KUWAIT CITY — Many of America’s biggest security threats
emanate from its nominal allies, such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Without them neither the Taliban nor al Qaeda would have been
nearly so strong.
These countries also are hostile to religious minorities. Other
malefactors include Iraq, where the government is a creation of
U.S. invasion, and Afghanistan, where the government survives only
with allied military support.
Religious intolerance is on the rise even in Kuwait, perhaps
America’s best friend in the Arab world.
Until now Christians have worshipped freely in the Persian Gulf
state. However, growing threats to religious minorities reflect
public attitudes which could undermine the heretofore close
U.S.-Kuwait relationship.
Saudi Arabia long has promoted the worst forms of religious
intolerance. Spiritual liberty simply doesn’t exist. The country is
essentially a totalitarian state. The government claims the right
to decide the most fundamental questions involving every
individual’s conscience.
The State Department’s latest report on religious freedom
observed:
“The laws and policies restrict religious freedom, and in practice,
the government generally enforced these restrictions. Freedom of
religion is neither recognized nor protected under the law and is
severely restricted in practice.” At best non-Sunni Muslims can
hope to be left alone when they worship privately. The group Open
Doors placed Saudi Arabia on its “World Watch List,” noting simply
that “religious freedom does not exist in this heartland of Islam
where citizens are only allowed to adhere to one religion.”
Earlier this year the U.S. Commission on International Religious
Freedom tagged the kingdom as a “country of particular concern.”
The Commission found
that “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious
freedom continued despite improvements.” A decade after 9/11, “the
Saudi government has failed to implement a number of promised
reforms related to promoting freedom of thought, conscience, and
religion or belief. The Saudi government persists in banning all
forms of public religious expression other than that of the
government’s own interpretation of one school of Sunni Islam.”
Although Saudi Arabia is the most important Gulf State, it is
uniquely intolerant. Most of its neighbors, like Kuwait, allow
greater diversity of thought and action. That relative liberality
does not go down well in Saudi Arabia.
The Wahhabist Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah
Al-Asheikh oversees every Sunni Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia. He
recently stated that it is “necessary to destroy all the churches
of the region.”
This judgment came in response to a question from a Kuwaiti
delegation of the Wahhabist “Revival of Islamic Heritage Society.”
Al-Asheikh cited the Hadith, an oral commentary on Mohammad’s life,
which includes the Prophet’s injunction that “There are not to be
two religions in the [Arabian] Peninsula.” Al-Asheikh’s opinion has
not been publicized in Saudi Arabia, but his pronouncement already
is law there. No Christian churches exist to be torn down.
This is not the case in the rest of the Persian Gulf. “Christian
churches, Hindu temples and Buddhist shrines are found in Kuwait,
Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, and Yemen,”
noted Irfan al-Alawi of the Gatestone Institute. In Kuwait
there were three churches — Catholic, Coptic, and Evangelical —
within two blocks of the hotel at which stayed. A few years back I
interviewed ministers at all three.
In general their relations with the government were very good.
The late Jerry Zandstra, then the senior minister at the National
Evangelical Church, told me, “We’ve never had any serious
interference at all.” The government recently granted a permit to
the Catholic Church to construct a new facility. Bishop Camillo
Ballin, head of the Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Arabia, noted
that he had “never experienced enmity” while acting in Kuwait.
Of course, not all is perfect. The State Department reported
occasional problems and explained:
“The constitution protects freedom of belief, although other laws
and policies restrict the free practice of religion.” Most
important, religions “not sanctioned in the Qur’an,” such as
Buddhism and Hinduism, “could not build places of worship or other
religious facilities,” reported State, though worship in private
homes was allowed.
When asked about Al-Asheikh’s recommendation, Jamal Al-Shahab,
Kuwait’s Minister of Religious Endowments, responded that “the
constitution of Kuwait guarantees its citizens [freedom of]
religion and worship” and that “Demolishing churches and forbidding
the members of the Christian community from worshipping contravenes
the state’s laws and regulations.” The issue was not even mentioned
when I visited in February to cover the National Assembly election.
Government officials obviously were committed to a society that was
both open and Muslim.
However, the election delivered a new Islamist majority in
parliament. The Emir is head of state and chooses the government,
but the 50 member National Assembly passes laws and interrogates
ministers. Charges of corruption led to the resignation of the
prime minister and dissolution of parliament. Western-leaning
liberals were decimated while 34 Islamists were elected.
