VZCZCXYZ0001
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHKU #0134/01 0461310
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 151310Z FEB 10
FM AMEMBASSY KUWAIT
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4612
INFO RUEHZM/GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L KUWAIT 000134 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NEA/ARP 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/08/2020 
TAGS: PGOV SOCI PHUM KWMN KU
SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR PULSES YOUNG KUWAITIS ON THEIR VISIONS 
FOR THE FUTURE 
 
Classified By: PolCouns Pete O'Donohue for reasons 1.4 b and d 
 
¶1. (C) Summary. At a February 2 luncheon at the CMR organized 
around the theme "Youth Vision for Kuwait in 2020," 
Ambassador pulsed fifteen Kuwaiti youth leaders, ranging from 
liberal to conservative, on what sort of Kuwait they will 
seek to create a decade from now. In response to her 
overture, the ten young women and five young men shared with 
Ambassador, DCM, and Emboffs their views on subjects 
including instituting a personal income tax, ceasing 
government-guaranteed employment, promoting adherence to the 
law, developing a national work ethic, and increasing 
staffing for the parliament so that it can play a more 
effective legislative and oversight role. Despite the many 
challenges facing this wealthy -- but increasingly divided -- 
society, most of the youth expressed optimism that a 
combination of youth activism and re-energized senior Kuwaiti 
leadership could effect meaningful change -- but there was no 
consensus on what that change should look like. Although by 
no means the consensus view, it is worth noting that one very 
articulate young man (a blogger) outlined a far darker 
vision, arguing that when surrounded by far larger and more 
powerful countries like Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, the 
question should not be what future for Kuwait in 2020, but 
whether there is a future for Kuwait as an independent state. 
End summary. 
 
=============== 
Illiberal liberals 
=============== 
 
2 (C) Immediately reflecting one of Kuwait's more important 
societal divides, self-identified "liberals" at the table 
argued that many of Kuwait's ills could be cured if the 
"real" Kuwaitis (read: descendants of long-time settled 
"inside the walls" urbanites) reasserted themselves and 
returned the society to its glory days of the 60s and 70s. 
Conservatives politely demurred, instead suggesting a need 
for greater democracy and transparency (read:  empowering the 
increasingly numerous conservatives and giving them better 
access to and oversight over state resources). (Note: While 
many Kuwaiti conservatives are tribal and many Kuwaiti 
liberals are urban, these are broad generalizations since 
there are urban conservatives from merchant families and 
liberal tribesmen. End note.) 
 
¶3. (C) Although conversation throughout was exceedingly 
polite by American standards, some of the self-identified 
liberals insinuated rather clearly that they view rural, 
tribal Kuwaitis -- whose demographic majority in Kuwait 
continues to grow -- as part of the problem, not the 
solution, as they are net takers rather than contributors to 
the collective weal -- poorly educated, interested only in 
securing patronage, and seeking to Islamicize Kuwait in ways 
that will vitiate the nation's long tradition of tolerance 
and open debate. The conservative youths present responded to 
this approach cleverly but obliquely, affirming a desire for 
greater adherence to the law, to improve education, and to 
strengthen democracy and promote transparency. (Note:  Left 
unsaid but not unrealized was the fact that Kuwait's 
electoral districts are gerrymandered so that the 200,000 
tribal voters in the fourth and fifth constituencies elect 
only twenty MPs total whereas the 180,000 largely urban 
voters in the first, second, and third constituencies elect 
thirty. Similarly, wealthy and connected liberal merchant 
families have benefited disproportionately from government 
projects and contracting, reaping huge rewards where more 
marginalized tribals cannot compete.  End note.) 
 
=============== 
Is our children learning? 
=============== 
 
¶4. (C) The youth leaders agreed that Kuwait's present 
education system was in disarray, having declined from its 
1970s and 1980s heyday when it was dominated by well-educated 
Palestinian teachers who were expelled after the 1990 Gulf 
War and replaced by less-capable Egyptian and Kuwaiti 
instructors. (Note: The Education Ministry is an arena for 
significant liberal vs. conservative conflict because the GOK 
usually appoints a liberal to head the ministry, while its 
rank and file is largely comprised of conservatives. 
Conservative MPs have several times attempted to remove the 
minister through no-confidence votes, most recently in 2008 
when tribal Islamist MP Saad Al-Shareea grilled 
then-Education Minister Nouriya Al-Sabih, who survived the 
grilling. End note.) Many wealthy liberal families have fled 
the public school system in favor of private schools -- in 
contrast, a generation ago almost all Kuwaitis attended 
 
public schools.  Here all the youth agreed more focus and 
leadership from the government was necessary to improve 
standards -- although one conservative was visibly taken 
aback when it was suggested by a liberal woman that the move 
to segregate public education by gender was a manifestation 
of the growing backwardness and decay in the system. 
 
=============== 
Economic proposals 
================ 
 
¶5. (C) Proposals for instituting a personal income tax and 
ceasing government-guaranteed employment were notions that 
found favor among the young business professionals (albeit 
with the full recognition that such unpopular options would 
be all but impossible to achieve), most of whom expressed 
frustration with a Kuwaiti business climate that discouraged 
entrepreneurship and fostered a reliance on government 
largesse. A personal income tax might force the GOK to be 
more accountable to the citizenry, suggested Hessa Al-Hmaidi, 
a recent AUB graduate who helped found the Sout Al-Kuwait 
("Voice of Kuwait") NGO in 2008 in an effort to educate 
Kuwaitis about their constitution and its protections for 
personal freedoms.  Najla Al-Ghanim, chairwoman of the Gulf 
Consult company, agreed that such a tax would motivate the 
GOK to improve the country's poor electricity infrastructure, 
a shortcoming which greatly inhibits private sector growth. 
Ceasing government-guaranteed employment would generate a 
larger, more motivated pool of Kuwaiti labor available to 
private sector companies, argued Ahmad Al-Hamad, the managing 
director of the Kuwait China Investment Company, who also 
suggested that all Kuwaiti college graduates be required to 
work for one year in a Kuwaiti ministry as a means of putting 
their free education to work for bettering the country. 
 
