Our own car was rocked by a group of about 10 hoodlums trying to get in. We didn’t have foam. We didn’t even make eye contact. They kicked the doors, they scratched the paint, they shouted obscenities. The police had no way of controlling the crowds; most looked on with disgusted expressions; many of the older guys shaking their heads in disappointment.
Desert Girl has a really good post on how the National Day and Liberation Day celebrations keep getting worse and worse every year. Its really sad how these kids have turned 2 days of celebration into 2 days of terror. Next year I hope they ban the sale of foam cans in stores. Here is a link to her post. [Link]
33 replies on “Two Days of Terror”
i didn’t even bother myself going there 🙂
A lot of these are pretty much like animals to say the least because they simply go out of their mind when it comes to celebration and the best of all they are not even intoxicated.
I’m a teenager so obviously I went there with a shitload of foam, but I really despise some of the things kids do. I keep it civilized, I keep it in the name of fun. I joke around with random people, and really just keep it fun..
Some kids do it in the name of assholeness(7qara ya3ni), they throw balloons with paint in them, they open doors on people and ruin their cars, they bounce around on girls’ cars, they gang up on girls having fun, they throw empty foam cans on people/cars etc..
I think of it as a foam party, some think of it as some extreme foam-y war version of paint ball..
My sisters are pissed off at me for not letting them go, but after seeing what some of the guys there do to girls I don’t regret my decision.
Side note, in yesterday’s paper they wrote about a kid who got stabbed and beaten by a bunch of guys simply for defending his sister that the guys ganged up on in the Jlaia’a area. The brother’s currently between life and death.
its bout time we brought back public stoning. These ass wipes wont listen the good way!
Keep it to: foam and chmaqs. And no foam on the front windshield. No removal of the windshield wipers- in fact, no touching the car whatsoever. If people inside the car are not cooperating, for goodness’ sake get the point and DON’T SPRAY THEIR CAR. Of course, I realize this is too much to ask for in Kuwait, so maybe the idea of banning maseerah’s altogether is a more efficient way of reducing the amount of assholes in the streets at this time of year.
I think crazy acts of crime happened during the first day(25), ’cause on the second day the police kept diverting and breaking up the traffic in the Gulf street unlike the first day. My friends were pissed, I was secretly glad.
why do the cops block all the exits on the gulf road? if you get on the gulf road you cant escape it until you get to either bida3 round about or seef palace a trip which could easily take an hour or 2. Why not give people a chance to escape the chaos? why force all the cars to participate in gulf road mess?
I saw some people talking to the cops and they let them through the blocked exists.
Why they clogged all the traffic in one big street? My only guess is to be able to control it and not have to control the entire Salmiya area. ‘Cause when they did that there were cops moderating all the maseera.
I don’t think Kuwait has enough cops to moderate all the maseeras in Kuwait(Khalij, bnaider etc.) and still have enough for emergency situations.
Wise decision if that’s the case.
hmm. i wonder what the national guard was doing..
i remeber few years back, there were an ancident were kids filled their water guns with gas! anywho .. the foam fiasta was fun when i was young ..
the cops were fucking stupid and worthless as usual. they set up chairs and sat watching and laughing like the animals they are.
Holla, they didn’t do just that. They had police checkpoints, and if a cop saw you spraying foam then would’ve taken your foam away. They also had cops in street clothes stopping the kids that were sitting on cars and spraying cars. They also had a lot of regular cars with the police blue siren thingy on top in the middle of the traffic. They also had a lot of cops walking around on the sidewalks.
They did a lot of things, they tried their best to KEEP the foam party alive in a sensible way. If they wanted to kill it, they would’ve.
I can’t seem to post on Desert Girl’s blog (needs some sign up to google? f*** that). So here’s my 2 fils:
I’m sorry to say, if someone attacked my car I’d get out and beat the cr*p out of them to the best of my ability. But then, I’m a bloke. You should not have to hide away. It may be possible to get those paralysing “tazers” in Kuwait somewhere, or even cans of mace which you might be able to give a quick spray out of the window.