It’s not the same as an Islamist takeover in, say, Pakistan, or
even what might happen in Egypt. Kuwait is a small society in which
most everyone seems to know or is otherwise connected with
everyone. Many Islamists, including some who I met, were seen more
as moderate government critics than intolerant crusaders.
Yet it didn’t take long for the new majority to press for
policies contrary to Kuwait’s record of openness. The Islamist
group — formal parties do not exist — proposed amending the
constitution to make Sharia the source of law. The Emir said no,
but he did accept legislation to impose the death penalty on
Muslims for blasphemy (non-Muslims remained subject to a fine and
imprisonment).
Worse, just a couple weeks after the election MP Osama
Al-Monawer proposed drafting a law to turn Al-Asheikh’s
pronouncement into law. Explained Al-Monawer: “Kuwait is an Islamic
country where churches are not permitted to be built.” An Islamist
cleric in Kuwait, Sheikh Saleh Al-Ghanem, backed the
parliamentarian, arguing that according to Mohammed no non-Islamic
“religion may be practiced in the Arabian Peninsula.” And
Al-Asheikh endorsed the proposal, explaining that “Kuwait is part
of the Arabian Peninsula, and [countries in] the Arabian Peninsula
must demolish any churches” because “the Prophet instructed us that
there is no place for two religions” in the Peninsula. If such a
measure was enacted, Kuwait would suddenly look a lot like Saudi
Arabia.
Al-Monawer’s threat may have been triggered by the issuance of
the construction permit to the Catholic Church. Rumors also
circulated — though they are impossible to confirm — that a
member of the ruling family had converted to Christianity. In any
case, Al-Monawer’s initiative was greeted with substantial
criticism. Kuwaiti religion minister Al-Shabab explained that “the
constitution of Kuwait guarantees its citizens [freedom of]
religion and worship, and Islam is well known as a tolerant
religion. Demolishing churches and forbidding the members of the
Christian community from worshipping contravenes the state laws and
regulation.”
Commentators ranging from political to academic to journalistic
criticized the proposal on theological and legal grounds. Some also
made the obvious point that Kuwait and other Islamic nations could
hardly complain about Western strictures against Islam if Muslim
nations were destroying Christian churches.
Under pressure Al-Monawer backed down slightly, limiting his
proposal, advanced by the new Al-Adala or “Justice” Bloc in
parliament, to a ban on the construction of any new facilities. A
fellow MP explained that “Kuwait already has an excessive number of
churches compared to the country’s Christian minority.” Kuwait
would avoid the PR disaster of demolishing churches while sharply
constricting the Christian community and rolling up the welcome mat
for believers, who form an important part of the large foreign work
community.
However, without government approval the measure was doomed. In
March Al-Adala tabled the proposal, though Al-Monawer indicated
that he wanted to question the religion minister over the new
church permit. Another Bloc member, Mohammad Hayef, said the
approval was “a mistake” which “will not go unnoticed.”
Although Kuwaiti Christians reacted with relief to the
legislation’s apparent demise, they remained cautious. Bishop
Ballin refused to be interviewed out of fear of speaking to the
press. Bishop Paul Hinder, who heads the Apostolic Vicariate of
Southern Arabia, explained that the situation in Kuwait has “become
critical.” He added that Bishop Ballin was “in a particularly
delicate situation. People should remember we are living here and
have to proceed very carefully.”
For now, at least, the threat of actual religious persecution in
Kuwait has passed. The government deserves credit: the ruling
family remains committed to a forward-looking and open country.
Long noted for its generally free press and fair elections, Kuwait
remains a tolerant society as well.
Nevertheless, unsettling popular currents are running strongly
through a population that remains very friendly to America. The
fact that the most powerful parliamentary faction contemplated
passing legislation to shut every Christian church — and had the
votes to do so — offers a warning if Kuwait eventually becomes a
full parliamentary democracy, as some Kuwaitis desire. If final
political decisions in Kuwait were made by an elective prime
minister rather than a hereditary emir, every Christian church in
the country might have been demolished by now.
Kuwait remains Washington’s best friend in the Persian Gulf.
However, shared interests do not guarantee shared values. And a
lack of shared values could end up threatening shared interests. As
with Saudi Arabia.
The latest parliamentary election results should serve as Thomas
Jefferson’s famed “fire bell in the night.” The Islamist tide in
Kuwait is likely to recede, as it has done before. If not, however,
Kuwait could turn into Saudi Arabia-lite. Americans can ill afford
another nominal ally that promotes the forces of violent
intolerance worldwide.
