KUWAITI WOMEN GAIN, ISLAMISTS LOSE
By AMIR TAHERI
May 19, 2005 -- WHEN the Kuwaiti National Assembly (parliament) met Monday, few expected the session to make history by granting women full political rights. The issue was not even on the agenda because just a week earlier the assembly had rejected a bill to let women vote even in municipal elections.
Many observers had concluded that the Kuwaiti government had, once again, caved in to Islamist pressure and would shelve the issue for several more years.
And yet when the assembly met, the government (headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Ahmad al-Jaber) introduced an amendment to the electoral law to grant women full rights to vote and to stand for election. The government also used a rare parliamentary device to force the assembly to vote on the measure in a single session. The Islamist bloc — which had blocked the rights of women — was left with little room for maneuver, and the amendment was approved, 35-23.
The vote came too late to let women stand and vote in next month's municipal elections. But woman-power is already on the march in preparation for the parliamentary elections of 2007.
The decision ends Kuwait's dubious distinction as one of only two countries in the world not to allow women to take part in elections. It also opens the way for the appointment of women to Cabinet and ambassadorial positions.
The reform is primarily a victory for Kuwaiti women, who, at least until recently, received very little support from men, including the self-styled liberals. Women like Leila Dashti and Lulua al-Mullah, veritable life-size heroines, deserve much of the credit for the victory.
Demands for Kuwaiti women to have equal political rights with men were first formulated in the 1970s. But then followed a period of uncertainty in which the very existence of constitutional government was put in doubt on a number of occasions. At one point, the emir — citing the threat of revolution from Iran and intimidation by Iraq — decided to shut the parliament altogether.
By the mid-1980s, however, Kuwait's suffragettes were strong enough to bombard the emir with petitions demanding equal rights. They argued that a state in danger from predatory neighbors would be strengthened if all its citizens, women as well as men, were united in its defense.
The Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990 proved the women right. As the Kuwaiti army melted away, many men simply fled to neighboring Saudi Arabia. Then, something unexpected happened: Kuwaiti women emerged as the vanguard of national resistance against Saddam Hussein's army of occupation.
Hundreds of Kuwaiti women were captured or killed by the Saddamites — whose leader in Kuwait was Saddam's notorious cousin, "Chemical Ali."
After Kuwait was liberated by a U.S.-led coalition in 1991, many expected a big leap in democratization, including equal rights for women. But once the parliament had reconvened, it became clear that a coalition of Islamists and tribal chiefs was determined to keep women "in their proper place" — that is, in the position of second-class citizens.
Much to their disappointment, Kuwaiti women failed to persuade the administration of George Bush, the father, to press Kuwaiti leaders for reform. Obsessed with Realpolitik, the administration regarded democracy and human rights in the Middle East as desirable luxuries rather than urgent necessities. That attitude continued during the Clinton administration, which, in the name of multiculturalism, naively tried to court some of the so-called "moderate Islamists."
By 2002, however, American policy had shifted in favor of encouraging democratization throughout the region. The issue of granting women equal political rights moved up the agenda between Kuwait and Washington as the U.S. realized that democratization in the Arab world would enhance its own national security.
The Kuwaitis understood that their very survival as an independent nation-state in one of the world's roughest neighborhoods depended on strong American, and Western, support. But they also realized that Western governments would not be able to convince their publics to remain committed to the defense of Kuwait on grounds of power-politics alone. Western voters would find it hard to fight for a country where gender apartheid was in force.
Thus, in the case of Kuwait, too, democratization became an imperative of national security — indeed, of survival.
The Kuwaiti parliament's move should not be seen as a favor to women. In a sense, the reverse may well be true. By taking an active part in the political process, Kuwaiti women may well be doing the nation a favor.
One reason for this is that Kuwaiti women are far better educated than their menfolk. For the past 10 years, women have formed a majority of university graduates in almost all key subjects. And in almost every case, they have outshone men in terms of academic achievement. It was, therefore, bad politics to deny the best-educated half of the populace a role in decision-making.
Also, the granting of equal political rights to Kuwaiti women may well be a major defeat for Islamism, as a political ideology and a tool for seeking power, but not for Islam either as a religious faith or culture. There is at least as much in Islam as both faith and culture that favors such equal rights as there is that rejects it.
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