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Arabian Peninsula Media Roundup (October 5)
![[Refinery in Al-Jubail, Saudi Arabia, 10 April 2007. Photo by Jon Rawlinson]](/content_images/3/sm_SaudiOil.jpg "[Refinery in Al-Jubail, Saudi Arabia, 10 April 2007. Photo by Jon Rawlinson]")
[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on the Arabian Peninsula and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Arabian Peninsula Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each week's roundup to ap@jadaliyya.com by Monday night of every week.] Regional and International Relations Why Qatar wants to invade Syria Pepe Escobar analyzes Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani's call for a coalition of Arab countries to solve the crisis in Syria in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly last week, in Asia Times. Reports and Opinions Osama bin Laden and the ...
Keep Reading »August Culture
![[Southern France. Image from Sinan Antoon]](/content_images/3/sm_SummerSkysmall.jpg "[Southern France. Image from Sinan Antoon]")
Jadaliyya's second summer bouquet features an essay by the new co-editor of the Culture Page, Maymanah Farhat, fiction from Lebanon, poetry from Egypt, a remembrance of the great Ghassan Kanafani, and an interview with two Kuwaiti filmmakers. Maymanah Farhat, "Portrait of America: Kehinde Wiley at the Jewish Museum" Marilyn Booth, "An excerpt from Hassan Daoud's "The Penguin's Song"" Suneela Mubayi, "Amal Dunqul's "Spartacus' Last Words"" Faisal Hamadah, "Interview with Two Kuwaiti Filmmakers" Rasim Al-Madhoun, "Ghassan Kanafani: The Symbol of the Palestinian Tragedy" All previous ...
Keep Reading »An Invisible Nation: The Gulf’s Stateless Communities
![[Kuwaiti Bedoon living in the desert near the border with Iraq. Image from I. Piccioni-A. Tiso/Molo7 Photo Agency.]](/content_images/3/sm_bedoon.jpg "[Kuwaiti Bedoon living in the desert near the border with Iraq. Image from I. Piccioni-A. Tiso/Molo7 Photo Agency.]")
The issue of statelessness in the Gulf is as old as the post-colonial oil states from which they are actively being excluded. Until the 1980s, the status of the Bedoon was not seen as a political issue, with the fledgling governments more concerned with state building functions than with further limiting citizenship rights. The oil bust of the 1980s, however, strained the budgets of the Gulf regimes, who responded by constraining social services and restricting citizenship laws. The brunt of these restrictions largely fell on the stateless population—and in some Gulf states on migrant workers as well—who had been allowed health care and public education. Their intent was ...
Keep Reading »Victimizing the Employer: Gulf Media's Backward Reporting
![[Migrant Rights logo. Image from migrant-rights.org]](/content_images/3/sm_migrantrightslogo111.png "[Migrant Rights logo. Image from migrant-rights.org]")
[The following article was published by Migrant Rights on 26 June 2012.] Imbalanced media reporting is a regular topic featured by Migrant Rights; migrants are too often spoken of, but rarely spoken to, as employers and government officials dominate the narrative surrounding foreign worker issues. The public perception of migrants is consequently distorted –one-sided and so skewed it appears deliberately manipulated. The escalating number of employer-centric, alarmist pieces published by Gulf papers contributes to this propagandist character. We’ve dissected several pieces written by employers claiming victimization from “crazy,” “dangerous,” ...
Keep Reading »Arabian Peninsula Media Roundup (July 3)
![[Saudi King Abdullah talks to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh after Saleh signed an agreement to step down on 23 November 2011. Image by AP Photo / Saudi Press Agency, HO.]](/content_images/3/sm_praysmall.jpg "[Saudi King Abdullah talks to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh after Saleh signed an agreement to step down on 23 November 2011. Image by AP Photo / Saudi Press Agency, HO.]")
[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on the Arabian Peninsula and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Arabian Peninsula Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each week's roundup to ap@jadaliyya.com by Monday night of every week.] Regional and International Relations U.S. drops charges against Kuwaiti held at Guantanamo Jane Sutton writes on the Pentagon's dismissal of war crime charges against a Kuwaiti citizen and a Kuwaiti delegation that held talks with American officials requesting the repatriation of the last two Kuwaitis in Guantanamo, on Reuters. ...
Keep Reading »Arabian Peninsula Media Roundup (June 19)
[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on the Arabian Peninsula and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Arabian Peninsula Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each week's roundup to ap@jadaliyya.com by Monday night of every week.] Regional and International Perspectives Exclusive: Arab states arm rebels as UN talks of Syrian civil war Justin Vela exposes the roles of Saudi Arabia and Qatar in providing the rebels with weapons amid fear of a civil war, in The Independent. Saudi Clerics Funnel Cash to Syrian Rebels Through Terror Group Jonathan ...
Keep Reading »Riot Police Violently Disperse Bedoon Protest in Kuwait's Freedom Square
![[Police officers arrest Bedoon protesters in Taima, 1 May 2012. Image by Getty Images.]](/content_images/3/sm_arrest-600x369.jpg "[Police officers arrest Bedoon protesters in Taima, 1 May 2012. Image by Getty Images.]")
