة المستهدفة هي البنات تحت الـ 12 خلينا نقول و الرسالة المكتوبة هي إن البنت ثابنة على قيمها و الملفت للنظر انها متحجبة بهالعمر الصغير

اللي أنا استنتجه من هالإعلان هو أن القيم = الحجاب و أن البنت مهما كان عمرها لازم تتحجب أو يكون ما عندها قيم … لاحظوا البنات اللي بالصورة خلف الطفلة و صورتهم مو “ثابتة” مهزوزة و من بعيد …. العامل المشترك بينهم أنهم مو متحجبات!

و الحمدالله ركاز موجودة لتعليمنا قيمنا و عاداتنا و تقاليدنا

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

هم قالوا و يقولون

يبون يعلمونا عاداتنا و تقاليدنا

يبون يضبطون أخلاقنا

الناس اللي بالصور من موزمبيق؟؟

كل كويتي و كويتية في الصور أشرف مليون مرة من اللي يقول انه يبي يعلم الناس شلون يصيرون كويتيين

من شفنا الدنيا و احنا نحتفل براس السنة

كل ما صار شي قالوا عادات و تقاليد

احنا كويتيين … مو أشكالكم اللي تعلمنا شنو عاداتنا و تقاليدنا

Day by day, living here in Kuwait, I continue to lose my faith in people’s humanity.

From small things like breaking the traffic laws by driving in the safety lane to things like someone asking for a bribe to get things done, or someone disrespecting and humiliating another person like a housemaid or driver publicly like they dont deserve the human respect, or someone in the parliament demanding that the government drop all loans and throw more money at everyone right now without a care about the country or its future, or someone throwing their can of pepsi or their cigarette box from their car window …. etc…

Every single day I get more and more frustrated and lose hope.

Today browsing YouTube really made me happy. Some sort of ‘underground’ movement was started by a blog in which Dec 17th is the launch of the “Nerdfighter Power Secret Project for Awesome“. Click on the link for a better explanation, but in a nutshell, a bunch of nerds want to take over YouTube by adding the thumbnail on every video they produce and try to get as many as possible in the top rated and so on … and each video has the person who created it talking about their favorite charity so YouTube users can donate. In their words, they want to “decrease world suck”!

And this is a snapshot of what top rated videos on YouTube look like today -

Glad to see 14 of the top 20 as part of the project! There are ALOT more on each page.

The project is amazing and the response and participation they got was amazing! It is amazing because its getting all these random people from all over the world to do good and encourage others to do good, and it also opened up my eyes to many issues and charities that I never knew about … they cover everything …

Cancer research
Autism
Environmental issues
Animal protection
Natural disaster victims
Organ donation
Educational causes
Music and Arts for children

…. and the list goes on and on ..

Its an inspirational project, and the fact that its working really makes me happy and restores my faith in people’s humanity

Have a wonderful Eid Holiday

A friend of mine started a blog and wasn’t convinced the posts are “blog material” because of the length and so on…

Please check out the blog - An Exercise in Procrastination

This post has to be one of the most well written and well thought out posts Ive seen in a long time, I took permission before reposting it here -

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Why the Constitution is losing the battle against Islamization.

This post is really long, please feel free to only read the bolded section - the gist of the argument. The rest is simply evidence and background information which is central in backing my argument.
There is a wide discrepancy between what is obligatorily taught as Islamic legal theory and the reality of Kuwait’s legal system and it’s constitution. I will analyze the divergence between the theoretical ideal proposed by the education system and the political reality and the implications that this discrepancy has on our society. Specifically, I will address the Hudood laws.

The official relationship between the Islamic Shariah and Kuwaiti politics is defined in the constitution of Kuwait: “The religion of the State is Islam, and the Islamic Shariah shall be a main source of legislation” (Part 1, Article 2). The use of “a main source of legislation” as opposed to the main source of legislation is a formulation that merely indicates a vague ‘mission statement’ but lacks precise political direction;

Furthermore, despite establishing the Shariah early on as a “factor in legislation”, it is not mentioned ever again in the Constitution. This is most obvious in the articles that refer to the judiciary and the legislation which are never explicitly related to the Shariah. Article 79, which outlines the legislative, states that “no law may be promulgated unless it has been passed by the National Assembly and sanctioned by the Amir”. It does not mention the relevance of the Shariah and whether and to what extent it should be taken to account. The same issue arises in the judiciary branch which according to Article 53, “[judicial power] shall be vested in the Courts, which shall exercise it in the name of the Amir within the limits of the Constitution” – and not within the limits of the Shariah. This, along with the vagueness of the phrase “shall be a main source” further reinforces the idea that the second article is more of a mission statement and is not meant to have direct political influence.

