At first glance, the relaxed crowd chain smoking and drinking espresso at the Second Cup cafe across from the Kuwait stock exchange seems no different from millions of other twenty-somethings. Some are debating the American elections; there are snatches of conversation about poetry, and someone passes on the latest whispers of corruption about a government minister. But this is the monthly meeting of the growing army of Kuwait's bloggers. From reforming the election laws to shaking the football establishment, or pushing the boundaries of speech, they have emerged as a force to be reckoned with. And they are not afraid to protest on the streets if they think their government is turning a deaf ear to their views.
"I think bloggers here are like an earthquake," says Barrak al Souri, 34, who became the first blogger in the country to publish a book after his collection of poetry was popularised on the internet at barrak1974.blogspot.com. Mr Souri has just arrived for the meeting with his friends. There is not much talk of politics because they are excitedly discussing the success of his eponymous book published in August.
"What I want to say in my book is this is the old Kuwait," he says. "This poetry is the art of Kuwait. I write in our dialect and I also write in the zuhari style which is like rhyming. I didn't know I was a poet but the bloggers said I could write well." He received many encouraging comments from young readers who believed he should publish a book because the poetic tradition of their country was disappearing.
"They advertised my book on their blogs, I was very happy," he says. "Now you can buy it in the Virgin Megastore." The bloggers even helped him design the book's red and grey cover. There are no women here tonight, but plenty have also taken to writing blogs and are unafraid to express opinions about politics, the traditional domain of Arab men. "The mentality is different from the young and the old, it is very different," says Aseel Amin, 30, who writes about politics and romance at hamasatmasmoo3a.blogspot.com. "Their lifestyle is different. Bloggers are the voices of Gulf boys and girls that people can hear."
Bashar Abdullah, 28, who discusses technology at blogallalong.com, is more blunt about its appeal. "There is no topic I must hold to. No reputation I must maintain. Nothing I'm trying to sell. No deadline. And supposedly no censorship." After Egypt, there are more bloggers in Kuwait than anywhere else in the Middle East, says Abdul Aziz al Ateeqi, 28, who runs the Safat aggregator and blogs at the popular but controversial exzombiesm.com.
"We're talking about the most influential bloggers in the region after Egypt," he says. There are 1,000 blogs on the aggregator and another 2,000 that are not yet listed. "I have a project with Japanese bloggers to clean the beaches," he says. "Or some go to old people or kids with terminal illnesses or have parties for them. It's great. It's a huge community. Bloggers are individuals but part of the community."
Yet Kuwait's young bloggers are a minority in the region. A survey from 2000 found that of 378 million internet users worldwide, only one per cent were in the Middle East, according to a report from the Dubai School of Government. Only 1.6 per cent of the Arab population has access to the internet. The blogging phenomenon in Kuwait began in 2003 when America invaded Iraq and some Kuwaitis began talking on the blogosphere about fears of reprisal attacks from their old enemy Saddam Hussein.
But the high-water mark came in 2006 when a group of bloggers successfully launched an electoral reform campaign to reduce the number of constituencies from 25 to five with the expectation that bigger constituencies would prevent corruption because it would be more difficult to buy voters over a large area. "We did it, we moved it," says Khaled al Otaibi, who was among the key campaigners. "Parliament was hesitant and all Kuwaiti bloggers were discussing it and then we went on the streets and demanded it."
A film about the five districts campaign called When the People Spoke Part II won the best documentary category at the Gulf Film Festival in Dubai last April. "There was a bit of a problem because many people were aggressive and the mass media did not know how to address the bloggers," says Mr Ateeqi, who runs a company specialising in human resources. "We were attacked and given a bad public image but it shifted. Now if you want to get another perspective you go to the blogs. We are faster and we have good contacts."
The introduction of the internet and exposure to western ideas has influenced Kuwait's young people, but it is perhaps not surprising that they are more politically active compared with other young Gulf Arabs. The blogs are like a cyberspace version of diwaniyas, or traditional Kuwaiti gatherings, where everything from politics, literature and the economy are discussed. A culture of diwaniyas, combined with high levels of education and a prickly parliament famous in the region for its grilling of ministers, has given rise to a generation willing to embrace controversy. Although in many ways Kuwait enjoys freedom of speech for its citizens, there are red lines that cannot be crossed such as insulting Islam or criticising the emir of Kuwait. Last year, Bashar al Sayegh, an editor at the al Jarida newspaper, was arrested after a reader posted on his al Oummah website a critique of the emir.
"Usually they send you a letter to come to the police station but they arrested me at night outside al Jarida's office," he says. "They thought I wrote the post." The bloggers swung into action and protested outside the offices of the intelligence services with signs that read "Free Bashar". He was quickly released. "They freed me," he says. "But the other guy who wrote the post is in jail for two and a half years. The bloggers cannot do anything about it, no."
Yet he says the bloggers cannot be ignored. "Newspapers have started to follow them and on the back page of our paper we have a summary of what they are writing." And they can take on other powerful institutions. Last year, some bloggers got fed up with the poor performance of the national football team at the World Cup and backed parliament's efforts to reform the football clubs and the national association which was run by a powerful sheikh.
"It was mismanaged," says Mr Sayegh. "There was no transparency and we wanted to see what is happening in these clubs. The MPs came up with 14 laws and the bloggers backed them. One of the laws says players are paid 500 KD (Dh6,858) a month, before they were paid nothing." But the reforms have not been entirely successful. Fifa has suspended the football association because new policies about how many members can sit on its board contravene the world body's rules.
The bloggers do not have the same constraints as newspapers which are regulated and censored, says Mr Sayegh, adding that one powerful businessmen owns printing paper for all the newspapers in Kuwait except that of al Jarida. "They [the government] are quietly trying to change the law. They want to say that you have to have government permission to start a blog and you will be responsible for its content. They are dealing with the blogs exactly as newspapers. When the government raises this issue again we will go on the streets again. We are ready."
The internet may be democratic in nature but the Kuwaiti blogosphere is dominated by an urban middle class with university degrees. As Mr Souri points out, having an internet connection costs up to Dh552 a month, expensive compared with Saudi Arabia or Egypt. "If you are a poor man I don't want to say you won't be a blogger but you don't have time or money to buy DSL connection. The political bloggers have papers and documents. They go to [art] exhibitions. All this needs time, money and a mind."
The bloggers also tend to have liberal views that support greater democratic reforms and funding for scientific research although in recent months a few young Islamists have started their own blogs to criticise relaxed social attitudes such as women wearing bikinis on the beaches. For women in a society that has strict cultural restrictions on socialising outside the home with people who are not relatives, blogging offers a chance to escape the isolation of home and unburden domestic troubles.
"Many female bloggers reject traditions we live in," says Ms Amin. "They reject how women are dealt with in society and are weary of Kuwait men." Arab women who complain about their husbands often get little sympathy from hectoring in-laws so they reach out to other bloggers anonymously and share stories. "If they go to family to complain it can make it worse," she says. "The son listens to his mother and the girl to her mother and they have a big effect on the marriage.
"They say in the blogs Kuwaiti men are not romantic. They want a Muhannad, that Turkish star, who is always smiling, always speaks with good words and red roses. But it couldn't be real life, it is impossible." hghafour@thenational.ae
