Search: “mis”

Late last month I posted about how some schools are banning the book Harry Potter. Well I now have the full list of books banned which I’ve shared below. This list was created by the Ministry and the Foreign Schools Committee. The list below is for 2014-2015, if there are any spelling mistakes I’m sorry but I had to type the list below manually since I only received a print version not a digital one. In brackets I’ve also mentioned who was behind the ban and you’ll notice the schools have banned more books than the Ministry but that could be because they’re following the Ministry’s guidelines. One thing to note is that schools are recommended to follow this list and not obliged to follow it except for the books banned by the Ministry. Check out the full list below:

I missed my flight to Kuwait a few hours ago because my connecting flight was delayed. I took the picture above as I was stepping off the plane, my flight to Kuwait had just backed away from the gate and was getting ready to taxi to the runway. I missed my flight and was pretty upset. I was supposed to be back in Kuwait later today because tomorrow I was supposed to fly out to Abu Dhabi for a CTS V test drive event at Yas Marina but thats not happening now. The next available direct flight back to Kuwait is October 3rd since the flights for the next two days are all fully booked. So I’m stuck in Washington now for 3 days.

Then it hit me. I’m stuck in Washington for 3 days, that’s not a bad thing. I hear its really humid in Kuwait now so don’t think I’m missing much.

The Global Innovation Index (GII) for 2015 was released last week and Kuwait surprisingly (at least to me) ranked last compared to neighboring GCC states. The GII ranked the innovative performance of 141 countries and economies around the world, based on 79 indicators and Kuwait ended up coming in 77th place in the rankings.

43 – Saudi Arabia
47 – United Arab Emirates
50 – Qatar
59 – Bahrain
69 – Oman
77 – Kuwait

I downloaded the full report to better understand why Kuwait came last in the GCC and so low worldwide and found a few positives and negatives which I’ve highlighted below.

Positives:
Electricity output, kWh/cap (Rank 1)
Pupil-teacher ratio, secondary (Rank 8)
Ease of paying taxes (Rank 11)

Negatives:
Business sophistication (Rank 132)
Knowledge absorption (Rank 130)
Cost of redundancy dismissal, salary week (Rank 124)
Ease of starting a business (Rank 120)

Check out the full report on the GII website [Here]

Thanks Musaed

Yesterday I posted about how Harry Pottery is now banned in Kuwait and awhile ago a reader emailed me the Ministry of Education’s guidelines for books to be excluded from schools. Check out the list below:

—————————————

Ministry of Private Education Guidelines

In accordance with the Ministry of Education’s guidelines, please find below a detailed list of the types of books and/or materials to be excluded from the School’s teaching materials and subjects.

This includes but is not limited to classroom libraries, Library collection, textbooks & Scholastic orders.

I. Books with a Religious Domain that:
1. Personify God, messengers, prophets, angles and companions of the messengers
2. Distort the messengers, their families, disciples, and traditions
3. Allege religious mistreatment between Jews, Muslims and Christians
4. Assert religion as an instigator of aggression, terrorism, activism or invasion
5. Show places of worship in an inappropriate way
6. Claim Mohammed as the “founder” of Islam
7. Describe the immigration to Mecca as, “flight” or “escape”
8. Claim Mohammed was the author of the Quran, or calling the Quran the “teachings of Mohammed”
9. Claim that Islam and other religions were spread by force
10. Offend Islamic and other religions’ traditions, the companions, scholars, and laws and legislators
11. Adopt missionary connotations when talking about religions
12. Teach Darwin’s theory of evolution or the “Origins of Species”
13. Exaggerate the differences between religious sects in Islam and other religions
14. Spread information about witchcraft, reincarnation and the transmigration of souls
15. Rephrase the Quran or other religious books by adding verses and/or chapters to it

