A few days ago I attended a conference in Dubai.

I attempted to check in at the ‘Kuwait Airways’ desk at Dubai Airport, amidst a frenzied crowd, and was told there was ‘an eight hour delay from the ‘Kuwait Airways’ side’

The crowd around me, consisting of families and businessmen were cursing the state (“What is wrong with our country?” and “Why are they refusing to develop it – where is our money going?”). There was anger in the crowd, pure venom. They didn’t care if Emirati citizens or foreigners were listening – they have had it with Kuwait’s lack of services and mean, tight-fisted ways and they were verbally generous.

We scurried, managing to transfer our tickets to Emirates Airlines – departing at the original KA time – at the brand new, gleaming, high-tech Terminal Three (there was a work-in-progress metro rail outside that looked like something out of ‘Epcot’).

The trip was smooth. Even in Economy passengers were treated with the utmost respect and service was excellent (if it were Economy in ‘Kuwait Airways’ the personnel would have treated us all like garbage, especially the Asians).

A perfect landing by the Emirates pilot was briefly interrupted by a screeching brake.

“We are sorry ladies and gentleman, there was a driver who managed to speed across our tarmac during our arrival,” said the pilot. Passengers burst out laughing, “Yes, we definitely are in Kuwait now!” they hollered.

We exited our planes and were met with crowds of laborers and tourists, cigarette smoke, filthy ambience, dim lighting and the obligatory pink airport signs – yes we had arrived at Kuwait Airport, a far cry from whence we came. But hey, its home isn’t it. We were relieved and content.

Two days later, the electricity goes off in my neighborhood, for three hours. The Ministry of Electricity’s line was constantly busy. I went to check the local transformer/electrical building and found expatriate Ministry of Electricity technicians waiting, unable to do anything (“Please call the Ministry,” they implored me, “we are waiting for the hajji Kuwaiti engineer.”). They wanted my help in contacting their ministry – think about that for a minute.

This morning I open a newspaper and see quotes by Ministry of Electricity Under-Secretaries admitting there will be more power cuts this summer. Bloggers and columnists have been writing about this crisis for over five years – why didn’t the government do anything about it? Oh wait, they spent half a billion on decrepit generators that didn’t do the job – genius.

Let me say one thing to the movers and shakers (and I know for a fact you, your kids and your relatives follow this and other blogs): enough is enough, get your heads out of your posteriors, forget your egotistical, tired summits and conferences, and get working for the state, for this country. It is time you provided basic services to people without humiliating them – there is a resentment and anger towards government and officials in this country that you are not aware of.

We are a rich country. Use our resources wisely and work for us – that is what you are there for: public service.

Patience is not indefinite. And God won’t forgive those who don’t take care of their flock.

We’ve done our bit.

Now the Government needs to step up to the plate.

L-Right (Aseel Al-Awadi, Rola Dashti, Salwa Al-Jassar and Masouma Mubarak) L-Three: Stephanie McGehee/Reuters; right, Yasser Al-Zayyat/AFP-Getty Images

Our faith in the system and people of Kuwait was reaffirmed today.

Following years of uncertainty and gridlock, the people of Kuwait have voted for change. I am certainly in high spirits, and relieved. We were hoping one or two women would make it in, we got four!

Some newcomer independents also won and ‘Hadas’ took a big hit in the 3rd District (my district). The ‘fatwas’ and mudslinging by xenophobic elements towards women and progressive candidates backfired, reenergizing and intensifying support for them.

Congratulations to the qualified ladies and newcomers.

Rain in Islam is a blessed event, and it rained slightly today on ‘Election Day’ (our third in over three years). Hopefully, it is a positive omen of things to come.

Voting took a maximum of ten minutes, including a detour by a Candidate (who gave the obligatory two minute campaign speech) on my way to voting.

It seemed very quiet this year, with reports of low voter turnouts from all the districts.

Let us hope the third time is the charm.

Here are a couple of previous stories: last year’s ‘Election Day’ (2008) post ‘Casting The Ballot In Kuwait’ and the prior post ‘It’s Over, I Voted’ (2006).

Remember.

One week to elections.

Please don’t vote for people who don’t respect women’s political rights, who court and fund foreign extremist elements, who auction their shoes for so-called ‘freedom fighters,’ who lambast the Prime Minister yet accept funds from him, who issue fatwas based on personal interests and who accept ‘campaign contributions’ from foreign citizens.

Here endeth the speech.

‘National Assembly’ Extension

May 16th, Election Day, is on the horizon.

People often ask what my personal criterion is in electing someone – some of it instinctual, most of it is real politik-based, in other words, candidates who perform their duties in a realistic, level-headed manner with the national interests at heart, devoid of extremist, foreign ideologies and immune to the vaults of riches and personal self-aggrandizement.

In many cases, however, there are candidates who are smart, educated, progressive but don’t particularly fit a ‘code,’ a set of questions that I mentally scrutinize concerning the candidate:

• Who will the candidate support as ‘Speaker of the Parliament’?

• Will the candidate accept a cabinet position?

• Does the candidate have any business interests with the state?

There are a couple of exceptional candidates, from both genders, look impressive on paper, but offering them a vote would be fruitless – they wouldn’t meet the aforementioned benchmarks. I don’t know about you, but I am not in the business of electing individuals interested in cabinet positions (or in individuals who enjoy the ‘status quo’) – to me those are wasted votes.