=============== 
Political proposals 
=============== 
 
¶6. (C) Several of the young political activists supported 
increasing staffing for the parliament -- so that it can play 
a more effective legislative and oversight role -- and 
developing a national work ethic. Abdullah Al-Awadhi, chief 
of staff for female MP Aseel Al-Awadhi, advocated reform of 
the system under which parliamentary staffers are selected 
and paid. Abdullah explained that, currently, MPs must select 
their dozen-odd staff members from among the GOK ministries 
and that these staff members then continue receiving their 
salary from their home ministry while adding a small bonus 
from the funds allotted to each MP by the GOK for staffing. 
He complained that his MP drafted a bill to reform the system 
so that each MP gets a larger staff allowance and pays each 
staff member's full salary, but that Speaker Jassem 
Al-Khorafi squelched it.  Abdullah argued that parliamentary 
staffs would be more effective if MPs could hire 
professionals with legislative skills from outside the 
ministries and pay their full salaries. 
 
¶7. (C) Several of the luncheon guests also called for more 
Secularism (this proved controversial), while there was 
broader consensus on the need for a better national work 
ethic, and strengthening of the rule of law.  Rana Kamshad, 
secular head of the Junior Achievement-type NGO Injaz 
("Achievement"), called for keeping religion out of political 
debate while offering one of the more optimistic assessments 
of the potential of non-Hadhar, tribal youth from Jahra. 
Recent architecture graduate Aseel Al-Yacoub called for a 
stronger national work ethic and harsher penalties for 
Kuwaiti citizens and police who violate or fail to uphold the 
law. This final recommendation was echoed by Al-Hmaidi, who 
recounted a recent experience at Kuwait International Airport 
when a Kuwaiti security officer ordered three Indian men to 
move so that Al-Hmaidi -- a Kuwaiti -- could skip to the 
front of the line. When Al-Hmaidi -- in her account -- 
angrily criticized the officer for denying the Indians their 
rightful place in line and treating them as non-persons, the 
officer dismissed her complaint and insisted that he was 
acting appropriately to favor a Kuwaiti over foreigners. At 
the luncheon, Al-Hmaidi also criticized Kuwait's aging 
liberal leaders -- specifically Kuwait Democratic Forum 
Secretary General Abdullah Al-Naibari -- for neither training 
the next generation of liberal leadership nor effectively 
supporting young liberal candidates in their campaigns for 
parliament. 
 
 
=============== 
Irrational exuberance and rearranging deckchairs on the 
Titanic? 
 
=============== 
 
¶8. (C)  Although conservatives often found it difficult to 
get a word in edgewise, Ahmed Al-Safi received strong support 
when he asserted that what was important was that the youth 
of Kuwait today feel empowered to change their future, to 
make it better, and simply need the older generation to have 
confidence in them. Mohammed Al-Yousifi a prominent liberal 
blogger, was the sole exception to this. He noted mordantly 
that Kuwait was a tiny country surrounded by far larger and 
more powerful neighbors (he laid out three pieces of pita 
bread and a grain of rice on the table as a rough map to 
demonstrate his point). Clearly frustrated with the direction 
he sees the country headed in, Al-Yousifi opined that the 
question isn't what kind of future Kuwait will have, but 
whether it will have a future at all. Looking at the regional 
and domestic trends, he shocked the table by suggesting 
openly that as a reasonable, rational individual and 
potential future husband and father, he was not sure he could 
discharge his duties to a putative future family except by 
making contingency plans so as to be able to pursue a life 
elsewhere in the West. Not to contemplate the possibility of 
a post-Kuwait future, he argued, was simply irresponsible. 
 
=============== 
Comment 
=============== 
 
¶9. (C) The luncheon guests' collective aspirations for a 2020 
Kuwait characterized by a more responsible, more merit-based 
society may represent the triumph of hope over experience. 
Kuwait's present tightly-knit society, based on a comfortable 
revenue stream and long traditions of respect for family 
position and personal connections over merit has long tended 
to favor "who you are" over "what you do."  Changing these 
mores will be difficult and take time.  Moreover, the Kuwaiti 
youths' focus on consolidating their own demographic's 
position and hold on power -- rather than on reaching across 
the aisle -- may foreshadow that this generation -- like 
previous ones -- may become so engaged in 
liberal-conservative infighting and self-serving squabbles 
over access to Kuwait's wealth that they too fail to provide 
Kuwait with a strategic vision for reform. A sad pattern here 
is that young Kuwaitis return from their overseas education 
filled with enthusiasm and ideas which are quickly depleted 
in this essentially self-satisfied, wealthy, and remarkably 
parochial society, which is perhaps the closest thing to a 
bourgeois society in the Gulf. End comment. 
 
********************************************* ********* 
For more reporting from Embassy Kuwait, visit: 
visit Kuwait's Classified Website at: 
 
http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Kuwa it 
********************************************* ********* 
JONES