II. Books with a Political Domain:
1. View the Arab Israeli conflict with bias and/or sympathy towards Israel
2. Focus on Jewish persecution, during the holocaust, excluding the oppression of other races’ by Hitler
3. Falsify and misinterpret the history of Arab countries
4. Denounce the policy of the State of Kuwait and its sovereignty and attack the GCC and Arab states
5. Rename the Arabian Gulf, the Persian Gulf
6. Claim the islands in the Arabian Gulf as Iranian territory
7. Claim Iran has sovereignty over the Kingdom of Bahrain
8. Distort Arab and Muslim history
9. Claim that the Crusades were caused by religious persecution of Muslims and/or Christians
10. Misinterpret Kuwait’s relation with Arab and other countries

III. Books with a Cultural Domain:
1. Show naked or immoral pictures or photos
2. Contradict Islamic law
3. View marriage as solely a sexual relationship instead of a holy union
4. Condone the eating of pigs
5. Condone the consumption of liquor, alcohol, and drugs
6. Divide or split the social unity of society

Last week a reader called Abdulai Shani left the following comment under the post “The rescue of a domestic worker in Kuwait”:

I’m happy I came across this page. To be frank I’m fascinated as to how most Kuwaitis respond positively.

This is my own story and how I got to Kuwait. It all started somewhere in February this year, I met a guy back in my country in Africa, that is Ghana to be specific who told me he have some “connection” as normally termed in Ghana here in Kuwait and that a reputable company needs security guards to employ. I showed interest because he said I will be paid $1000 per month. I was happy and more than willing, so he demanded I pay $1500 for the processing my my visa and tickets which I paid. When I arrived at the airport of Kuwait on the 1st of April it was a different scenario. I was taken to an agency in Jahra and was told I’m going to take care of sheep on the desert. That was a blow I haven’t recovered till now, because I’m trapped in the sense that I quitted my job which is 100 times better than what I’m doing right here in Kuwait. And the wages i was promised never manifested instead I receive 70kd a month. I can’t even call my mom to tell her what I’m going through because I fear I might break her heart. I Fasted 30 Days during the fasting and can tell you it was hell. I Iive in a tent and the weather is extremely hot. I Have been on the desert for five months now. It’s I’m not the only one over here, we are trapped. We work 24hours a day and no day off and this will continue for 2years. We don’t go any where ,we just work even at night because we have to stay awake and look after the sheep. I’m a muslim and what I have been taught is that a man should not be ashamed of his work if it brings you good deeds and avoid you from stealing, so I’m not ashamed of being a shepherd although I’m well educated but the thing is my freedom have shackled. And the funny thing is our employers call themselves Muslims but will not allow us to go to the mosque on Fridays. All they do is they want us to always work,t hey don’t care even if we don’t pray. Hmmm on the day of Judgement Allah will fight for what they are denying us. Maybe someone reading this will say why we don’t run away or protect, but I tell you if we try to run away they will file a false case against us. And another problem is abuse, they beat my co workers although non have tried that on me yet. We just hope one day our two years contracts will be over. So that we can go back peacefully to our various countries.

After reading that I had no idea what to think. It didn’t make sense, the person who left that comment speaks English fairly well, was able to find my blog and was also able to leave a comment. How is this guy a shepherd? At first I thought it might be a prank but I emailed the guy anyway asking for his number so I could contact him and confirm his story. He sent me his number and I proceeded to chat with him via Whatsapp. Again I was very suspicious, how does a shepherd know what Whatsapp is? In the end he sent me his location and I decided I would drive out to meet him. Friday, after brunch with some friends, I drove an hour and a half alone into the middle of the desert so I could meet a stranger called Abdulai. I honestly had no idea what to expect which is why I had passed the location to my friends… just in case.

It was around 1PM when I pulled up outside Abdulai’s tent. I had called him up minutes earlier trying to figure out where his tent was exactly and the first thing he asked me was if I had driven through the valley of dead sheep. I surprisingly knew what he was talking about since just before I called him I had driven on a strip of road with dead sheep on both sides. A horrific scene mind you. As I was getting out of my car Abdulai had a big smile on his face, I walked up to him and we shook hands before we headed inside his tent. Abdulai lives on a farm, no, I can’t call it a farm since it’s really not but not sure what else to call it. It’s just a 4×4 tent (his home) with a small sheep pen outside it and that’s about it. It was very hot and although I was sitting inside his tent in the shade I was sweating profusely. He doesn’t have electricity so there is no air conditioning. Before we started I asked him if I could post his full name and his photo and he said yes. I told him I didn’t want to get him in trouble and if he wanted to stay anonymous or not be in a photo that would be ok. He told me he didn’t care since this was his reality.

