Your Highness, the Deputy Amir … Kindly read these lines

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YOUR Highness, the Deputy Amir and  Crown Prince, perhaps the biography of the Prime Minister of Singapore and the founder of its modern state Lee Kuan Yew is one of the historical stations worth considering.

In 1959, this man took over a poor country where everything was on the verge of collapsing. Corruption and crime had pervaded it, and security was almost nill. The police force, schools and universities were not well equipped to meet the needs of the country. Racial and religious turmoil threatened to explode at any moment. In brief, the conditions that prevailed in Singapore at that time were conducive to render a failure any attempt to reform.

However, the new prime minister said, “I asked myself – Should I be part of the corrupt and build wealth for my children, or should I work on building a state and a country that we are proud of? I saw that building the state and the human beings is much more important than wealth and prestige. Therefore, the tough battle was fought, and within three decades, we were able to become a regional financial and commercial center, and the largest educated and working community in the region, let alone with the highest income as well”.

This man worked based on the Chinese proverb, “Do not give me a fish, but teach me how to fish”. That is why he sought to educate the Singaporeans, and build schools and universities to train his people to work.

With education, he worked on securing the “fishing hook”. He also launched the greatest anti-corruption and crime workshop in the history of his country, and within a few years he was able to transform Singapore from a torn country to an effective state in its surroundings.

At his old age, he prepared his son to take over the position of Prime Minister in order to keep the country moving on the path of progress.

Your Highness the Crown Prince, during the last six decades, what did the state offer to the Kuwaitis other than making them dependent and waiting for the fish that is bestowed on them, instead of building a productive economy?

It killed the entrepreneurial spirit of the citizens who discovered that the easiest way to live a false luxurious life is a job that does not require scientific specializations.

Therefore, there are many graduates from faculties of Sharia, law, administration, and other disciplines that are not needed by the labor market. Meanwhile, the ministries and public sector institutions are crowded with employees, who are in fact the best model for disguised unemployment. Reliance on expatriate employees has become the basis.

All of this was the natural result of the dominance of the parliamentarians over the decision of successive governments that were afraid of any outcry against them, and trembled from the wave of interpellations against the Prime Minister, due to which they succumbed to the parliamentary demands and spent without reckoning to buy loyalties by enhancing consumer spending among citizens.

All this was because everyone looked for their own interests while the interest of the country and the society as a whole did not receive the required attention.

For this reason, the country for example has become the top country regionally and perhaps globally in sending its citizens for medical treatments overseas, which is actually political tourism, even though it has a health infrastructure, which if invested correctly can attract medical tourism.

The country did not care about building a real industrial infrastructure. Worst of all, education is something about which it is better not to talk.

In addition, these councils and governments worked to close the country in a way that no other country in the region has seen, through laws that almost make Kuwait more like North Korea than Japan. This led to the expulsion of investments from the country.

Because of these reasons, the country ended up with the highest financial deficit in its history.

Also, despite the rise in oil prices, the average public budget deficit is expected to reach about 12 percent of the GDP until 2025, which is among the highest rates in the region.

Several times it has gotten close to depleting the liquidity of the general reserve fund, and recorded a deficit of about KD 25 billion.

Your Highness the Deputy Amir, Kuwait is the only country in the region that witnesses a lot of sit-ins, demonstrations and strikes anytime a problem arises. The level of functional and administrative production in the country is negligible. Sometimes it even reaches the extent of harming the head of state, because of the audacity in the parliamentarians after they saw themselves, for a moment, stronger than any other authority in a distorted interpretation of democracy.

In 2012, the then-British Prime Minister David Cameron, in the face of the violence that prevailed in Britain against the backdrop of the protests at the time, said, “We will not let any false allegations of human rights stand in the way of preserving the country’s national security”.

Some may come today to argue that this statement is against democracy and human rights. In fact, inaction, failure to effectively remedy the situation, and the weakness of governments in the face of the National Assembly, which deviated many times from its primary mission, led to undermining the prestige of the law and the state, and caused what the country faced before June 22.

Your Highness the Crown Prince, everyone in Kuwait knows that you are the person concerned with bringing it back to its renaissance, and that you are following up every step of the current government, which may be temporary, with great care towards the people and the nation in terms of using the “hook” and not depending on eating the fish provided by the government, because it is not permanent.

In this regard, we turn to your Highness with a reference to Prophet Yusuf (PBUH) about the dream of the king, and how he, after lean years, was able to restore Egypt to better conditions, as is the case of today’s Kuwait.

Thank you for your great effort in shaking off the lean years. With your relentless efforts, Kuwait seems to be proceeding towards productive and prosperous years

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times

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