At long last Kuwaiti women have achieved their political rights. Yet they do not appear to be sure they would be permitted to become meaningful partners in their country’s march without more struggle. The first hurdle the Kuwaiti women have to surmount in their bid to win full political rights after the National Assembly’s decision to grant electoral rights to them, undoubtedly, is the clause that stipulates that their participation should be in line with the provisions of the Islamic law.
While some people look at this clause with concern, others dismiss it as temporary and related to social customs. Islam is a religion that upholds justice that the Muslims have implemented with a great degree of success over the centuries. This is a fact that even the bitterest critics of Islam admit. Islam has always maintained a golden means in practicing universal justice while in the Indian Subcontinent, human beings were declared untouchables because they were born into what are called low castes. Equal justice for all human beings was not an acceptable idea in the Christian West either. In the West there were social classes under the feudal system.
Justice for all is the primary constituent of Islam’s legal system. Even Bernard Lewis has said that in the 19th century the opportunities available in the Islamic world to a poor man of common origin to progress economically, socially or politically were much greater than that available in France despite the French Revolution or in America after the Declaration of Independence.
The Western criticism of the Muslims, ironically, focuses on their administration of justice. The Westerners charge that Islam, despite all its claims about equality, denied justice to slaves, non-Muslims, and women. Since the slavery does not exist and the non-Muslims are accorded equal rights in Muslim countries the first two counts in the charges are irrelevant.
The remaining issue is the injustice to women. As far as Kuwait is concerned this injustice has ended with women acquiring political rights though the legal and social aspects of these rights are yet to be worked out.
What remains are the issues that concern Arab women in general. Compared to Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman where women have been accorded or about to be accorded political rights in full, women in Kuwait stand a better chance when these rights are implemented. In Qatari municipal elections not a single woman could win. The story was no different in Bahrain where no woman won a seat in the elections to the legislative assembly. Omani women too met with a similar situation. It is only in Yemen two women could enter the national assembly though their voices have been stifled under the weight of male domination and social pressures.
Kuwaiti women’s plight would not have been different if their rights were presented to them without any struggle over a long period of time. Because women in Kuwait are very active and vigilant, their future role in national affairs will be different from that of the women in other Arab countries.
Over the past decade Kuwaiti women have been fighting for their rights. A few men supported them in this struggle as well. The battle also helped produce a few efficient leaders and an understanding public unlike in other Arab countries. A series of campaigns to demand their rights were organized by women. They submitted a mass petition signed by thousands of women to the ruler. All these activities point to a maturing social and political awareness among Kuwaiti women who never fell behind men in offering sacrifices for the national cause.
The Kuwaiti women staged the first demonstration against the occupation by Iraq. Apart from encouraging their men folk to fight against the occupation, several women fell martyrs while defending the sovereignty of their country.
Spurred by such heroic tradition Kuwaiti women are greatly different from their sisters in other Arab countries in exercising political rights and taking up substantial role in the Parliament. They shall no doubt get ample opportunities to play important roles in the National Assembly that has a rotational membership system.
In periodic elections the assembly brings in 50 percent new members. Since the electorate has been doubled with the entry of women on the scene, the nature of the next assembly could be greatly different from the present one. The expansion of the electoral base has another advantage. A widened electorate can, obviously, minimize the influence of money and tribal and personal connections based on unhealthy trends and selfish motives.
What nobody denies is that women’s entry to the political arena would bring in surprising changes in Kuwait.
— Mohamad Alrumaihi is professor of political sociology at Kuwait University.