[The following is a Bedoon Rights report on the violent break-up of a Bedoon protest on 1 May 2012 in Freedom Square and the consequent arrest of fourteen protesters, including one journalist.] After two weeks of waiting, around two hundred Bedoon protesters gathered in the Taima area to protest for their right to citizenship and against the discriminatory policies and false promises of the Central Agency. The protest started in Najashi Street after the afternoon prayer in Al-Shaabi mosque, which was surrounded by riot police. When the protesters left the mosque to march in “Freedom Square”, activist Abdulhakim Al-Fadhli was directly arrested and taken by state ...
Keep Reading »Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States
![[Cover of Arab Studies Journal Vol. XX No. 1 (Spring 2012)]](/content_images/3/sm_asj.jpg "[Cover of Arab Studies Journal Vol. XX No. 1 (Spring 2012)]")
Adam Hanieh, Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. [This review was originally published in the most recent issue of Arab Studies Journal. For more information on the issue, or to subscribe to ASJ, click here.] What if capitalists in a particular country could draw on a reserve army of semi-skilled labor that includes hundreds of millions of noncitizens whom they could import, hire, fire and expel at will, without worrying about laws, regulations, and collective action? What if they could perfect labor market segmentation to a degree whereby only one social class—capital—reproduces itself, but another—labor—never does? What ...
Keep Reading »Arabian Peninsula Media Roundup (April 18)
[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on the Arabian Peninsula and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Arabian Peninsula Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each week's roundup to ap@jadaliyya.com by Monday night of every week.] "Bahrain: Reforms risk appearing hollow as violations continue," the latest report on Bahrain by Amnesty International, entitled "Flawed Reforms: Bahrain fails to achieve justice for protesters." "As Protests Continue to Flare, Should Formula One Be Returning to Bahrain?" An article on politics ad ...
Keep Reading »Bedoon Rights: An Online Reference on Statelessness in Kuwait
![[Image from beedonrights.org]](/content_images/3/sm_BRimage.png "[Image from beedonrights.org]")
Bedoon Rights is a network founded by stateless Kuwaiti advocate Mona Kareem putting together contributions by a number of stateless volunteers mostly based in Kuwait. The network is the only online reference in English devoted for the case of statelessness in Kuwai. It provides relevant official documents translated, reports made by international organizations, daily reporting, videos, photos, and it offers help to journalists, correspondents, and bloggers interested in spotlighting the stateless struggle in Kuwait by offering information, on-ground guidance, and relevant interviews. There are at least 120,000 people bidun jinsiyya (without nationality) ...
Keep Reading »Undocumented and Afraid
![[Image from unknown archive]](/content_images/3/sm_undoc.jpg "[Image from unknown archive]")
They took them in, shackled their brown hands, threaded out their thick hair, and told them “We will now turn you into soldiers, fighting against hope, warring against life. You have two choices: death or death.” They stared at the hours, then removed their eyes, hanging each upon its nail. Then they waited and waited for the funeral of memory to start. They set the light on fire and recited myths, fairytales, and stories about their fathers, their stupid fathers, who were once heroes and are now nothing but cowards. Why did you leave us in this trap without any poems? Why did you color the sky yellow? Why did you give us stars to hang our hearts on? We did not do ...
Keep Reading »Resistance and Revolution as Lived Daily Experience: An Interview with Leila Khaled (Part 3)
![[Center: Leila Khaled. Image from unknown archive.]](/content_images/3/sm_leilacamp.jpg "[Center: Leila Khaled. Image from unknown archive.]")
[This is Part 3 of a translated transcription of a series of interviews conducted by the author with Leila Khaled during the summer of 2007. Click here to read the Introduction to the interview, here to read Part 1, and here to read Part 2.] The 1960s were particularly formative for many activists and thinkers in the Middle East, Leila Khaled among them. It was the high point of the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), one of the major political parties of the period. Many of its members would splinter off and develop new organizations, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). This decade also marked important shifts ...
Keep Reading »Kuwaiti Government Official Condemns Twitter
[The following statement was issued by the Arab Network for Human Rights Information on 13 August 2012.] ANHRI denounced the statements of the Under Secretary of the Kuwaiti Ministry of Information (Suleiman Hamoud), in which he attacked the use of the social network website Twitter, saying that it is being used by hostile countries to spread discord in the Gulf countries in general and in Kuwait in particular. Hamoud said the following in a press statement: Parties hostile to the ...
Keep Reading »Interview With Kuwaiti Filmmakers
[With a desert to one side and an ocean to another, living in Kuwait can offer very strange experiences. The skies are never blue, approaching a disconcerting beige, and the night bathes in the surrealistic orange glow of street lamps. The ministries and government buildings have the facades of Soviet prisons, and remind one of a Kafka novel when entered. There is that Lynchian feeling of madness hiding behind the wholesome exterior that many wear, and the social customs, especially of the confused ...