Abdulai Shani is a high school graduate but dropped out of university. He’s just 25 years old and before coming to Kuwait was teaching 7 year olds English and Mathematics at a school in Ghana. Like he stated in his comment on the blog, he was offered the opportunity to work in Kuwait as a security guard with a starting salary of $1,000 which was more than what he was making teaching in Ghana. So he took the chance, paid the agent $1,500 in fees and flew out of Ghana on March 31st of this year to come work in Kuwait. He didn’t have a copy of the contract before he left since his agent told him he would get one on arrival to Kuwait. When he arrived in Kuwait he was greeted by a man who he assumed was his boss. That man took his passport then drove him to a house in Jahra where he was locked up with three other people. He was told his sponsor would be coming to get him in a couple of days and was then asked if he was informed on what he would be doing. He replied saying he did, he would be a security guard. The person told him no, he was going to be a shepherd. Abdulai responded saying he was told he would be a security guard by the agent. The man then asked him if he knew how much he would be getting paid. Abdulai told him $1,000, the man told him he would be getting only KD70. Abdulai didn’t understand and at that time he had just arrived to Kuwait and so he was scared and didn’t know what to do. Three days later his sponsor came in the evening. His sponsor paid the people holding Abdulai and he was released into his custody. He felt like he was a slave being traded.

Since April Abdulai has been working at this sheep pen out in the middle of nowhere. His meals are bread for breakfast, rice for lunch and rice for dinner. He doesn’t have electricity except for a small solar panel that charges his phone and his flashlight. The sponsor gave him a smartphone with a phone line that has internet which is how he is able to get online. He found my blog while researching slavery in Kuwait trying to understand what rights he had and why things are the way they are. According to Abdulai he is getting paid although he ran into an issue recently. His first two salaries he had the sponsor send to Ghana since it wasn’t safe to keep his money in his tent. Then the other 3 salaries he told the sponsor to keep with him. But when he asked for them at the end of last month the sponsor wouldn’t give it to him. After an argument he was told to give back the mobile phone. Abdulai gave him the phone but told him part of the contract says I get a phone so if you’re taking it back then I want to go back to Ghana. So they took him to the agency who gave him two choices.

1) He leaves to Ghana but doesn’t get paid.
2) He stays and he would get paid. He chose to stay.

At this point I wanted to know what he wanted out of all of this so I asked him. He replied telling me he just wanted to get the word out that slavery still exists. He told me back in Ghana he didn’t live in a tent, he lived in a home, a decent one. He told me two months back when the weather was really hot he started to bleed from his nose. So he told his sponsor he wanted to go to the hospital to check and see why he was bleeding. His sponsor told him he wasn’t going to take him to the hospital but instead should just wrap his head with a shemagh. I asked Abdulai if he wanted to go back to Ghana or if he wanted to stay and get a better job. He told me he wanted to stay but get a better job since that’s why he originally came to Kuwait.

On my way back to the car he gave me a tour of the property. Right outside his tent door was a bench, that’s where he sleeps at night since it’s too hot to sleep inside the tent. He then showed me the sheep pen which he attends to all day long, seven days a week. He doesn’t understand what the sheep are for, in the five months he’s been there none were sold or taken or anything. We walked together back to my car and said our goodbyes.

In some ways Abdulai is lucky. He’s educated and speaks English which is how he was able to reach out to me and now I can shed light on him and hopefully with the help of the blog find him a better job. But this also got me thinking, what about all the other people who don’t speak any English and don’t know how to reach out for help? And what if this was the tipping point for change? With local telecoms phasing out regular phones and pushing out smartphones with internet access to all their customers, are more and more people like Abdulai going to come forward and share their story with the world?

