Squire's Castle - Willoughby Hills

 

Had the most wonderful time painting Squire's Castle in Willoughby Hills - Ohio

Check out more of my art at:  https://fatimaalmatar.com/

Belated Mother's Day!

America celebrates Mother's Day on the second Sunday of May. This year, Mother's Day was on May 8th. I should've posted then, but work got in the way! I hired a photographer to take photos of me and Jori for Mother's Day, we went to Wade Oval, my favorite park. It's tradition for Jori and me to get our photo taken on mother's day every year. I hope we keep the tradition going.

 

Here is Someone

My daughter Jori is sixteen years old today. 

You can listen to my poem "Here is Someone" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBLIOUvnOjA

Here is someone

When you were born sixteen years ago, whole, healthy, with ten little finger and ten little toes. I thought this is enough.

When your frail little body fought colds, teething fevers, ear infections, and chickenpox, and you and I made it through so many long sleepless nights. I thought this is enough.

When you sat up, then you crawled, then you walked, then you ran, then you skipped, I thought this is enough.

Then you spoke, your voice so foreign, so familiar, so startling. I thought this is enough.

Then your teachers told me how intelligent you are, and I thought this is enough.

Then you rode a bike, and learned to swim, and beat me at monopoly and chess, and I thought this is enough.

Finding nothing to rebel against you rebel against your coat, because who needs shit like warmth and comfort.

We stand in the middle of a store whisper shouting as I persuade you to wear a dress for a photo I want us to take for mother’s day:

“No!” you stomp your foot

“Please” I plead.

“No!”

“Just this once”

“No!”

“Just for the photo”

“I’m not wearing a dress”

“Please Jori, do it for me? Just until the photo is taken, you can change immediately after that!”

“Why would you want me to wear a dress when it would only make me miserable?” You say.

We take the photo, you’re in jeans, and I think this is enough.

Now you’re sixteen, you cut your hair short like a boy’s, you like baggy sweatpants, oversized hoodies, and you live in your Skate High Vans. You’re confident and in control when you fasten your seat belt and start the ignition, you look both ways, you reverse, you steer the car forward, you know where you’re going, you’re careful, you’re alert. For the first time since you were born I’m in the passenger seat. We get hot caramel lattes together, we talk about our favorite books, we laugh, we sing along our favorite songs, well I sing and your roll your eyes, and I think this is enough.

I remember reading somewhere: “life is hard, here is someone.”

Here is someone.

Art Exhibitions - Publications - Growing Baby!

 

I wish I hadn’t neglected my blog for so long, but work and other responsibilities got in the way.

In regards to my art, I’ve exhibited my paintings at a café called “Loop” in Tremont, between March and June 2021 and sold 18 paintings.

Then I exhibited at GIO (Gifts in Ohio) a gift store in The Great Northern Mall in North Olmsted, from August to October 2021 and sold 3 paintings. And now I’m exhibiting at Phoenix Café on 3000 Bridge Avenue in Ohio City, my show there will continue until December 12^th 2021.

I got a job teaching art (drawing and painting) at BAYarts, an art academy in Bay Village, which I enjoy. Bay Village is a beautiful picturesque area, and I find my work in the academy fulfilling and my students appreciative.

I turned 41 on October 22^nd and was too busy and tired to celebrate, I didn’t even eat cake! *sigh*

On November 9^th 2021, my piece “Baby” was published by Literary Cleveland (whom I am a member of) in an online anthology. The anthology is called “Voices from the Edge.” Lit Cleveland commissioned essential workers to write about their experience working during the pandemic. Here is the link to “Baby”   https://voices-from-the-edge.litcleveland.org/stories/baby

On the morning of November 9^th, I was interviewed on a radio show called “Sound of Ideas” where I discussed my piece “Baby”, my experience as an essential worker, and Lit Cleveland’s role in amplifying the voices of writers who are essential workers, and providing them with free writing workshops and a generous stipend.

In September 2021, my piece “Geese” was published in Scene Magazine, in another literary collection facilitated by Lit Cleveland called “Stories of Immigration in Cleveland” which as the title suggests are stories written by immigrants. Scene Magazine also used my painting “Geese” as a cover for that September Issue. You can read “Geese” here https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2021/09/08/know-no-boundaries-stories-of-immigration-in-cleveland

Jori turned fifteen and a half in June 2021, so she learned to drive and got her temporary driving permit. She has proven herself to be a good and careful driver. She will be eligible for her permanent Permit in late December 2021. As a mother this is both a terrifying and exciting prospect.

