Para-ministry of information

The resignation of Kuwait's Minister of Information Mohammad Abul Hassan one day before his scheduled interrogators in the country's parliament (the National Assembly) was yet another major event for this outdated ministry. Scheduled to appear before a tripartite team of interrogators in the parliament last Monday, the minister instead submitted his resignation during a meeting of the cabinet the Council of Ministers on Sunday.

The interrogators wanted to question Hassan over his decision to allow musical concerts and parades in the country, as they regard these events as un-Islamic and thus should be barred.

The reception in Kuwait of Star Academy, a Lebanese version of a French show in which young singers prepare to compete in a performance, was another major event this year that fell into the same category.

The extremist members of parliament saw Hassan as a "liberal" who violated "Islamic ethics" by allowing such degenerate events to take place.

Permits for such events have been routinely obtained from the ministry of information as a matter of course for decades, that is, until a new wave of extreme Islam hijacked the all but relaxed, tolerant version of Islam characteristic of Muslims in Kuwait.

In his resignation, the minister justified his departure as an attempt to ease political and sectarian tension. Weeks before the submission of the motion for interpellation, critics of the interpellators accused them of sectarianism; Hassan is the only Shiite cabinet member, while the three interrogators are all extremist Sunnis.

However, liberal critics of Hassan now argue that an entirely different matter triggered his resignation, namely, a grave violation of the Constitution committed just a few days before the interpellation. Hassan signed a ministerial decision to transfer the certification of a daily newspaper to another company just a few days after a final court sentence declared the company owning the daily paper to be bankrupt.

The ministerial decision was a violation of the Constitution in that it tampered with a decision taken by the Judiciary, as Article 50 of Kuwait's Constitution segregates the executive, legislative and judicial powers. "That was the straw that broke the camel's back," proclaimed two leading columnists in the "liberal" Al Qabas daily that same day.

"My advice to Abul Hassan is to submit his resignation, for he is left with no friends to defend him," wrote Mohammad Mousa'ad Al Saleh last Sunday. Hours later, it was announced that Hassan had submitted his resignation, which was subsequently accepted.

Recurrent attempts

The resignation of Hassan is the second of its type. I resigned from my ministerial post in the ministry of information back in 2000. Earlier, in 1998, Shaikh Saud Al Sabah was shifted from his position as minister of information to the ministry of oil just days before a vote of no confidence was to take place.

The issues raised by the Islamic MPs are recurrent attempts to impose their version of Islam upon the people of Kuwait: what music can be listened to, what books can be read, and even what movies can be released to the public.

Abdulrahman Al Rashid wrote in the pan-Arab Al Sharq Al Awsat that in a democracy, the people's representatives normally defend the people's rights and freedoms, but in Kuwait, the MPs oppose the people's freedom of choice which, argued Al Rashid, requires deeper investigation into the mentality which produces such MPs.

The very notion of a ministry of information is outdated. It all began in the 1950s when communist countries sought to control the flow of information to the people in order to limit their view to a single version of events that of the government. The technological revolution has made information control all but impossible, and therefore, a number of countries in the region, including Qatar and Jordan, have abolished their ministry of information.

For Kuwait to put an end to this agonising headache, it must revolutionise the idea of "information" by replacing the ministry with some form of supreme council, similar to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States. Such a council would regulate and supervise media services (provided by the private sector) in the country.

The government could, of course, choose to have its own television and radio stations, similar to the National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. It could also choose to publish its own daily newspaper.

The continuing problem with the ministry of information is not solely a result of extremist MPs in the National Assembly, but it also resides in the outdated mentality that believes information can still be monopolised, a mentality shared by both extremists and totalitarians.

Another choice the government has would be to give the ministry of information to a zealot who would turn it into his own little hive of extremist ideas. "Institutionalise it or Talibanise it," one Kuwaiti media expert suggested.

Kuwait's minister of information has resigned, and not for the first time. His resignation is not going to cure the chronic headache of information dissemination in Kuwait. The real problem lies in the mentality that believes the flow of information can be controlled, a mentality that has a firm hold in both governmental and religious circles.

Dr Saad Al Ajmi is a former Minister of Information in Kuwait, an academic and analyst. He can be contacted at sajmi@gulfnews.com