The 2015 Global Liveability Ranking list came out a few days ago and Kuwait came 3rd amongst the most liveable GCC cities right after Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The liveability ranking is based on 30 different factors related to things like safety, healthcare, educational resources, infrastructure and environment. Kuwait scored high in most of the categories but fell through when it came to the Culture & Environment one. Below is Kuwait’s rankings compared to other GCC countries:

75 – Dubai, UAE
79 – Abu Dhabi, UAE
83 – Kuwait City, Kuwait
85 – Doha, Qatar
89 – Muscat, Oman
92 – Bahrain, Bahrain
107 – Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
111 – Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

To find out more about these rankings you can check out The Economist article [Here] or download the full ranking which includes a breakdown of the score [Here]

Thanks Salue

Kuwait’s government said it had awarded a contract to build a new terminal at Kuwait International Airport to the same consortium that had an earlier more-expensive bid dismissed.

Turkey’s Limak Holding and local construction firm Kharafi National won the deal after bidding 1.312 billion dinars ($4.34 billion) for the work – 74 million dinars cheaper than the offer it submitted in November. [Source]

Bring out the non-alcoholic champagne!

I would like to thank Mark again for giving me the opportunity to write here, and I know I don’t write as often as I should, but I thought it was very important to share with you what has been taking place behind the scenes of the blog.

I get a lot of emails on a daily basis from people who find my posts while searching for help online. The majority of the emails I get are from expats being mistreated in Kuwait, from CEO’s to blue-collar workers, they all seems to have issues but the worst off are the domestic workers. With that said, there is also a lot of humanitarian work and compassionate people in Kuwait and that in itself makes me very proud to be Kuwaiti.

I want to share with you a story of a domestic worker in Kuwait, how she came here, what happened and how she escaped. Most importantly though, I want to share what we can learn from her experience and how we can make Kuwait a better place.

The lovely woman is from an African country and I will give her the name Malika to respect her privacy. She wanted to move to the Arab world for better opportunity, so she started applying for jobs online. A few weeks later she got offered a job position to work as a supervisor and was promised a lucrative salary of 800 USD – 1,200 USD.

Her agent told her that she would meet her boss at the airport but when she arrived to Kuwait she was shocked to hear she was going to work as a maid.

“We were all taken to a room once we arrived at the Kuwait airport, many girls from many countries, some from Philippines, some from Nepal and many other Asian countries. Young girls even, some as young as 16 or 17, some thinking they were going to work as beauticians, but from my experience we were all there to work as maids”.

The girls waited in the room for hours at end, without water, food or any money, as their possessions were taken away. A woman then came and took them to an office where each girl had to wait for her employer to come and pick them up. Malika’s employer came and picked her up from the office and as soon as she got in the car with her new family, they asked her “Do you have a phone on you? You’re not allowed to have a phone, if you need to call someone, you need permission and you need to use the house phone”. So Malika quickly hid her phone on her.

She describes the house as being busy with a big family of 7 kids living there, she was shocked to see the situation as her agent had told her that she was going to be a supervising maid at the house and only be working from 7am-4pm, she described to me her feelings;

“The first night I couldn’t sleep, because I was crying and crying, I had a phone but no SIM card or money, so I used the phone to search the internet (wifi). I was so depressed working all day, from cooking to cleaning, the work was so much”

She told her employer that she wanted to leave, her employer responded to Malika that if she wanted to leave she had to pay 700 KD. So after some online searching she found her countries embassy’s number that was located in another GCC country. She used a VOIP app to contact them, they didn’t help her though, so she kept on searching online.

She kept fainting at work because the workload was inhumane, and her employer did not bother to take her to the hospital but instead took her to the agency and said that she wanted her money back. She accused Malika of being weak and lazy because she was fainting. The agency ended up beating her. But by going to the agency she found out that her sister and her sister’s friend had come to Kuwait as well, they were told that they would each work here as a nanny and as a waitress.