 

My website: www.fatimaalmatar.com  

Honor Killing in Kuwait: The Role Islam Plays in the Violence Against Women

You can listen to this essay here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw2RdQAeQes&t=8s

Like all major religions, Islam was founded by men whose main design was to oppress, objectify, and keep women under male control. Islam portrays women as deceitful temptresses. Every woman in the eyes of Islam is a reflection of Eve - who according to the Quran tempted Adam to eat the forbidden fruit and as a result, be banished from heaven, to face a life of struggle, and suffering on earth. In Islam a woman is suspicious and wicked, always luring the male, always tempting him into forbidden sensuous pleasures, therefore she must be covered, her body must be shrouded, her hair must be veiled, she must not be seen or heard, lest she leads the poor innocent man astray, the man who has no control over his sexual urges, the man who is benevolent, and who - if it weren’t for the persistent distraction of seductress women would quietly and faithfully dedicate his life to the worship of God.

Muslim women have adhered to these degrading dogmas, believing the lies Islam tells them about how dangerous their bodies and their minds are, and thus should wrap themselves up like mummies and keep their mouths shut. From the age of six , women in Muslim countries, are taught in school about the horrors of being punished in the afterlife, an impious woman, an immodest woman, a woman who is disobedient to her male guardians, all of them will burn in hell for eternity, by a just and merciful God.

How can Muslim women not be afraid, when the Prophet Mohammed who claims to have traveled to the heavens on a flying horse called “Alburaq”, spoke to God, viewed heaven and hell, then returned to earth on the same night, told his followers that the majority of hell dwellers he saw were women, and that this was due to their immodesty, and their disobedience to their male guardians. How could Muslim men not eye women as evil temptresses when the Prophet Mohammed said in the Hadith: “I will not leave behind me a temptation more harmful to men than women.” The Hadith is everything the Prophet Mohammed said, and ordered his followers to obey. How could men not see women as inferior when in another Hadith Mohammed said: “if I were to order anyone to bow to anyone else, I would order a woman to bow to her husband.” And in another Hadith he provides: “If a man is praying and a donkey passes by, or a black dog passes by, or a woman passes by, his prayer is rejected.” Women being equal to donkeys and dogs that invalidate prayer.

I wrote a detailed essay entitled “Is Hijab really a choice? And is there equality between men and women in Islam?” (see footnote[1]) In this essay I number all the discriminatory religious practices against women mentioned in the Quran and the Hadith: from polygamy, and a husband’s right to discipline his wife by beating, to the compulsory covering of the head and body, to the disproportion of women’s share of inherence, compared to men. To a husband’s right to divorce his wife without her knowledge or consent. In the mentioned essay, I also touch upon the issue of internalized misogyny, displayed by so many Muslim women who say that it’s their choice to wear the Hijab, emphasizing the misogynistic view that it’s a woman’s responsibility to cover up in order not to invite sexual violence from men, rather than it being the man’s responsibility to refrain from sexual violence against women no matter what they’re wearing. I also address the problematic nature of “choice” as these women claim they “choose” to cover up and are not forced to do so by male guardians. If a woman can “choose” to wear the Hijab, but knows she will face some form of violence: physical, verbal, or emotional, when she chooses to take it off, then it is definitely not a choice but force.

In another essay entitled “Discrimination against Women in Kuwaiti Laws and Culture.” (see footnote[2]) in which I number all the Kuwaiti laws and cultural norms that not only restrict women’s movement and self-autonomy, but also endanger their lives in Kuwait. From not having access to a gynecologist unless a woman is married. To not being able to authorize medical surgery for her child, or other family members, because surgical authorization in Kuwait can only be given by a man. To article 153 of the Kuwaiti Criminal law which sympathizes with men who kill their wives, daughters, sisters, or mothers, in the name of preserving honor.

In this essay I want to focus on how Islam encourages the murder of women by their males relatives, also known in Muslim countries as honor killing, or femicide.

Despite UN statistics showing that 5000 Muslim women are murdered every year by their male relatives. Muslims continue to argue that honor killing has nothing to do with Islam, that honor killing is a deep-rooted tribal tradition Arab men practiced before Islam, a complex ideology difficult to abolish. If this was true, then Islam after one thousand and four hundred years has failed as a religion to recondition the barbaric Muslim man into a decent human being who refrains from murdering women. Also, if honor killing is an Arab tradition, that cannot be linked to Islam, then why do Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey who are Muslim but not Arab countires hold the highest records for honor killing, with Turkey reporting the murder of 474 Turkish women by male guardians in 2019, all categorized as honor killings. This number was expected to double in 2020 due to the pandemic forcing families to quarantine. In Pakistan a thousand women are murdered each year by male relatives for reasons of honor. And in Iran, a staggering 8000 honor killings were reported between 2010 and 2014. In addition to this, the extreme violence against women carried out by The Taliban, and Boko Haram both Muslim groups, neither Arab, shows that Islamic beliefs play an integral role in the violence Muslim men practice upon women.

