Page 218 - Culture Technology Communication

New Technologies, Old Culture 201

you remember what happened to the one who was not protected by
wasta!” My friend said no, and explained that she was out of the
country when this article was originally published. Her friend ex-
plained that as soon as word of the published interview reached
Kuwait, it stirred quite a scandal in the local community, and both
the girls’ reputations were blotched. The mother of the less “pro-
tected” of the two students feared that this tarnish on her daughter’s
reputation would prohibit her from being “suitably married.” The
mother flew immediately to London, and discovered that, evidently,
the student with “protection” (by her status) encouraged the other
one to participate in the interview. As compensation for her irre-
sponsibility and insensitivity, the mother demanded that her daugh-
ter be married to one of the family’s eligible sons. Several months
later, the less protected young woman was married, whether she
wanted to be or not.
Another of my friends explains that during the Gulf War, she
and a friend gave an interview to a Western newspaper describing
women’s activities against Saddam’s occupation forces in Kuwait.
They gave the interview based upon conditions of anonymity. But
the reporter revealed so much personal information about the two
women that “everyone” in Kuwait knew it was them who had spoken
publicly about issues many Kuwaitis wanted to keep private. Ever
since this experience, this friend of mine has kept a low profile.
These are examples of the kinds of stories (perhaps urban leg-
ends?) that are told to reinforce boundaries between public and pri-
vate discourse in Kuwait. The attempted murder of a Kuwaiti
colleague of mine and her husband as they drove home from their
chalet one evening in the spring of 1997 reveals the costs of being
outspoken even for the very well-connected. Both she and her hus-
band have rich public records of organizing for women’s rights (the
wife, an outspoken woman’s activist) and fighting corruption in the
misuse of public funds (the husband, a veteran MP). The sense was
that this murder attempt was directed at the husband for his cam-
paigns in parliament to oust those government ministers who were
robbing the public of their livelihood, and who were looting the
nest egg of future generations. Evidently he got too close to embar-
rassing some very important people in public and they tried to per-
manently remove him from office. This event took place in the
middle of my fieldwork and was very disturbing as it revealed the
degree to which some individuals would go to keep things quiet.
Kuwait on the surface is a democracy, with a very free press. Mem-
bers of parliament are very outspoken in the challenges they make,