She was then taken back home by the employer, and she kept searching online for help when she found one of my posts on Marks blog’s. She said “I found out that I have rights and that I can leave. So I sent an email and I was so happy when I got an email back.” When I received her email, I assessed the situation and realized that the best person to help her would be Bibi Nasser Al Sabah from the Social Work Society of Kuwait, who have been aiding many workers in Kuwait over the past few years and I must say are making a huge difference in the lives of many here.

Bibi told Malika about her rights as an employee in Kuwait as well as the rights of her sister and her sisters friend who she was able to get in touch with. Bibi also told her there was a shelter available for them so all three ended up running away from their houses to the shelter. When they arrived to the shelter, Malika was searched and her possessions were taken away except for her clothes (thanks to Malika, the policy has now changed and the ladies at the shelter are allowed to keep their possessions). On Fridays, calls are allowed to be made from the shelter for 1 KD. One of the ladies at the shelter managed to sneak in her phone, Bibi transferred 20 KD for them and the ladies started contacting Bibi till she got them tickets and passports to get back home. They were there for around a month except for her sister who had to stay longer because she had a case against her that turned out to be fake accusations.

Malika says that being in Kuwait was one of the worst experiences in her life, she says that she has domestic workers at home and she treats them with respect and she would never treat anyone like this. She also told me something important;

“I don’t want to judge Arabs, even though I kept hearing mean stories at the shelter from the girls. I can’t judge because Bibi is Arab, so is Fajer, and so was the driver that helped me from the shelter to the airport. They were all so nice.”

Malika was lucky that she spoke fluent English, had internet access and was tech savvy that she was able to reach us at the blog. She is also a very smart lady that understands that issues need to be spoken about. Because of Malika the Social Work Society of Kuwait were able to help 24 other women at the shelter who Malika put us in touch with. I hope that we can learn from her experience and realize that yes there are really corrupt people in Kuwait but there are also a lot of passionate people like Bibi. We bring these topics up because we want to see change and I am positive that one day, Kuwait will be a better place.

Feel free to email me [email protected] with any legal questions. I do not have the capacity to answer everyone for free (but I try), and I am happy to annanounce that I am currently working with a great team and therefore we are able to reply back to all emails with a reasonable time frame.

Post by Fajer Ahmed – Legal Counsel
The legal opinions expressed in this post are those of the author Fajer. Opinions expressed by Mark or any other writer on mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com are those of the individual’s and in no way reflect Fajer’s opinion.

Kuwait has suspended home delivery licences in a bid to reduce traffic in the crammed capital.

The Interior Ministry is preparing to regulate home delivery services because it requires too many vehicles to be on the roads, Kuwait Times said. [Source]

Here’s one more last funny article for the day but this time I’m also gonna share my friends rant below (who’s Kuwaiti by the way for those of you who want to tell him to get the fuck out).

Yes, Kuwait, keep chipping away at our quality of life instead of doing anything serious to remedy the dire situation of our roads.

Metro? Let’s keep delaying that indefinitely… Because, you know, talking about it since the 1970s has brought us that much closer to realizing it.

Public transportation reforms? Forget that, bus drivers seem to drive with contempt and face it, who would want to ride one of those dilapidated deathtraps?

New highways? With an average completion time of seven years for a stretch of a few short kilometers and haphazardly-marked diversions, you might as well do nothing at all.

License regulation? Please, with rampant nepotism and string-pulling guaranteeing that every untrained moron with a pulse gets one, I don’t believe shit. Just take it all out on the expats the way you normally do, government.

Funny as it is, I’m dreading going back to Kuwait almost purely because of the road situation. People seem to actively disregard the rules and do things their own way because they know that our hilariously inept police force isn’t going to do jack about it except pass unimplemented law after unimplemented law, we have over 1.5 million cars on a road network with a carrying capacity of around seven hundred thousand vehicles, round-the-clock traffic ensures that what should be a ten-minute trip takes at least an hour, there’s no emission control or any form of environmental regulation and my chances of being killed because of someone else’s idiocy are exacerbated to the nth degree.

For a country with the potential and resources to make something absolutely incredible of itself, it’s moments like this that make me want to facepalm until my face bleeds.