Society cannot create a good woman, until it first creates a bad woman. In all Muslim societies a woman who adheres to misogynistic, patriarchal restrictions, covering up her head and body, behaving piously by displaying innocence and purity through sexual abstinence like a badge of honor, and obeying male guardians, is seen a good woman. Therefore, the woman who refuses to follow these religious and culture rules deserves to be punished, deserves violence, deserves death. It is no wonder then, when I started to post on Twitter about a twenty-four-year-old Kuwaiti woman named Ghalia Al Thafeeri who was tortured and strangled by her twenty-one-year-old brother, and her corpse disposed of in the desert, only to be found several days later. Kuwaiti women on twitter slid into my DMs to ask me with genuine bafflement: “Why did he kill her? What did she do?” What these women wanted to know was, what did Ghalia do to deserve being tortured and her throat slit by her brother? Because she must have done something. Bad women who dare to overpass the narrow bounders men draw for them, deserve to be killed. These Muslim women, blinded by their internalized misogyny believe without question that if they overstep the restrictions and rules imposed on them by men, then men’s violence against them will be justified.

People in Kuwait would read short vague articles, the victim’s name is never mentioned. “A corpse was found in the desert,” the article would say, “a young woman, twenty four years old, twenty seven, thirty, forty, her throat slit, strangled, shot, and was found, not buried, half her body eaten by wolves.” Then a few days later another article; the murderer, also nameless, the victim’s father, brother, or husband turns himself in  to the police. And that’s it. Silence. Nothing is ever mentioned again. The public is never told whether the murderer is tried, convicted, or if imprisoned, for how long?

Because of the shame and alleged dishonor the families of the victims and perpetrators feel, these murders are kept quiet, never spoken of or reported by the families.

This is also why, when I revealed Ghalia Al Thafeeri’s name on twitter in 2018, it was a kind of a shock. The first time a woman’s name was revealed as a victim of honor killing.

Ghalia was my friend Farah’s relative, I still remember Farah’s breathless voice on the phone, “Her family said she died in a car accident, but it’s her, she’s the corpse found in the desert. I knew something wasn’t right when they announced there won’t be a funeral.” Farah said sobbing uncontrollably.

Farah and I wanted to honor Ghalia’s memory. We didn’t know where Ghalia was buried, we had no way of knowing. Girls like Ghalia did not get a tombstone or any distinguishing markers on their graves.

Honor killings have always existed in Kuwait. I am not sure if these heinous crimes are growing, or whether due to the media becoming braver - though not brave enough - we are hearing more about them. There are no clear statistics, because Kuwait is not a country known for its accuracy or its transparency. The hypocrisy practiced by both the government and the people, preferring to show the world a false image of luxury, and comfort, in the small oil state, means that all the ugliness of violence against women, oppression towards the stateless, and the horrific treatment of cheap foreign labor, especially poor women working in Kuwait as domestic help, is all hushed up and swept under the rug.

When I lived in Kuwait, I heard stories about young girls and women murdered by men closest to them, a father, brother, a husband, or a son. A girl was suspected to be in a relationship with a man outside wedlock, the father, brother, husband, and even the son vows to restore the family’s honor, and a body is buried somewhere in the desert. If anyone asks, the family will say that the girl married a man in Saudi Arabia, and went to live with him there. But it never made much sense to me. Wouldn’t friends and relatives be suspicious? Why doesn’t she visit? Why doesn’t she answer her friends’ calls? But I also knew better. In Kuwait, as is in all the Middle East, a girl’s life is worthless, slaughtered like a lamb and forgotten, as if she never existed.

In a small patriarchal country, where girls from a very young age are taught to obey, to be quiet, weak and submissive, where mothers who internalized misogyny discipline their daughters with “you better not say or do that or your father will kill you,” and, “Do as you’re told or your brother will kill you.” It’s no wonder that the murder of girls and women goes unnoticed.

