If there is a country radically changing since the birth of the Arab Spring, then I would say it’s Kuwait. The leading democracy in the Gulf, as many refer to it, saw protests against former prime minister Shaikh Nasser Al Mohammad Al Sabah in 2009, but it needed the boost of Arab uprisings to take the movement to a higher level.
Parliamentary attempts to oust Shaikh Nasser failed constantly with members of parliament accusing him of bribing several MPs to rescue him with “in cooperation votes”.
Parallel to this, the Arab Spring was able to introduce the public in Kuwait to Twitter so far limited to the elite — American-educated liberal bloggers. Twitter quickly became the number one source of news, political discussion, and more importantly the top generator of public opinion.
In reaction to pro-government media outlets, many activists used Twitter to call for protests against Shaikh Nasser. This led opposition MPs to get into Twitter to the extent of making the social networking site the place to publish their statements first. This, more importantly, helped the public to know the opinions of the opposition bloc regarding other issues such as sectarianism, clashes in the region and the rise of political Islam.
During 2011, several Twitter users were interrogated and even jailed for their posts; mostly for insulting the Sunni or Shiite sects and/or for posts that seen as disrespectful of the Emir and his authority.
Differing opinions
Salafist MP Walid Al Tabtabai took it to the next level when he called on state security police to arrest a Shiite Twitter user for insulting neighbouring regimes. This made it clear that state security had to expand its operations to online censorship. But it also normalised the practice of reporting tweeps; citizens started to report each other simply for having different opinions in religion and politics.
A few months ago, it was striking to see the whole Kuwaiti parliament reacting to tweets written by a Shiite, Hamad Al Naqi. He was recently sentenced to 10 years in jail for insulting Islam and for insulting Saudi and Bahraini authorities. The latter charge was found to be illegal in the earlier case of another blogger Nasser Abdul.
People sought the death penalty as punishment for anyone insulting Islam and its figures. A majority of parliament members gave the green light, whether out of belief or in fear of objecting to the public demand. At the end of the tunnel, the emir blocked the parliamentary law finding it unconstitutional.
In several similar cases, those accused of insulting Islamic beliefs were likely to spend at most three years in jail, according to the constitution. More importantly, the public was not involved visibly in such cases as they were kept between the media and courts.
For instance, the 1999 cases against writers Ahmad Al Baghdadi, Alia Shuaib, and Laila Al Othman, were controversial enough, but did not generate visible public anger and were resolved in courts.
The power of Twitter, which has generally had very limited influence in other countries, seems to have crossed many lines and borders in Kuwait.
Al Tabtabai might not only be the most controversial MP, but also the most controversial in Kuwait’s Twitter sphere. He does not hesitate in using his parliamentary immunity to attack different people for their tweets. He has also made foolish statements that angered many Kuwaitis; most notably his late reference to the flag as a “piece of fabric”.
Racism
Another controversial MP on Twitter is Mohammad Al Juwaihel, a man very open about his racism towards tribes and the stateless community in Kuwait. Al Juwaihel targeted one of his critics, Mishari Bu Yabis, with a series of tweets. Bu Yabis was one of the early Twitter users to have been interrogated for his views against the former prime minister; he has a large number of followers and a harsh sense of sarcasm that is found insulting many times.
Al Juwaihel even “stooped so low” as to tweet about Bu Yabis’s family and threatened to reveal stories about the “honour of his sister”.
Faisal Al Yahya, one of the main figures organising protests against Shaikh Nasser, was elected in February with the support of the public. Al Yahya became popular through his reporting and opinions posted on Twitter and thus became the first man to get into the parliament due to his Twitter power.
The stateless community (officially estimated to be at least 120,000) owes it to Twitter to have helped them get citizens and international media familiar with their cause. Prior to social media and its rising with the Arab Spring, the Bidoon feared speaking with their real identities but this has changed completely. Twitter became the way for a community new to technology to organise their protests and push activists, NGOs and even MPs to speak of their cause.
Twitter has ensured that Kuwaiti politics is no longer an elite pursuit by giving the public a voice. This can be dangerous in the case of passing extreme laws such as the death penalty for blasphemy. However, it marks the end of state media’s monopoly by ending the reign of media owners who dealt with news according to the deals made with authorities.
Mona Kareem is a Kuwait-born blogger, writer and poet based in New York.