(Remember the Constitution of Kuwait has 183 articles! The Sharia is mentioned only that one time. Islam is mentioned another time in article 18: “The State safeguards the heritage of Islam and of the Arabs and contributes to the furtherance of human civilization.” Again, both articles are obviously in a ‘mission statement’ sense. )

While the Shariah’s role is vague in the constitution, the Kuwaiti Islamic Studies high school curriculum is much more elaborate and specific when it comes to it’s role. These educational materials are authored and published by government institutions and are mandatory for every Muslim high school student. I am using Islamic studies books that I had when I went to high school - first half of the 2000’s (see works cited).

According to the chapter “The Responsibilities of the Muslim Ruler”, “the implementation of the Islamic Shariah is one of the most important goals of a Muslim leader” (Al-Jamal, 227). But, the Shariah, other than being the path of God, is not explicitly defined in the curriculum; however, the basis of the Shariah is defined:

“The Halal and the Haram are the central basis of Islam, on which the Faith and the Shariah are built. For on its principles [the Faith and the Shariah], life flourishes, the legislation is set and the Hudood of God are applied.” (Al-Kandary, 67)

Here, the textbook explicitly attributes the Hudood to the Shariah.

A Had is defined as “a fair punishment that is mandatory, being the right of God” (Al-Jamal, 173). There are six Hudood laws and they apply to six different violations or Islamic sins namely, apostasy, adultery, drinking alcohol, theft, highway robbery and false accusation of adultery (Al-Jamal, 173). The Hudood for each violations differ, they include death (Al-Jamal, 182), stoning (Al-Jamal, 214), whipping (Al-Jamal, 211), amputation (Al-Jamal, 190) and the freeing of slaves (Al-Jamal, 188). Even though some of these Hudood and violations are archaic and cannot be strictly defined today, such as the freeing of slaves and highway robbery, they are still listed along with the others in the textbook and thus given equal importance. The Hudood can neither be pardoned nor appealed after being sentenced since they are God’s own right (Al-Jamal, 175).

Thus, according to this curriculum, the ruler, being obliged to apply the Sharia, must enforce the Hudood. Since, theoretically according to the textbooks, the main responsibility of a ruler is to apply the Sharia, this duty would include the implementation of the Hudood as well. But what is the legal reality of the Hudood in Kuwait?

Kuwait does not apply the Hudood, on constitutional grounds. On March 1996, then Hussein Qambar Ali, a Kuwaiti , formally announced to the world that he had converted to Christianity. Following this announcement, a lawsuit was launched in an Islamic court by independent Islamist lawyers to denounce him as an apostate and strip him of his civil rights. The Had for apostasy is death (Al-Jamal. 182), and yet these lawyers did not request such a punishment. The Islamic court declared him an apostate and he lost the case. When the residing judge was asked about the possibility of the death penalty, he noted that even though that is possible under the Shariah, it would be unconstitutional and in violation of Kuwaiti criminal law. In fact Ali appealed by claiming that the Islamic court had no jurisdiction over him using the 35th article of the constitution,

“Freedom of belief is absolute. The State projects the freedom of practicing religion in accordance with established customs, provided that it does not conflict with public policy or morals.”

To further demonstrate this point, there has never been an incident of neither stoning nor amputation in Kuwait’s legal history. The constitution was put above the Islamic Shariah in this case and in all others - when it comes to the Hudood as explained by the education system.

The fact that the notion of applying the Had of apostasy was disregarded by an Islamic judge as unconstitutional and that it was not even mentioned by the Islamist lawyers as a viable retribution in this case, illustrates the discrepancy between the political reality and the theoretical ideal relationship between the state and the Hudood Laws as defined by the Islamic studies government curriculum.

The government publishes mandatory books that demand a ruler that governs under the Shariah and thus must enforce the Hudood. In reality, however, they are not implemented on constitutional grounds. There is an obvious contradiction here: either the law and the constitution is to change or the education system. This contradiction (one of many between the Islamic studies curriculum and the constitution), I believe, is one of the main reasons for the success of Islamist politics in Kuwait, an issue that many fail to see the significance of.

In 1992 after the liberation of Kuwait and the return of parliamentary elections, the Islamic Salafist group in Kuwait convened in a conference named the “Popular Islamic Conference” to set an agenda; they were about to officially announce their political platform for the first time. The first two goals included in the conference’s final report were:

“1. Changing the second article of the constitution making the Shariah the main source of legislation.” (Report of Popular Islamic Conference)
“2. Changing all current legislation that violates the Islamic Shariah.” (Report of Popular Islamic Conference)

These goals have yet to be achieved, but an enforced education system that challenges the constitution’s legitimacy only augments the possibility of achieving these goals; it leaves us Kuwaitis with the choice between our constitution and our religion, as we are made to understand it through this curriculum! This education system places us all in an interesting position: Are we to apply the Hudood, or stick to the constitution and infringe on God’s rights (as we have been made to understand them) ?