Article 153 of the Kuwaiti Criminal Law, sympathizes with men who kill their wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers; if a man finds his wife, mother, sister, or daughter in bed with a man, and kills her, or kills the man, or kills both, he will only be sentenced to three years in prison, rather than the capital punishment or a life sentence. Of course those murderers never found their wives, daughters, or sisters in bed with men, they suspect their victims to be in some sort of relationship, they saw a text, or someone spread a rumor. But in a community with religious beliefs that encourage men to behave as if a man’s honor rests in the sexual abstinence and purity of his daughter, sister, wife, and mother, and where a corrupt justice system is run by like-minded men, those monsters get off easy. What’s a three year prison sentence to keeping your tribe’s honor?

My friend Farah tried to dig deeper, was Ghalia really found with a man? Ghalia’s friends had different stories. One of which was that her brother found her at a mixed party, she was immodestly dressed, she was drunk, while some say this story is very unlikely. Another story told of a jealous ex-boyfriend who wanted revenge and sent Ghalia’s indecent photos to her brother. What makes Ghalia’s story more complicated is that she was married, she also had a baby son.

Imagine, your husband, brother and father sitting together plotting your murder. In honor killings, the father, brother, and husband (if there is one) are always in it together. Her brother took her to the desert, tortured her, strangled her, and slit her throat. The short article specified that there was torture, suffocation, and a slashed throat. The murderous brother turned himself in. That’s all we know.

Through an acquaintance who had access to the court’s digital records of ongoing trials, Farah found out that the brother was facing trial, but when her informer tried to check again for updates, access to that trial in particular was blocked. Since 2014 there have been several attempts to change the law, but every time a women organization named ‘Abolish Article 153’ sends the amendments to parliament, they are rejected.

When I published Ghalia’s name on social media, the general response was: “You’re lying! She died in a car accident, shame on you for marring her name.” When I argued that honor killings were on the rise, and that there are many we never hear about, because the families keep quiet about it. The response was that I was exaggerating and seeking attention. “You make it sound like Kuwait’s soil is covered with women’s corpses,” one man whined. “The media reported eight murdered women in 2018, all murdered by brothers, fathers and husbands, how many corpses do you need before you take the issue seriously?” I responded. Then the death and rape threats filled my inbox. “You’re next”, “Your daughter Jori is next”, and “I know where you work.” they read.

I thought about names, the Kuwaiti society’s persistence in concealing names of female victims to protect their families’ reputation and “honor”, and to protect the killer. The fact that women in Kuwait don’t really have autonomy over their names, when a girl is born she is called by her father’s name “the daughter of [father’s name]”, when she is married she is called “the wife of [husband’s name]”, and when she has a son she is called “the mother of [son’s name]” until she dies. Her name in itself, like her body is a source of shame and must be shrouded.

I tweeted about how important it is to reveal the names of women victims, that the media and the families purposely veil the names so that victims are easily forgotten. I tweeted about the importance of a safe shelter for women, which until today Kuwait does not have

Women sent me stories, blood-curdling stories of the violence and fear they live in day after day. A woman in her thirties killed by her father because she wanted to live independently of her family after her divorce. The father reportedly provided the police with the following confession: “I straddled her, wrapped my hands around her throat and squeezed, I can see her fading, her face turning blue, I knew I was killing her, but I couldn’t stop.” Another, murdered by her brother because he found out she knew her husband before she married him. Another by her husband because she asked for a divorce, on and on the stories went about brothers who rape and uncles who molest, and mothers who knew and either turned a blind eye, or blamed their daughters’ attire, threatening the girl if she dared reveal what she had gone through. “Just stay away from him,” one girl told me her mother advised her, when she confided to her that her older brother molested her.

A couple of months after Ghalia’s murder, Hajar Al Ajmi was murdered by her brother, Hajar identified as queer, and her brother claimed he killed her by accident while he was cleaning his rifle. Numerous Kuwaiti women are killed annually by brothers who “accidently” shoot them while cleaning their guns. After Hajar, Fatima Al Ajmi was murdered by her brother. He shot her in the hospital, where she was being treated, she was pregnant with her second child. Fatima defied her family and married a man they didn’t approve of, her brother never forgave her for it. The latest Kuwaiti victim, a woman named Farah Akbar, she was killed in April 2021, in her car in front of her two daughters, aged twelve and five, by a man she turned down because Farah was already married.