– Khaled

Update: According to the news article on the Ministry of Commerce website, the ban is temporary and only because the MOI are currently overburdened with requests [Source]. So it looks like Kuwait Times are making shit up. Also it looks like Arabian Business is now making shit up because their source (Kuwait Times) never mentioned anything about traffic being the reason for the ban.

I’ve been hearing rumblings of a third cinema operator coming to Kuwait for awhile now but I didn’t think it would ever happen. The market is just too small and Cinescape is so dominant that I figured it just wouldn’t make financial sense for a third cinema operator to want to come in and compete. I guess I was wrong.

Sky Cinemas is the new cinema operator in town and they’ve just soft launched their first location in Dalal Complex on Salem Al Mubarek Street. If you’re wondering what building that is, it’s the new tower opposite Zahra Complex [Map]. Right now they have one theater operational and it’s playing Ant-Man but by next week they’ll have two more theaters operational as well as more movies to choose from including the new Mission Impossible.

Their ticket prices are KD3.5 which is exactly like Grand Cinemas and Cinescape plus they don’t have IMAX, so I don’t really see what their advantage is. They’re also located right in the middle between Cinescape Fanar and Cinescape Marina Mall so they have their work cut out for them. If you’re interested in trying them out, check out their website [Here]

The mall they’re located in is fairly empty at the moment with I think 4 shops open only.

One of the first things I did when I was in LA earlier this month was pass by In-N-Out burger. I hadn’t had it before but I’d heard so much about it from people online and from friend. Everyone kept saying it was the best burger ever so I wanted to check it out for myself. Did it live up to the hype? Not really.

During the 3 weeks I was in LA I think I had In-N-Out 5 or 6 times. I tried it a bunch of ways until I found my perfect combo which was a 3×3 (3 patties x 3 cheese) with just grilled onions and their special sauce. It’s a pretty good burger and mostly because of their kick ass special sauce but no way the best burger ever. Quality wise its a step up from McDonalds but in line with other burger joints like Five Guys, Elevation and Shake Shack. I didn’t like their fries at all but their chocolate shake was really good and was around 500 calories which wasn’t too bad.

So basically, if we never get In-N-Out in Kuwait it’s fine, we’re not really missing out on much.

One of the oldest sports clubs in Kuwait is looking to recruit men and women for their rugby team. If you’re interested keep reading below for a small brief on who they are along with information on how to contact them:

With the upcoming 2015/2016 season fast approaching, Kuwait Scorpions Rugby Club is always looking for new recruits regardless of age, gender, or past rugby experience. Starting this weekend Friday 30th July at 7am the Kuwait Scorpions Rugby Club will begin some pre-season fitness and touch rugby at Mishref Park, all are welcome to join.

Regular training sessions are held twice weekly, the timings and venue can be found on the website (q8scorpions.teamapp.com) or on the Facebook page (facebook.com/q8scorpions).

A brief overview of Kuwait Scorpions Rugby Football Club (KSRFC)

• The Kuwait Scorpions are the oldest rugby club in the Middle East. Established in 1946 when Kuwait Oil Company and the British Army played the first ever recorded fixture in the region.

• The Kuwait Scorpions are a registered member of Gulf Rugby (formerly Arabian Gulf RFC) which is in turn affiliated with the IRB (International Rugby Board).

• The club consists of players from all around the world; we currently have players from the United Kingdom, Republic of Fiji, USA, Canada, Lebanon, Egypt, South Africa, as well as an increasing number of Kuwaiti players.

• The Kuwait Scorpions is not gender biased and has two main branches, the Men’s Senior Team and the Ladies Senior Team. In addition to the two main branches we have a Men’s Veteran Team that forms for special events.

• The Kuwait Scorpions Men are the defending Dubai 7’s Gulf Men’s Open Champions (2014).

Interested in becoming a Scorpion?
The Kuwait Scorpions would love to hear from you, regardless of your age, gender, or past rugby experience, Kuwait Scorpions Rugby Club provides a great way to keep fit, improve your rugby skills, socialise, and visit other countries around the Gulf region.
If interested, please don’t hesitate to contact Hussain Al-Helal at [email protected].