What are your personal benchmarks for the ideal candidate?

I have been tweeting more than I have been blogging. I apologize, but tweeting on Twitter is so much easier especially from a mobile device, both in reading other peoples tweets and writing your own. I write random things that I see, thoughts that I have, respond to my tweet friends and update them on where I am in this world – all in 140 letters or less.

Recently celebrities have had the media focus on twitter, first Ashton Kutcher was on a head to head race with CNN by being the first to amass the millionth follower. Ashton won if you did not know. A few days later, Oprah joined twitter and tweeted her first tweet from her show, she quickly got told off by Shaquille O’Neal telling her that her caps where on, which is considered similar to shouting and bad Internet etiquette.

A lot of people joined and tweeted on twitter after that.

Today, I got informed by twitter that Aseel09 is following me on twitter.

Knowing that it is the Candidate Aseel Al Awadhi, I followed her back. Unfortunately, Aseel’s tweets were more like announcements of her media and campaigning activities. They don’t even look like she is the one posting her tweets. I have some advice for Aseel or any celeb whether, local or international, big or small, on how to behave on twitter:

1) If you join Twitter, first be sure that your mobile device supports it and tweet constantly from there. It is more convenient in real time for all your followers.

2) Tweet yourself, don’t let anyone tweet for you. The whole beauty of twitter is that it’s personalized, and not a tedious announcement of some event.

3) Be human, tell us your activities, spur of the momen thoughts and comments – don’t misuse it as a Public Relations form of spin.

4) Be funny, show us your humor.

5) Be interesting, tell us the story about what is happening to you, with one tweet after other.

6) Comment and reply to your followers or anyone else you may have an opinion about.

7) Using Twitter as a platform for announcements is the wrong way to tweet.

If you want to see an interesting and captivating twitterer you can check out my own tweets. (Apologies for the self promotion).

I hope Aseel listens to my advice, and if she does, she will win my vote and others.

Political fatigue and cynicism are in the air. People aren’t even into election rallies. And the ones who are, hear the same tales of ‘If I am elected.’ Newspapers are tedious to read. Late night TV shows featuring candidates have become deja vu. There are some candidates who aren’t even running because they fear parliament might be disbanded again.

People fear even if they vote right, the government will deliberately hijack its own political process baiting the ‘Problem MP’s’ by imposing Defense Minister Sheik Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah as Prime Minister on them and that in itself will court trouble and controversy.

Even if the government doesn’t impose the Defence Minister on Parliament, the same schtick will occur: there will be a session or two of Parliament followed by a four month hiatus. They will reconvene in October, the government will hand in a lacklustre ‘cut and paste’ development program and the Parliament will go haywire. Then we all get hit by an ‘unconstitutional dissolution.‘

Will that stop me for voting? Of course not – after all I can spare an hour on May 16.

Do I think my vote will make a difference on Election Day? No.

The Gulf Road – Kuwait City (from Marof39)

It isn’t really that bad in Kuwait in the summer time, traffic gets lighter in August, it is easier to get around, fruits and vegetables become plentiful and cheaper, and people spend more time at the beach, enjoying its usual summer activities.

Kuwait has a very strange peculiarity that you don’t see anywhere else in the world; most of our beach front from Salmiya all the way to the southern border – more than eighty kilometers long – is locked out to ordinary people save for very few areas here and there, the rest is occupied by chalets owned by Kuwaiti citizens and, in some cases, by a handful of small scale resorts – with horrendous prices, mind you; for a short family vacation, what the Brits call a “bucket and a spade” holiday. The odd thing is that these chalets remain mostly closed and empty during summer and you see miles and miles of dark or dimly lit chalets along the coast.

What is left of the sea front in a country that prides itself of its past as a seafaring nation is a stretch of coastline that has been reclaimed and developed for enjoyment of the rest of the population, this area is called the ‘Gulf Road’ or the corniche. More and more locals spend their summer days and nights (as well as Friday afternoons) frequenting it with their families and friends, laughing, playing, swimming and most importantly cooking their meals.

In Kuwait we make a big fuss out of cooking, especially when it comes to roasting kebab and grilled meats on the beach. This alfresco grilling causes people annoyance for no reason. Critics claim the rising blue smoke reminds them of the Red Indians, some say the smell is nauseating, some say the family man who is usually in charge of cooking isn’t particularly tidy, leaving a mess of trash afterwards, this in spite of signs that clearly state “NO GRILLING” (it seems Kuwaitis like to do the grilling only in the National Assembly (our Parliament) .

What do we expect when we squeeze two million people on a stretch of sand that is less than 16 kilometers long? There are not enough car parks (people used to park on the pavement – even though we put up these hideous concrete balls to prevent them from parking there – so now they just park on the main road instead).

Beach life on weekends is all about barbequing and grilling anywhere in the world, east or west the best nation for beach barbequing culture is Australia: they placed grills along all their popular beaches so the holiday makers or beachgoers wont have trouble cooking their own food; they even gave these grills a cute names like ‘barbies’ (“put another shrimp on the Barbie, mate”).

Of course as I previously mentioned our ‘No Grilling’ signs are prevalent all along the beach. Kuwait needs to remove these signs and build grills and let the fires roar, spreading the heavenly aroma for all to share – what is a beach without a mess?

Have a great summer.