Middle East Report Online has just posted a fascinating, lengthy essay on the last turbulent year in Kuwait by Mary Ann Tetrault. It's all interesting, but I think I'll just excerpt the section on the role played by the new media in the 2006 Parliamentary election:
Like the orange-clad protesters, candidates sent reams of text messages, using lists of cell phone numbers generated from records of attendees asked to sign in at events. Some messages, featuring rumor and gossip, were campaign tricks designed to make another candidate look bad. Most focused on thanking the recipient for his or her support and offered information about the candidate’s next event.
Blogs were a more important innovation. Voters could read some of the more sensational blog postings in daily newspapers. The Orange Movement leadership maintains a blog originating in the United States, managed jointly by overseas Kuwaiti students and one of the Orange organizers. This blog, KuwaitJunior, provided running news and commentary during the emiri transition in January 2006. During the campaign, it brought electoral corruption into the public eye thanks to a posting by a woman who recounted how two men in Rula Dashti’s district had attempted to buy her vote with the promise of a Chanel handbag. Although she did not mention the candidate’s name, it soon became public knowledge that she was speaking of Jamal al-‘Umar. The Orange leadership investigated this allegation by dispatching an undercover member, armed with a small video camera, to negotiate with the vote buyers. The camera failed, but the agent managed to capture pictures and voices on her cell phone. Then four young men who were not Orange organizers decided to challenge al-‘Umar during an event at his tent in Jabriyya southeast of Kuwait City. They asked him to explain why people were buying votes on his behalf if he was innocent of corruption as he claimed. The youths were roughed up and thrown out by the candidate’s assistants and, adding insult to injury, the Jabriyya police refused to accept their assault complaint. The worst part of the story came at the end, when al-‘Umar came in second, thereby winning a seat in the 2006 parliament.
A third media innovation came from broadcasts sent via private satellite stations into Kuwait. These broadcasts consisted primarily of videotapes of candidate forums, speeches and debates. The programs provided by the Alliance, a two-year old opposition umbrella group, featured speakers critical of the government and prominent in the movement for redistricting. The information minister tried to shut these satellite broadcasts down, arguing that they did not cover all the candidates equally and therefore were biased -- the same reason commonly given for why state-owned electronic media do
not cover campaign events. The government put pressure on ArabSat, the broadcaster, to stop carrying the programs. When ArabSat complied, the Alliance shifted its broadcasts to HotBird, a service fewer Kuwaitis subscribe to, but KuwaitJunior and other blogs posted links offering streaming video for those without TV access.
An interesting case where political blogs might actually have mattered in Arab politics. And overall a piece well worth reading.
So the author jetted in from Texas for the month... that explains why she has no insight into Kuwaiti women, except for what her feminist friends - who are not at all representative - tell her.
Posted by: kuwaitiwoman | October 15, 2007 at 06:55 AM