Kuwait The Golden Cage

Sahar Moussa

Kuwait is a small, big, wealthy and a dramatic country. Small in its size, big in its population, wealthy with its oil and dramatic with its boredom. If you live in Kuwait, the two things you get very familiar with quickly are the malls and restaurants, considering it’s the most accessible entertainment. Too many restaurants and too many malls.

To be objective, there are cinemas in almost every mall here, where the movies are censored all the time. Once upon a time, there used to be a Virgin Megastore with a lot of censored music, films and books. But the “extremists” pushed until the store gave up and closed.

There are some good bookstores; well, it’s not as great as ‘Kinokuniya’ in Dubai for example. You should know by now why; yes the ‘censoring’ again. What is really sarcastic is anyone can buy the “censored” books or films from anywhere in this world and bring it to Kuwait. And anyone can download any “censored” music from the Internet.

So the loss here is Kuwait’s economy’s and nobody else’s. There are some private, big and nice clubs you can join, but there are a lot of frustrated people there in a frustrated atmosphere – so you end up regretting joining one. Talking about frustration, although the malls here are lavish and have every brand you can think of, it can be your worst nightmare thanks to the frustrated men who roam in circles around women they see like predators. The schools and universities here are clean, with good equipment, and good teachers but they grow up with a twisted personality because of something called ‘segregation’. There are a lot of talented musicians here, but all these regulations end up pushing them to quit.

I’m not asking for Kuwait to be a touristic country, but at least they can loosen up a bit and consider that there are a lot of expats with different nationalities living and working here. And following the rules and regulations and paying fines and loving the country patriotically no less than the locals. It makes no sense for someone to work all his life and make a lot of money without being able to go to a decent concert with good music, or enjoy classic music in an opera house perhaps. I believe that music is the food for the soul. Kuwait is a rich country with a poor lifestyle.

If anyone asks me why I’m still living here if I find it so boring and dull, I would say because I genuinely love the country and I feel it’s my obligation to defend it for what I believe is good in it. Kuwait is like a big golden cage with birds in it. A wealthy prison for the body and soul, so free your country before you lose it all. I only ask this with all respect and love for Kuwait.

By Sahar Moussa
sahar@kuwaittimes.net

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