A redditor shared a scan from an article in The Economist dating back to 1965 on the alcohol prohibition in Kuwait. I typed out the article since the scan wasn’t clear and have decided to share it below:

———————————————————–

International Report – The Economist – February 6, 1965

Kuwait
Bootleggers’ Boom
From a correspondent in Kuwait

Drink has had an odd history in Kuwait and its latest episode, resulting in total prohibition, has been characteristically idiosyncratic. In 1961, when the British political agency was demoted into an embassy, one of its traditional functions – the dispensing of alcohol to non-Moslems – was handed over to the British firm of Gray Mackenzie. With it went the job of issuing drink-permits, allotted according to socio-economic status on the presentation of the right religious credentials.

This neat division of the population, into Kuwaitis who did not drink and foreigners who did, was obviously too pastoral to last. Kuwaitis grew rich, travelled abroad, and learnt forbidden tastes. Since alcohol, like water, finds its own level, it tended to leak across the religious barrier to the richer Kuwaitis. Poorly paid Indian and Lebanese clerks could easily be induced to hand over their ration to Kuwaitis with money. Smuggling from neighboring countries (Iraq produces both beer and arak) was no difficult and made up for any short-fall in the supply. With good whiskey at £1 a bottle, Kuwait was a drinker’s paradise; the fall was sudden and uncomfortable.

In November the Mejlis passed an amendment to the penal code under which sentences of up to 10 years’ imprisonment can be imposed for the import, manufacture or sale of alcohol. Existing stocks may be discreetly consumed (an earlier proposal would have banned this too) but there will be no more. Two conflicting passions converged to bring this amendment about: moral indignation and commercial jealousy. People now find it hard to remember which came first.

The mortal indignation was understandable though, as is often the case, naive about the value of prohibition as a solution. Drink had become a social problem. Alcoholism among Kuwaitis was growing; accidents from drunken driving were increasing and, worst of all, drink was reaching the young. A decision-making scandal (suppressed at the time) was a case of drunkenness in a secondary school.

Meanwhile the fact that drink had grown into a business worth £500,000 – rumor put it even higher – had not escaped the attention of Kuwait merchants who began to agitate against Gray Mackenzie’s monopoly. Their resentment was rational in a free economy, but they overlooked the fact that Gray Mackenzie handled drink precisely because Moslems were not supposed to.

Horrified at the thought of drink being sold freely at every street corner, the moralists acted. A Moslems revivalist group called the League of Social Reform organized a monster petition. Sermons were preached in all the mosques. Pressure was brought upon the members of the Mejlis. Caught in the coils of its own morality, Kuwait’s establishment was helpless. Known drinkers were the most zealous to pay their tribute to virtue, and the crowning irony was when, in the final open session, the only deputy to vote against the amendment was teetotaller.

Prohibition could certainly never have happened without parliament. But Kuwait is now a mercantile democracy and the voice of both souk and mosque is stronger in the two-year-old Mejlis than they would have been in the ruler’s antechamber, where the urbane tones of oil company representatives carry more weight. The government is now committed to carry out prohibition but no one feels that its heart is in it.

It will take some time before stocks are exhausted, though whiskey has already gone up to about £15 a bottle – and is still rising. But the effect on clubs and social life is lethal, and Kuwaitis who employ foreigners are afraid that they will now have to dangle even juicier carrots. The economic consequences of boredom are impossible to assess, but one of Kuwait’s main problems is to keep its population at home and grow roots. Prohibition will probably do nothing to help.

A weightier argument against prohibition is that its social problems are likely to prove worse than those of drink. Already 30 people have died from methyl alcohol poisoning and another 55 are in hospital. Ea de cologne, cough syrups and surgical spirit have gained a new, sinister importance. The weekend traffic on the Basrah road has quadrupled. Smuggling, racketeering, corruption, substitute addictions are other unpleasant consequences which a paternalistic and progressive government cannot ignore.