This is exactly what is paving the way for the Islamist agenda above.

Works Cited:

The Constitution of the State of Kuwait.
Al-Jamal, Ahmed A. Islamic Studies for the Tenth Grade. 1st ed. Kuwait City: Kuwait Ministry of Education, 2004.
Al-Kandry, Fahed A. Islamic Studies for the Ninth Grade. 1st ed. Kuwait City: Kuwait Ministry of Education, 2006.
Hussein Qambar ‘Ali: Death Threats. Amnesty International. 1996. 14 Dec. 2006
The Report of the Popular Islamic Conference on the Implementation of the Sharia. Popular Islamic Movement ( Al-Tajamu’ Al-Islami Al-Sha’Bi). Kuwait, 1992. Secondary Source: http://www.alqabas.com.kw/Final/NewspaperWebsite/NewspaperPublic/ArticlePage.aspx?ArticleID=222934

*Also, note that in the past few year there have been additions to the mandatory requirements. Now, I believe, one has to take both Islamic Studies and Quran - two separate subjects. At least that is the case in my high school.
*It would be interesting to look at Islamic Studies books of the 1960’s and 70’s. Anyone have any idea?

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Please post your comments at the original page - http://exerciseinprocrastination.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-consitition-is-loosing-battle.html

This is a picture from inside the hospital -

(click for better view)

They had 4 of these posters in one hallway.

I have three comments -

1. What if the patient was Buddhist or whatever?? Apparently there is no hope for him since the doctor can’t do anything!
2. جمعية إعانة المرضى is spending its money on this instead of helping the patients????
3. There is not ONE useful medical point in this poster which can benefit the patients.

Reminds me of this picture from the same organization 3 years ago in one of the hospitals that I posted before -

(click for better view)

Picture from a hospital’s entrance -

Who cares about other people’s lives when it means that I can walk 30 seconds less to and from my car!?

Typical.

In line with the environment issue in the past post, I want to discuss corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Kuwait.

One definition for CSR is -

concept whereby organizations consider the interests of society by taking responsibility for the impact of their activities on customers, employees, shareholders, communities and the environment in all aspects of their operations.

The field is relatively new, and has been gaining attention slowly but surely in the region. Apparently there is an annual Corporate Social Responsibility conference held in Kuwait as well as a few in the region ( 1 , 2 ).

In Kuwait, as far as I can recall, the two companies that are the most active are NBK and Zain. The best example of their efforts is the NBK pediatric hospital and the Zain Hospital (previously MTC) for Ear-Nose-Throat. I can’t really recall any other company really contributing to that extent in that field. I am sure there are other examples but nothing comes to mind right now.

I was looking through several websites of Kuwaiti companies seeing which of them have a section for CSR, and to my surprise, there were more than I expected -

NBK
Zain
Gulf Bank
Agility
Commercial Bank
KIPCO
Equate
Sultan Center
KNPC (pdf)
KPC
Dar Investment

(if you know any more, please tell me so I can update the list)

I was surprised that companies like Wataniya Telecom or KFH didn’t have a section on their website. This doesn’t mean that they don’t contribute to the society as much as others, it just isn’t reflected as an important issue on their website. Some of the links above are very impressive, especially the NBK website dedicated for the CSR.

While looking for some information, I stumbled onto a couple of interesting links.

First, there is the CSR Middle East organization, which is the Middle East’s First Online Corporate Social Responsibility Platform. I like the concept behind it, which at least puts the spotlight on such an important issue.

Another interesting website was the CSR Awards website, which is basically a competition in Kuwait for Kuwaiti companies to award the best of them and give them the recognition they deserve. (Looking through the website, the deadline for submitting a company is in 4 days!)

Its great to see such initiatives from the companies and different organizations on CSR, and glad to see that it is gaining importance. I just hope to see more environemntal issues tackled in these efforts, like the one on the streets from about 3 weeks ago -

This was done by “Challenge the Era Company” (which is sadly a very poor translation of the Arabic name تحدي العصر), which also are related to Environment Friends Campaign (EFC) . Many companies mentioned above and others are involved in sponsoring this campaign.

We need more of that. The main problem we have right now in Kuwait is awareness. Many people are not aware about the environmental issues and their impact. Hopefully the companies with the CSR departments will start looking at this aspect to work on.