Unfortunately, if all the police can do is look on with no action, being a vigilante is the only available option.
not enough cops in kuwait?
we have more than enough, but half the police force are too good 4 work
they should ban masseras all together, i doubt anyone can control these hooligans!
i feel sad for the people of this country….
Kuwaits excess money should be spent on a better education system instead of just giving it out for free…
The problem is these kids are let out by their families with no supervision, just complete chaos.
I have to agree with Biohazard, the police were trying, they can only do so much before throwing people in Jail and I bet they wanted to do more, I agree that this has to be stopped to a certain degree, they should do a parade or something but they should stop these kids if they can, its insane!
Thats one part of Kuwait I wont regret leaving behind, the Gillette parade.
what a shame
i was out of applebee’s going to my car that day in the afternoon and a car passed by sepraying me but luckily the foam didn’t “catch” me bcoz of the air
To all the people that are pissed of from the foam, why did you go to the gulf road or to the maseeras in the first place. You know that theres gonna be foam maniacs like me , so avoid the Gulf Road for these two days next year !!!!
i love foam: i don’t think we’re against the foam its just basic respect man, have fun but don’t be hooligans,
avoid gulf road, circumstances didn’t allow that, that’s still no excuse…
i love foam: some of us LIVE on Gulf St. I also have very good car insurance so I’m happy to read-end anyone who comes close to me with a can.
that should have been “rear-end” not read end. See how traumatised I am from the *celebrations*?
I Love Foam: Nobody has a problem with foam, the problem is with these kids who have no sense of decency and attack people who have nothing to do with it, violently. Damaging cars, and scaring women. That doesn’t seem like a lot of fun, I used to enjoy the foam wars but we wouldn’t spray just random people who had nothing to do with it, and we wouldn’t attack women and we understood that when we were 10 yearsold. Whats their excuse for acting like animals?
i don’t know what miracle cops you are talking about but i was stuck on the road from marina to 2nd ring and i saw ppl getting hosed down with foam and car doors open in front of the cops (parked under marina bridge) and all they did was laugh like dickheads and go back to talking on their mobiles or just lean on the car.
most had chairs set up and a group had a stupid tent with tv in it and shit. the police did absolutely NOTHING except add to the annoyance by blocking left turns and occasionally forcing cars to move so they can pass.
its really hard to be a cop in a maseera.. but they did what they could.. i mean they gave a lot of ppl tickets including my cuzin cuz he had his head out of the rooftop.. and they took away foams that werent being used right. and just like biohazard said there were also cops in normal cloths and i saw them shouting at a few guys..
they did thier best atleast. it was still fun though 🙂
I was there for the first time enjoying the spraying myself. Hey, if you don’t want to be part of it, don’t be on Gulf Road at that time. There are simply many ways to get from one place to another in Kuwait, use another road. I believe if you are on Gulf Road between 7 and midnight on the 25th, 26th or the 27th…you want to get sprayed. Doesn’t that make sense?
Salwa: Yes it does, thats what i wanted to tell all of them, and if you live on the Gulf Road dont go out. stay in ur apartment for these 2 days.
I disagree with those who say you should stay home even if you live on Gulf Road. Unless you’re under house arrest, you should never be a prisoner in your own home. There are some kids out there having a good time within limits and that is fine. But if there is any sort of property damage, assault or danger then the police need to act and act fast to put an end to it.
No society should tolerate such behavior that puts anyone residing in its jurisdiction in jeopardy.
People could start something like this petition in Singapore:
https://new.petitiononline.com/aerosol/petition.html
I was coming home from work on the 26th and couldn’t turn in from showbiz to get to my apartment because it was blocked by police cars. I had to go past all the blocked u turns on the Gulf Road, past Salmiya Palace, Sultan Center, Marina Mall, and only got to take a U turn at the 3rd ring road!
The worst thing… some guy right in front of me with wasta was able to speak to the police to take a u turn at Marina, but when I asked RIGHT AFTER HIM, i was turned down – even though I showed him my civil id.
Next year I;m sure there WILL be a riot or a mass molestation or a gang rape incident.
check this out (published in Kuwait Times):
Nightmare on National Day
Published Date: March 02, 2007
By Eman Goma
I always call up my Kuwaiti friends on Feb 25 to congratulate them on the occasion of National Day. On that day, I also get tens of calls from people telling me not to drive on the Gulf Road if I want to reach my home safe and sound. This has been the tradition and it worked well in the past. But this year, everything went differently.
