What if the World Cup was in Kuwait?

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WE do not exaggerate when we say that the happiness of leaders is measured by the stability of their people, and that frankness and disclosure through freedom of opinion and expression is a healthy necessity for states to get rid of the ills that could be caused by not hearing the opinions of others.

This is due to the fact that burying heads in the sand, and not being vocal about what the society is enduring will undoubtedly lead to the exacerbation of diseases in the society. Cosmetic patches will not repair the distorted face with the wounds of opportunism, populism, and personal interests.

Based on this fact, my colleague Zahed Matar commented on Tuesday in his Day-by-Day column about the World Cup, which is currently taking place in Qatar. When pondering over what would happen if the World Cup were to take place in Kuwait, he listed some of the detriments that may occur, after which the list was completed by one of his followers.

The detriments he listed included: 

* A tough lawyer will head to the Constitutional Court to challenge the decree law related to the World Cup in order to stop the tournament. In response, the Constitutional Court will stop it through an urgent ruling until a decision is made on the validity of the decree.

* The National Assembly will announce the grilling of the Prime Minister on the background of the exaggerated cost of the tournament.

* The Ministry of Interior prevents entry for people from certain countries due to errors in visas and a crisis at the Kuwait International Airport.

* A gang consisting of a sheikh, an MP, four Kuwaitis, and three expatriates of different nationalities will be discovered selling forged tickets.

* Part of one of the stadiums will collapse, and the ministry will blame the main contractor, who in turn will accuse the subcontractor. The National Assembly will then call for the formation of an investigation committee that will end its work after four years with the next World Cup.

* A wrong diagnosis in a hospital for Messi’s injury will prevent him from playing in the rest of the World Cup matches.

* The smuggling of groceries in the luggage of one of the national team’s fans will be discovered.

* The Eighty Group will call for banning the Bedoun residents from attending all matches until they provide evidence of their origins.

* The MPs will question the Minister of Information after seeing scenes of immodest girls among the European audience in the stadium. The minister will deny his ministry’s responsibility for those scenes, and will announce that “BeiN Sport” is an external channel broadcasting from outside Kuwait, and that the questioning is unconstitutional.

* After our team’s defeat against the German team, the stock market collapsed and businessmen demanded government intervention to support the private sector, and to meet the Prime Minister.

* A cooperative society bought tickets for the final match and distributed them for free to its shareholders.

Unfortunately, this and more will be witnessed in Kuwait because the events that we have witnessed for decades do not suggest otherwise.

Our social reality is very different from what it was half a century ago. We still suffer from service, educational, health and economic infrastructure that is almost the worst in the region.

To this day, we sing that Kuwait was the pearl of the Gulf, it had the cultural, economic and educational leadership, and it was the country of openness, but today it is closed and no one can visit it unless they conform to the almost impossible requirements.

All over the world, infrastructure is considered one of the sovereign assets of the state, a source of income and an attraction for investors.

No financier can establish any project in a country that suffers from poor services, especially if it is not possible for him to seek the help of some expertise from abroad. We have the best example in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates in terms of the prosperity of the industrial sector, which is managed with cooperation between citizens and residents.

In those countries, there are no arbitrary laws and decisions tailored only for expatriates, as is the case in Kuwait, where they are prohibited from obtaining even a driving license unless their salary is more than KD 600, and the applicant holds a university degree. Of course, this is just part of our situation.

That is why we cannot even dream of winning the honor of organizing the World Cup as long as we look at the whole world with suspicion, as if other people are monsters seeking to eat us.

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times

This news has been read 105185 times!

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