Kuwait is a shrimp among whales, to borrow an image usually applied to Korea. Little more than a postage stamp in the Persian Gulf, Kuwait was long overseen, or “protected,” by Great Britain, before becoming independent in 1961. It offers a liberal model for other Gulf states, but faces increasing internal political strife and an uncertain future.
Kuwait has a population of some 3.6 million, two-thirds of whom are not citizens. Abundant oil revenue has provided the Kuwaiti people with a good life. However, the small country is stuck in a bad neighborhood. Scars remain from the short-lived Iraqi invasion two decades ago. Earlier this year Alanoud al-Sharekh of the International Institute for Strategic Studies told me: “We are well aware of the dangers of antagonizing our more populous and militarily powerful neighbors.”
For this reason Kuwait is among the most pro-American of nations. “Kuwaitis always remember the sacrifices of the American people in liberating Kuwait,” Undersecretary of Information Salman Sabah al-Salem al-Homoud al-Sabah told me last week. However, this history has less meaning for younger Kuwaitis, who make up a majority of the population.
Although an Islamic monarchy, Kuwait has the Gulf’s oldest elected parliament, most free media, and greatest religious liberty. The Emir appoints the government but is constrained by a constitution. Still, criticism of the royal family is restricted: former MP and opposition leader Musallam al-Barrak was arrested in October for insulting the royals. Nevertheless, most Kuwaitis seem proud of their system. Undersecretary al-Homoud al-Sabah lauded Kuwait’s “long practice of democracy.”
However, politics has become unusually ugly. The National Assembly elected in 2009 gained a reputation for being dominated by the government and, worse, corrupt. Public opposition spread across the political spectrum. Earlier this year the liberal Shafeeq Ghabra, a political scientist at Kuwait University who once ran his country’s information office in Washington, told me that “This is becoming the Kuwaiti Watergate.” About the same time I talked with an Islamist former MP, Dr. Naser al-Sane, who opined that “corruption was the hot issue of the campaign.”
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