Driving back home from work in Shuwaikh around 10 pm on Sunday usually takes me no more than 10 minutes. I go to the city through the Sheraton roundabout. The normally quiet ride turned out this Sunday to be anything but. Police had closed all the exits leading to the city or the Sheraton, and were directing traffic towards the highway. “OK,” I thought, “This can’t be too bad, at least this road will not take me to the currently scary Gulf Road.”
I took the exit to the airport in an attempt to take a left and go to Kuwait City. But you can’t imagine the line of cars stopped at the traffic light. They weren’t moving and dozens of Kuwaiti youth were dancing in the street and spraying foam on other cars. I looked anywhere but towards those guys, hoping they wouldn’t notice me.
Then I noticed a teenager, smoking what appeared to be an illegal cigarette in his left hand, approaching my car. He tried to open the passenger door, but luckily I’d already locked it. He seemed to get mad and kicked the right wheel and then started spraying foam on my windshield. Trying to defend my windshield, I started sparkling it with water. But he was too smart for such a move. He pulled up the wipers, leaving me with no choice but to enjoy my windshield turning foamy white and hope that I would be able to see the car in front of me if the cars ever started moving.
Another guy wearing a white dishdasha then ran to my car. I thought, “Oh, my God they are reproducing!” Yet this respectable guy actually came to my rescue and put down the wipers and told his friend to leave me alone. Thanks be to God for such gentlemen! Unfortunately, less than a minute had passed when a new group discovered me. It seems the closer cars got to the traffic light, the closer they got to Kuwait’s hooligans. Now it was not just one guy with one spray can – they were four.
One stuck his face on the window next to me, the other on the passenger’s window and two stared through the windshield.
The nasty guy on my right started licking the window, trying to get me to look his way. He shouted, “I’ll leave you alone if you give me a kiss on the cheek,” and pointed with his filthy finger to his right cheek. I swear I wanted to slap this kid on the face. Instead, I looked the other way trying to calm myself down. But this seemed to enrage the kid and he and two of his friends got up on top of my car and started jumping as if they own this world. The guy then came down, leaving the rest on top of my car resting on the windshield, and he pointed again to his cheek. In my final attempt to scare these teen-hooligans, I dialled 777 on my cell phone and showed it to him, with a very strong belief inside me that they would now run away.
It was his reaction and the long unanswered rings that finally caused me to panic. I started shaking. The guy at my window laughed when he saw 777 on my cell phone and yelled to the others that I was calling 777. He shouted to me “Call them! Call them! I don’t care! Tell them my name is Abdel Aziz.”
It seemed I was doomed, because apparently, 777 operators were also on holiday. I waited in horror for the rest of the hooligans to gang up on me. The worst thoughts ever came to my mind. Then suddenly the car in front of me moved forward. But should I drive home with the three monkeys on top of my car? I had no choice. I hit the gas. Luckily, two of the three fell in front of the car, the third one got down on his own but just stopped in front of me thinking for a split second that I wouldn’t hesitate to accelerate, but I guess he then figured out how serious I was and moved as I sped away. I’ve lived in Kuwait for at least 18 years, and have been to many of the National Day parades. Never have I been in such a threatening situation. What went wrong this year? Were the cops just there to direct the traffic, overlooking such violations and allowing these youngsters to abuse others?
After the frustration, fear, anger and anxiety I felt in these 30 long minutes, I am positive that anywhere else is safer than Kuwait on Feb 25-26, especially when you call 777 for help and the only help you get is a dial tone.
Email me at [email protected]
One day the history books will record the exact moment when foam became associated with celebrating our independence… until then we are left to scratch our heads in bafflement
Teenage boys with overactive hormones running amok for 2 days… maybe if their lives weren’t so empty and repressed the rest of the year they wouldn’t look forward to this “release”.
The funny thing is all it takes is a general announcment from the government that there will be no “parades” allowed. Instead there should be a national patriotic parade with fireworks like the good old days