After I sought asylum in the United States, Kuwaiti women following me on twitter sent me messages telling me they wished they could migrate to the West. Somewhere they can live freely, free from all the religious and social restrictions, free from the fear, and the oppression, and inequality they face on a daily basis. They don’t have the money, they don’t speak the language, they’ve never traveled on their own before, but they want to leave, and experience what it’s like to have some autonomy over their lives. They don’t want to be controlled by their male relatives anymore, they don’t want to be abused by them, telling them what they can and can’t wear, where they can and can’t go, who they can and can’t befriend, whether or not they were allowed to go to college, or work, depriving them of higher education and work, marrying them off to husbands they didn’t want, whom they’re later forced to have children with. And all in the name of, “We know what’s best for you.” I personally know how oppressive this tyranny is, of men tormenting women for the women’s own good; it never ceases, especially when men have God’s and society’s approval. 

---

[1] Matar, F., 2021, “Is Hijab really a choice? And is there equality between men and women in Islam?”,     https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/442036352756346269/5989368460725572416 An audio version of this essay can be listened to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D0631I1s5I&t=7s

[2] Matar, F., 2019, “Discrimination against Women in Kuwaiti Laws and Culture.” International Multilingual Journal of Science and Technology (IMJST) Vol. 4, Issue 9, September 2019.  http://www.imjst.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/IMJSTP29120182.pdf  

The Tragedy of the Stateless in Kuwait: Sixty Years of Oppression and Deprivation

You can listen to this essay here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HREn8nUnu5U

When I talk or write about the suffering and the injustice endured by the Stateless people in Kuwait,

people ask me “Who are the stateless?” Or “What do you mean by the Stateless?”

The Stateless are longtime inhabitants of Kuwait, who have been deprived from citizenship, identity, health, education, and work. Due to the extreme racism practiced against the stateless by the Kuwaiti government, they do not carry any official documentation or any form of identification, no birth certificate, no driver license, no passport, no marriage certificate, not even a death certificate, they live and die without a trace, as if never existed. It goes without saying that the Stateless have no political rights in Kuwait.

The growing problem of the stateless began as Kuwait gradually transformed into a modern state in the late forties and early fifties. Until the forties when oil - excavated by the British - brought wealth to the little state, Kuwait consisted of a small community living by the Arabian Gulf; fishing, and diving for pearls. And another community of Bedouins, nomad tribes living in the desert, herding cattle, and continuously traveling to where water and grass can be found. As oil money allowed Kuwait to grow and become a recognized civil state, the Kuwaiti government called its people to apply for official citizenship, and passports, in an effort to nationalize its people. As the new founded wealth attracted foreign labor to the state, the Kuwaiti government wanted to draw a clear line between who was entitled to benefits and who was not. This procedure required individuals coming forward to bring proof (birth certificates) of fathers and fore fathers who have been Kuwaiti inhabitants since the twenties. Because there are many nomad tribes, Bedouins who were in most cases, illiterate. Many of these tribe members were left out, falling through the cracks of bureaucracy, numerous Bedouin tribes were not recognized as citizens of Kuwait, and therefore were also deprived of passports and other identification tying them to the land. Until the eighties, this did not constitute a huge problem for some of these Stateless tribes, who were (back then) allowed to enroll their children in free government schools, and their sons in the army, without proof of citizenship. However, when the Iraqi invasion upon Kuwait ended in 1991, the Kuwaiti government claimed that many Iraqis came through the borders, and settled in the outskirts of the city and demanded to be recognized as Kuwaiti citizens. Alienating all the Stateless people as non-Kuwaiti drifters who are only after the benefits a Kuwait citizenship offers. The Kuwaiti government to this day insists that all the Stateless are either Iraqis, Saudi’s, Jordanians, or Syrians who claim they are Stateless, but are in reality hiding their country’s passports, in hopes that they will be issued the Kuwaiti citizenship. The only way to remove them from Kuwait, the Kuwaiti government claims, is to make their lives so unbearable, by denying them health, education, and work, in this way, the Stateless will eventually bring out their real passports and leave to their homelands. When the Stateless go to The Committee of Illegal Residents (founded in 2010 as a step to find a solution for the Stateless) showing proof of their fathers and grandfathers birth certificates, born in Kuwait in the forties and inhabiting Kuwait since then, and showing that many of them served not only in the Kuwaiti army, but also as the Sheikh’s personal guards, and fought the Iraqis in 1990, the committee turns them away claiming the document are forged. The Stateless cannot seek the courts to demand their rights, as the Kuwaiti citizenship law keeps all legal matters relating to citizenship outside the scope of the Kuwaiti court’s jurisdiction. Calling anything relating to citizenship “Matters of Sovereignty” determined only by the Kuwaiti Sheikh. The sheikh is the Arabic word for “Ruler”, in most Western news outlets the term “Prince of Kuwait” is used to describe the ruler, who never really portrayed the image of a prince, always an old haggard man, suffering from poor in health, and ominous in appearance. Kuwait is ruled by an authoritarian family called Al Sabah who imprison anyone who criticizes them. Mubarak Al Sabah, a fascist who ruled Kuwait from (1896 - 1915) made it a rule that the sheikhdom of the state can only be passed down to his male descendants. One Fascist Kuwaiti sheikh after another, they all promised to find a solution for the growing tragedy of the Stateless but to no avail. One corrupt Kuwaiti government after the other, one weak powerless Kuwaiti Parliament after the next, promises made but never acted upon. And because the Stateless never had any political power they were never of any interest to the Parliament.

