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The aim of Kaleidoscope is to fabricate a well rounded medium of literature in which regional and international voices are expressed. The aim is to create a community for talented authors and enthusiastic readers alike. If Kaleidoscope is successful, we will attempt to publish a collection of the best pieces on paperback.Please feel free to join our community. Everyone is welcome.
The Aggressor said
I read some of your top listed articles and their responses and comments. I must say, with all my heart, some of the participants have a very vivid view of Kuwaiti culture! It’s one thing to promote creativism by way of critiquing one’s society towards it’s enlightenment and eventual betterment, but it’s totally another to villify it to be the whore-mongring, self-centered racist society that it has been portrayed to look like in some of these posts!
I am a Kuwaiti, educated in both the Middle East and Europe, and I have a strong bind to some ‘Western ideals’ like free speech and socail justice and equality. I am married, have a steady job, a steady social life and a fulfilling number of hobbies to pass my time. True, I’ve had my share of wild encouters with unethical and socially unacceptable activities-just like everyone else-but I believe that my society (the Kuwaiti family society) has allowed me to see my fallicies and grow out of them, anonymously and safely I might add.
Do people really believe that most Kuwaiti males have nothing better to do than roam around in their luxury cars while in their teens, breaking up women’s hearts, until they find a government desk job and live meagre lives unable to escape their childhood?? Personally, I don’t know ANYONE that fits this description, and I’m someone with around 350 entires in my mobile’s address book!
I had the privilage of studying both in the Kuwaiti, the US and the UK system. Honestly speaking, it is the Kuwaiti system that promoted my immoral behaviour while it was acting up, not because I was exposed to the ‘unwelcome/useless/self-centered/under-achieving male elements’ of Kuwait’s society, but because I was encouraged to do so-believe it or not-by the female elements! Nowhere else did I find a girl inviting me to her home while her parents were away on vacation..nowhere else did I find a fully-veiled woman (in public) wearing high-rise heels and dancing around the pool with a bottle of Vodka in her hand and wearing a bikini at a party…nowhere else was i approached by a total stranger who asked me for my phone number right afer she asked me if she could borrow the chair at my table!
I agree with what some have written on such subjects like male dominance, ignorance, unwhorthiness and so on, but let’s be more balanced; A woman brought down the Roman Empire; A Princess caused WW1; An female intern was having the time of her live with a US president back in 1998. Moreover, and closer to home, a woman prevented men of power from meeting her fraile old husband by locking him in his room! And you know what…a woman is my wife & mother too, just as a man is my father and my brother.
Frustration over broken up relationships is the theme of most of the articles that I’ve read. While i agree that this is a very sensitive and emotional issue, I contest to the fact that it be used to condemn a large majority of any society, even if it had academic connotations. My apologies to those who disagree with me, but that’s what blogging is about…that’s where the true kaliedoscope of thought and mind exists.
Kaleidoscope said
The Aggressor: Thank you for sharing your points of view. Please try to read most or all of the posts here before making any adamant judgements. Likewise, this forum targets free expression through diverse ways of what each writer views as creative. Not all readers agree with the posts as not all writers agree with the commentators. It’s an open forum to helpfully humanize perspectives through literary expression. Kuwait and the region publically lack this and yes many here have ‘vented’ perhaps more emotionally than logically, or politically correctly.
What you should ask yourself is why so many here have negative views of Kuwait, relationships, gender-roles etc. and what we can do to learn from all of this. It’s definitely not black or white; there are many other colors amongst them. Your comment is just another expression, which we dearly welcome here. And if you would like to express yourself (like you have eloquently done in your comment), then why not submit something to justify your own reasoning as a bicultural/multicultural Kuwaiti man in the midst of what you may come to agree or disagree with ? You are more than welcome to.