On August 2, 1990, the brutal Iraqi invasion forces entered Kuwait while we were sleeping in our homes, and the memory of its horrific events is still engraved in the minds of those who were in Kuwait at the time, and it is difficult for them to forget it. After 33 years of that gloomy day, former MP Ahmad Al-Fadl painfully wonders: Why has the call for patriotism and urging adherence to the constitution no longer had any impact on the hearts of the majority of people who are frustrated and hopeless?
Is it because they have lost the joy of life in light of the prevailing culture of hate, envy, incitement, hatred, exclusion and religious extremism, which is led by political selfishness and partisan interest, which eat away at the unity, security and stability of the country until it left it to a barren bottom? And he says, in deep regret, during a third of the lost century of our life and the life of the homeland, we have squandered all the golden opportunities that were made available to us after liberation.
Instead of rebuilding the Kuwaiti person, we lost his identity, and instead of strengthening and sustaining the economy, we destroyed it, and instead of fighting corruption we developed it, and instead of cleaning and purifying the nationality file, we raised it, and instead of ending the debt crisis, we turned it into a disaster, and instead of enjoying the luxury of the present while securing the future, behold. We mourn both.
So we became like a ship manipulated by crashing regional and international waves that did not reach a port or a beach, but rather reached a deaf rock on which everything crashes! And we wonder with him: What happened to become, overnight, a Taliban state by choice? And how does Mr. Saad Al-Barrak, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Oil, Acting Minister of Finance, and responsible for the Kuwait Investment Fund, who holds a scientific title, come and declare in the National Assembly that the “government” will return to Kuwait the real private sector (apparently we were in an unreal private sector, for two centuries, without knowing it)? His Excellency the Minister based his idea on events and stories whose authenticity cannot be certain, dating back to the beginnings of Islam, noting that the principles and secrets of free trade date back more than a thousand years before that.
I do not know where Mr. Al-Barrak got his words from, and what are the foundations on which he relied, bearing in mind that there is a huge difference, scientifically and practically, between the economy and trade, and our problem in Kuwait is economic, not commercial, so we need to follow old examples, even if what is being circulated is correct, because it has to do with the ways of buying and selling commodities, and has nothing to do with the role of the economy in a modern, highly restricted state.
In his speech, he addresses the superficial thinking that is currently prevalent among the masses, who have become responsive and excited about what others do or think of, or “others”, which is the tone of applying Sharia, which has become “fashion”, and this is a manipulation of the minds of the “poor” majority. I do not know how we accepted putting all this financial and technical power in the hands of a minister who has such views and this kind of thinking?
We say this and add that we do not disagree with him at all in what he said that the government is a failed merchant, and that it cannot manage any commercial business, and its role is limited to oversight, legislation, governing, opening up opportunities and support, and managing a friendly economic environment, but all of this was not a justification for involving religious figures. It has its dignity and respect, in modern issues that have nothing to do with it, just to confirm that Kuwait, which was civil and modern throughout its history, is on its way to becoming religious and has nothing to do with the era?
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By Ahmad alsarraf