The Kuwaiti Parliament full of governmentalists, is another source of shame for Kuwait, brought into existence in 1960 by then Kuwaiti Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem Al Sabah, via what seemed, at the time, as a progressive constitution, to prove that Kuwait, barely out of the economic clutches and political control of the British, is moving towards some form of democracy rather than the one man show, of the oppressive Al Sabah ruler. However, the poorly drafted Kuwaiti constitution only gives a pretense of rights and freedoms for the people, it was in reality only founded to cement Al Sabah’s authority, stating in its articles that Kuwait will always be under the rule of Al Sabah, that the sheikh has full and complete sovereignty over the state, and gives the sheikh the power to dissolve the ramshackle parliament whenever the ruler wishes to do so, a power often practiced by Kuwaiti Sheikhs.

Sheikh Sabah Al Sabah, (who died recently in September 2020) was a barbaric autocrat, jailing 5000 Kuwaiti people during his reign for jokes about him posted on twitter, or any criticism, or call for political reform, with one man receiving 90 years in prison for a critical comment made about Sabah on twitter. Sabah Al Sabah called himself The Prince of Humanity, and forced the media to dub him by this self-founded nick name, each time he was mentioned in the news which was all day, everyday. Under the reign of Prince of humanity, I too faced trial for calling him corrupt, and holding him responsible for the tragedy of and the inhumane treatment of the Stateless, of which many have began to commit suicide by lighting themselves on fire in the streets in protest of the extreme hardship and crippling racism they face in Kuwait. The charges brought against me were defamation, and spreading rumors with the intention of undermining state security; both felonies. The current sheikh Nawaf Al Sabah is just as cruel and just as inhumane as his predecessor.

Because Kuwaiti citizenship, by law, can only be passed on from the father to his offspring. The children of Kuwaiti women who are married to non-Kuwait men, or Stateless men, are not entitled to a Kuwaiti citizenship and are treated as Stateless. One would no doubt wonders, if a Kuwaiti woman was married to a non-Kuwaiti from a different nationality, say an Egyptian man for example, wouldn’t the child hold the father’s nationality and be Egyptian? Yes, the child would hold their father’s nationality, but for a Kuwait woman who divorces her foreign husband and lives in Kuwait with her children, the only country these children have even known, they are - in Kuwait – treated as stateless, deprived of all rights afforded to a Kuwaiti child, her children are considered and treated as Stateless. A Kuwaiti woman cannot pass on her citizenship to her children, her stateless children cannot even inherit her property after she dies, this situation where the children of a Kuwaiti woman cannot even find work in Kuwait highlights the misogyny of that patriarchal Muslim country. I cannot - this essay – cover all the racism and alienation by which people carrying other nationalities are treated in Kuwait, that’s a lengthy subject that must be kept for another essay.

A woman named Shaimaa in her late thirties, of a Stateless father who died fighting the Iraqis in 1990, and a Kuwait mother tells me. I graduated from high school, which I was allowed to attend because my mother holds the Kuwaiti citizenship, but I was denied a certificate of graduation, I hoped I could go to college, but couldn’t without a high school diploma. Many years later, officials announced they were offering children of Kuwaiti women from Stateless fathers the right to go to college, but I had completed high school so many years ago, and without proof of completion, the only way for me to enroll was to re-attend high school, I did, but was still not accepted in the free public college. A Kuwaiti man proposed to me, and my family accepted him, but when we wanted to get permission to marry at the Committee of Illegal Residents, where Stateless people like me have to go to get permission to marry, they told my fiancé he couldn’t marry me as I had no identification. They refused to acknowledge our union, they said to my fiancé: “why don’t you marry a Kuwaiti women why do you want to marry “her” pointing at me with obvious disdain. We traveled to a near by Gulf country by car and got married there but when we came back to Kuwait to certify the marriage contract, the committee would not certify it. Relationships between men and women outside wedlock are illegal in Kuwait, and the committee threatened to arrest us for adultery, which is punishable with imprisonment. I’ve always wanted to be a mother, to have a family, but I could not bare to bring a child in this hostile environment. According to the law a Kuwaiti man can apply for the citizenship of his non-Kuwaiti wife, this is easily done when a Kuwaiti man marries a non-Kuwaiti woman, however, because the committee refuses to recognize my marriage to my husband I suspect, I will never get citizenship, says Shaimaa.