There is currently a major garbage crisis in Lebanon and it made me think about the one I have in my backyard here in Kuwait. I’ve got this landfill behind my building which has been a garbage dump for years. I’ve posted about it a bunch of times (check this for example from 2010) and the issue hasn’t gotten sorted yet. I mean it gets sorted when I post about it, but then a week later it goes back to garbage overflowing everywhere. I took the picture above at 4PM, that’s just the garbage accumulated since morning, imagine how much garbage there will be by the end of the night!

So what do I need to do to get this shit solved? Do I have to post a picture on the blog everyday of the garbage dump and hope that the international embarrassment it will bring to Kuwait will get someone to act on it? Should I set up a live video stream of the dump and have it displayed in my blogs sidebar? Seriously I’m open to suggestions (don’t tell me to move or GTFO). Thankfully there is the Deera app but it gets annoying having to report this issue every single day.

The bigger issue is this has become the norm in Kuwait. It’s normal to see garbage on the floor everywhere or dumpsters overflowing. I miss the old anti littering campaigns from the 80s. They should bring those back.

Lots of people travel to Lebanon during Eid because its so close, so this year I decided to ask two friends of mine to put together their recommendations on what to do and where to go. My friends also happen to have the two most popular blogs in Lebanon, Najib runs BlogBaladi.com while Gino runs Ginosblog.com. First up is Najib’s recommendations, check them out below and then make sure you check out his blog [Here]

La Creperie Jounieh
For those of you who don’t know La Creperie yet, it’s is one of Lebanon’s most authentic and beautiful restaurants and has been serving great food since 1968. The restaurant was recently renovated and relaunched and is originally an 18th century picturesque Ottoman house that offers a breathtaking view across the Jounieh Bay. An ideal place for a late afternoon meal, sunset drinks or a Sunday family lunch. [Link]

Garden State
One of the hottest outdoor venues this summer in Beirut holding a different theme on a daily basis. Thursday is the busiest with pop music from the 80s and 90s, Sundays are chill out Apero Electro with live cooking. Wednesday is a dog-friendly day where everyone can bring his dog. [Link]

Colonel Beer
A local microbrewery and restaurant located in the heart of Batroun. Colonel Beer is only few meters away from the beach and you can enjoy BBQs, freshly brewed beer, local artists and a great atmosphere. [Link]

Burgers at Smoking Bun
The best street burger in Beirut. [Link]

Helado Ice Cream
My favorite icecream shop in Lebanon. The flavors are quite original and delicious. There’s Baileys, Whiskey, Green Apple, Fig, Lotus, Oreo and others. Make sure you drop by on your way back from the beach. [Link]

Taanayel Ecolodge
A traditional village located in the heart of the Bekaa. A great place to walk around and enjoy nature, have great food at Al Khan Al Makssoud and have fun with the various outdoor activities. [Link]

Karting at RPM
RPM (Racing Park Mtein) is the newest and hottest karting circuit in Lebanon. It’s a long drive from Beirut (1 hour or more) but it’s totally worth it and there’s a lot of sightseeing to do on the way to Mtein. [Link]

Mir Amin Palace
The Chouf is one of the best-preserved and most beautiful areas in Lebanon. It boasts the biggest Cedars forest in Lebanon, historical palaces built by the Emirs of Lebanon (most notably the magnificent Beiteddine palace), as well as beautiful old Lebanese houses, monasteries and attractions. It’s the perfect getaway from the city. The Mir Amin Palace Hotel is the ideal place to stay when you’re planning a weekend in the Chouf. [Link]

Pinea Campus
A gorgeous campsite surrounded by a large stone pines forest and located in Haitoura area in Jezzine (South Lebanon). It’s a great spot for camping, enjoying outdoor activities like ATVing, Skeet/Trap shooting (Tiro), mountain biking, horseback riding and Hiking and chill grills on Sunday. [Link]

Chez Sami’s Seafood Restaurant
Check out Chez Sami’s new terrace (Chez Sami Le Deck) and enjoy a splendid view while having the most delicious seafood. [Link]