Keep Reading »يوم ودعنا البحر
تلين لنا المقادير أحياناً، فتحيل أحلامنا واقعاً مبهجاً. تعاندنا في أحيان أخرى فتخذلنا الأيام، وقد تقسو علينا فتهب رياحها عاتية مزمجرة، تتقاذفنا في ظلمات البحر، فتخلع القلوع من صواريها، وتلقي بمراكبنا مجروحة مبعثرة الأخشاب على مرسى غريب لا يعرفها. آويت إلى فراشي في ذلك الأربعاء، الأول من شهر آب، مبكراً فلدي موعد في صباح اليوم التالي لاستلام البطاقة المدنية الجديدة التي صدرت لي بعد تجديد إقامتي في الكويت. كنت قد أخذت درساً واحداً في الفصل الصيفي في جامعة الكويت ضمن برنامج دراستي للهندسة الميكانيكية. ...
Keep Reading »Kuwait: Bidoun Nationality Demands Can't Be Silenced
[The following report was issued by Refugees International on 6 March 2012.] KUWAIT: BIDOUN NATIONALITY DEMANDS CAN'T BE SILENCED As many as 100,000 people living in Kuwait are stateless. They are called “bidoun,” and over the last twelve months thousands have been gathering peacefully in Taima Square to insist that the government recognize their Kuwaiti nationality. Tear gas, rubber bullets, and beatings have all been used to quell the demonstrators. Refugees International (RI) is calling ...
Keep Reading »Chaos in Kuwait: Politics as Usual?
On 18 June, the Emir of Kuwait, Shaykh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah, suspended parliament for a month to head off an escalating row between the cabinet and parliament, the latter of which was about to publicly grill the interior minister over the country’s citizenship laws. Two days later, the constitutional court stepped in with its own ruling that declared the sitting (but newly suspended) parliament to be illegal and called for the reinstatement of the previous parliament. The court’s rationale was that an ...
Keep Reading »Malayalee Associations in the Gulf: Pushing Boundaries of Political Imagination
The migration of Keralites to the Arab Gulf region has generated various forms of translocal political moorings in the host countries. They are translocal in the sense that they are impacted by even the minutest currents within the political intricacies and specificities of Kerala politics, yet are increasingly identified and consumed by the migrants from Kerala—popularly known as Malayalees—in the Gulf. This article elucidates the ways in which Kerala politics, as a “translocal” entity, are being ...
Keep Reading »Arabian Peninsula Media Roundup (May 1)
[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on the Arabian Peninsula and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Arabian Peninsula Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each week's roundup to ap@jadaliyya.com by Monday night of every week.] “FISCALLY SPEAKING: Saudis Wouldn't Gain Much From A Union With Bahrain,” a Kipp report on the disadvantages to Saudi Arabia of union, with other Gulf Arab ...
Keep Reading »Kuwait's Muslim Brotherhood
Islamist political movements have been sweeping the polls in post Arab uprisings that were sparked not by religious fervor and ideology, but by demands for democracy and freedom. Revolutionaries, who succeeded in toppling dictators such as those in Egypt and Tunisia, resent that Islamists who had little to do with their popular secular rebellions are now reaping the fruits of their efforts and being crowned as victors. More importantly, they are alarmed by the prospects of the formation of religious ...
Keep Reading »Kuwait's Legislative Absurdity: Kuwaiti MPs Approve Death Penalty for “Cursing God”
Where to begin? The 1961 Press and Publications Law in Kuwait stipulates that blasphemy is a crime punishable by a prison sentence that ranges from a few months to several years. Following more stringent laws in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the Kuwaiti Parliament just approved provisionally--pending a second vote--the death penalty for those who defame God, or the Prophet and his wives. Apparently, ”[t]he move to stiffen penalties for religious crimes came after authorities ...
Keep Reading »Tribalism in the Arabian Peninsula: It Is a Family Affair
Across the Arabian Peninsula and stretching well into North Africa and Sudan, there is a common bond, perhaps only behind religion and language in importance, that binds Arabic language speakers together. Museums across the Gulf proudly display lineage maps illustrating the family trees of ruling members, linking them through lines and photos from bygone centuries up to the current leader. Major financial institutions in Dubai and Bahrain display in their offices large-scale maps detailing prominent ...
Keep Reading »Sovereign Wealth and Ruler Loot
The mobility of capital, depending on one’s position, is a virtue or a vice. Since the onset of the Arab Spring, a lot of money has been moving in, out, and around the Middle East. In the classic liberal world, the mobility of money is governed by the market. In the real world however, politics has a say. Some of these politics have been about fear as Saudi and Emirati rulers have reportedly opened their checkbooks to assuage pressures on favored rulers and foment trouble for others. These moves did not ...
Keep Reading »Shiaphobia Hits Kuwait
If you ever talk to Kuwaiti Shias over 40 years old about discrimination against the Shia in their country, they might mention how they have been mistreated, on different levels, during the Iran-Iraq War. Then they would quickly tell you how the Shia proved their detractors wrong when they became part and parcel of the Kuwaiti resistance during the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. That the Al Sabah government was deeply betrayed by Saddam Hussein, whom they had supported in his war with Iran only a few ...
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