A man in his late twenties named Mohammed tells me the following, my Kuwaiti grandfather was apolitical activist in the sixties, as a punishment, the Kuwaiti government stripped him and all his descendants from citizenship, my father became Stateless even though he wasn’t borne so, all his children, are too. Fate had my mother - who holds the Jordanian nationality and was pregnant with me at the time, to seek medical treatment in the United States due to health issues, as a result I was born in the United States, my mother returned to Kuwait with me and I was raised there, but as I grew up I saw that there was no life for me in Kuwait, I couldn’t go to school, I could never work, or belong there, so I left for the United states, I study and work in Cleveland, Ohio, I’ve lived in Cleveland for the past nine years. It’s hard to talk to my siblings in Kuwait, they tell me how oppressed they are, how incredibly hard life is for them in Kuwait, two sisters and a brother, neither can work or study, it’s a dead end for them wherever they turn, it’s especially hard since our mother passed. I want to apply for them to migrate to the United States, but the procedure is arduous and expensive, they also don’t want to leave my father alone, and he doesn’t want to migrate to the United States, sometimes when I speak to my siblings, I feel guilty because I was the only one who managed to get away from the hell they are living in Kuwait, Mohammed says.  

The children of Kuwaiti mothers and Stateless fathers are in some cases issued a gray passport, different from the blue Kuwaiti passport. These gray passports ensure they can never obtain a visa to any country they want to migrate to, as the country of their destination immediately recognizes the gray passport as belonging to a Stateless person who will come to that host country to remain not just visit, and is therefore refused a visit visa. In addition to this, they are refused a visit visa because they cannot prove they have sufficient funds to visit the host country by submitting bank statements showing regular income.

The Stateless in Kuwait live well under the poverty line, denied work opportunities in both the government and the private sector. When they are offered menial low paying work by private employers, the general ostracization practiced by the Kuwaiti government and the Kuwaiti society against them as a whole, emboldens employers to take advantage of stateless workers, often paying them volatile wages, or paying them less than other laborers carrying out the same work, or in many cases denying them pay all together. Without formal work contracts to protect their labor rights, as the stateless are usually so desperate for any kind of work, they are willing to accept work without a contract to protect them. This allows employers to end their services without prior notice, without end of service benefits, and without remuneration of unpaid wages, knowing fully well that a Stateless worker cannot turn to the courts to defend their labor rights, or get compensation.

The stateless children are not accepted in free government Kuwaiti school, the only way for the stateless to educate their children is to enroll them in poorly built, poorly equipped private school, founded only to accommodate Stateless children, this is how deep their isolation from the rest of the Kuwaiti society runs, a Stateless child never comes into contact with a Kuwaiti child who is a citizen. These schools are not free and not affordable, and because of this, and because Stateless parents often can’t afford to enroll their children in these schools, many stateless children remain illiterate.

I want to remind the reader (or the listener) here, that Kuwait is a Muslim country, and its people are a Muslim people. The religion that claims to surpasses all other religions in its humanity, and its followers are the same people who claim they are the most merciful, peace loving, and most generous in alms giving.

Although statistics differ, some Kuwaiti sources say the number of stateless in Kuwait is 25,000 people, some say its risen to 50,000, and some claim its risen to a 100,000 people. Kuwait is a not a country known for it’s accuracy or its transparency, a little oil monarchy with brutal sheikh who keeps his people pressed hard under his boot, all news in Kuwait is government propaganda. Although nothing about the Stateless can be found in the daily news papers, except for lies, in this day and age nothing can be kept hidden from social media.

