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TBC Staff

In Kuwait, too many women are scorned [Excerpts]
 
Written on huge banners canvassing hundreds of town hall meetings organized by Islamists all across Kuwait is the following statement: "According to Islamic Sharia, women do not have political rights." This is part of a concerted effort by Muslim conservatives to stem a potential wave of reform in the country after Parliament, in a first round of voting, passed a bill granting women the right to vote and run in municipal elections.
 
The Islamists' plan worked. In the second round of voting in the middle of last week, the reform-minded government, which wrote the legislation, could not muster the majority votes needed to pass the bill. So, the Kuwaiti Parliament decided to delay consideration of the law and the government has now agreed to submit a new elections bill without a clause allowing women to vote.
 
[I]n an interview with MBC television, the chairman of the Kuwaiti Parliament's human rights committee, Walid Tubtabi, came out against giving women their full political rights. "Islamic Sharia only allows men to govern a state. Despite this, we believe that women have the right to vote for candidates, and choose representatives," Tubtabi said. "She has the right to criticize, to oppose and to give her opinion, according to the Sharia. But we are against them running in the Parliament."
 
However, more moderate officials hold a different view. Energy Minister Sheikh Ahmed Fahd has spoken in favor of the law. "It's time for citizenship to be uniform and for Kuwait to play its role in providing democracy and freedom to women." he said.
 
In 1963, Kuwait passed a law banning women from voting in elections, despite the fact that the country's Constitution prohibits discrimination based on gender. The state is also a party to the international human rights convention and the convention against all forms of discrimination against women. Sadly, it has not put these laws into practice.
 
According to Fatima Alabdaly, a Kuwaiti political activist, the Parliament is violating both Islamic law and the country's Constitution. "Islamic fatwas confirm that women have a duty to do good and forbid evil, which women would be doing as members of the Parliament," Alabdaly said on MBC TV. "The Kuwaiti Constitution has 183 articles. In all these articles, there is no distinction between men and women. Thus, it is our right. The current Parliament is in violation of its own Constitution."
 
Alabdaly says that more than 70 percent of Kuwaiti college graduates are women, and they make up more than 40 percent of the work force.
 
Since Islam was revealed, many women have played important leading roles in political, economic, military and social affairs in their communities. The Koran underscores the duty for both sexes to serve society when it states: "And the Believers, men and women are protecting friends to one another. They enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong." Many Islamic scholars, for example Sheikh Yusuf al-Qardawi, have stated that women must be granted political rights.
 
However, in Kuwait, Muslim men (as well as many women) have forgotten their rich history of respecting and honoring women for their contributions. Tubtabi was triumphant this week in Parliament: "This is a victory for Kuwaiti women against those who were trying to shove Kuwaiti women into politics . . . What Kuwaiti women need are higher salaries and job equality, not participation in municipal or other elections."
 
But Matwaa disagreed, arguing that Kuwaiti women demand human rights in general. "Of course we all want higher pay, but not at the expense of the women's suffrage law." She remains optimistic, however, expecting that Kuwaiti women will be voting and running as candidates in the next elections in 2007. In the coming years, one can only hope that future attempts to grant women their political rights will succeed and that Kuwaiti women will finally regain their full rights according to the teachings of Islam (Souheila Al-Jaada. The Daily Star [Lebanon], Monday, May 09, 2005).
 
[TBC: With U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan has come a wave of opportunity. It is clear, however, that the "reformers" must essentially take a stand against Islam and that its faithful exponents will not yield the issue without a fight.]