Stateless children, particularly boys are forced to work from a young age, and because work is not available, they are forced to sell vegetables or watermelons in the streets. Kuwaiti locals drive their expensive German cars in the 120 degrees scorching heat and dust Kuwait is famous for and see eight year old Stateless boys selling water melons in the street. They drive their kids to school, when they know that this eight year old boy will never get a chance to get an education

I participated in several of the peaceful Stateless protests. I was there and saw how the Kuwaiti government oppressed these demonstrations by sending Special Forces in army tanks and spraying the protestors with tear gas and hot water. The special forces were violent; beating and injuring many of the protestors with batons, including myself. When I saw three cops beating a stateless man and tried to intervene I got hit in the stomach with a baton. When I tried to take pictures of the violence on my cell phone, the Special Forces confiscated my phone, destroyed it, and threatened to detain me. Although I could not keep the pictures I took of the protests, a photographer provided me with photos which I published in a book I will mention at the end of this essay. The stateless protestors, most of them young men, are arrested and imprisoned for five years or more, for protesting peacefully. This is the reason why many Stateless men are burning themselves in the streets as the only way for them to protest and escape imprisonment.

Here are the names of Stateless men I know of, who either hung themselves or burned themselves alive in Kuwait in the past year:

Ali Al Shammari who was a twelve-year-old boy, he took his life by hanging in February 2021

Before Ali, Yakoub Mifrih who was twenty-six-years old, he also took his own life by hanging.

Before Yakoub, Bader Al Fadli lit himself on fire

Before Bader, Zayed Al Asmi, lit himself on fire.

and Before Zayed, Talal Al Khulaifi, also took his life by lighting himself on fire in the street.

Two new suicides took place, one of them on June 8^th 2021 and another on August 6^th 2021. I could not find the names of these two last victims in my search on the internet and social media, only the news that these men, one of them an elderly man, took their lives by immolation.  

The Kuwaiti government lead by the Sheik forbids any local papers from printing anything negative about Kuwait, the stateless suicides are not mentioned, And the the day after a peaceful protest by the stateless, all the local newspapers announces the same propaganda, that there was a riot by the stateless, that the Kuwaiti forces succeeded in bringing it under control, that the Stateless were violent towards the police, and that they burned tires and damaged property.

Kuwaiti papers publish other lies about how the Kuwaiti government is improving the lives of the Stateless, by lifting some of the restriction, issuing them a kind of ID that allows them drive legally, or accepting their children in free public schools, but these are all lies, if anything, the lives of the Stateless in Kuwait are worsening every day.

The committee of the Illegal Residents, chaired by a corrupt man named Saleh Al Fadala a puppet installed by the Sheikh, Al Fadala has been announcing since the committee’s foundation in 2010, that the committee has proof that the Stateless belong to other countries, however, such documents are never revealed, neither to the public, or the stateless people concerned.

In regards to the Kuwaiti Muslim people, and I want to emphasize the word Muslim here, they are well aware of the Stateless tragedy in their country. They either believe the lies the Kuwaiti government feeds them, and, therefore justify the inhumane treatment of the Stateless, these lies include: that the stateless are illegal residents who will not leave to their home countries where they belong. They are a nuisance. They are criminal offenders. They are unwanted immigrants who will weigh heavily on the country’s economy if they were legalized. And (the oldest trick in the book) the stateless will take away job opportunities and benefits from the natives. Please remember, we are talking about an oil rich country with a population of two and half million people only. Some Kuwaiti people want a solution for the Stateless tragedy but fear of imprisonment or job loss keeps them quiet.

How are the Stateless in Kuwait coping with the pandemic? They are denied the COVID19 vaccine by Kuwaiti hospitals, allow me to emphasize for the third time here, that Kuwait is a Muslim country. This is the humanity Muslims claim they practice.

In 2012, while I was a law professor living in Kuwait, I publicized that I wanted to hold a literary competition for the Stateless, I asked them to send me poems, short stories, and other prose describing their daily lives, their hopes, and their fears. The competition had two categories, the first was for children under eighteen, and the second was for the eighteen year olds and older. Three winners from each category got a monetary prize, and I collected all of the poems and prose into a booklet I named “Juthoor” The Arabic word for Roots. I printed a thousand copies, sold them, gave the revenue to Stateless children to cover school fees, it wasn’t much, but it helped.

This collection is in Arabic, a digital copy is available to access on my website: https://fatimaalmatar.com/book/

I hope to translate the collection into English someday.

I have published an Arabic copy of this essay, on my blog: http://fatimaalmatar.blogspot.com/2021/06/blog-post.html

and an audio version of the Arabic essay on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6tTa8vUA_I&t=169s

الإسلام يضمن عبوديّة المرأة

يمكن الإستماع لهذه المقالة هنا

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKQbgkUfdN0