Middle East Focus: Salafi Political Chaos in a Gulf State………..

Arabia Deserta

Salafi Political Chaos in a Gulf State………..

Rattlesnake Ridge

BFF
“MPs were discussing four Kuwaitis held in the US prison camp in Cuba when Shia member Hussein al-Kallaf dismissed the inmates as "al-Qaeda" militants. Muslim Brotherhood MP Jamaan al-Harish argued with him, and a fight broke out. Two Shia and four Sunni lawmakers are reported to have been involved. The debate was adjourned. According to AFP news agency, the session was being watched by US lawyers representing the Guantanamo inmates. Last year, Wikileaks released US embassy cables that quoted Kuwait's interior minister as telling the American ambassador in 2009 that he did not want to see the detainees returned to Kuwait. ……..”

Salafis in Kuwait are trying to silence free speech if they disagree with what is being said. Not many local writers have commented this way yet: the response has mostly depended on one’s sect so far.
A Shi’a member of parliament called a 'spade a spade': he said those held prisoner in Guantanamo were “graduates of al-Qaeda”. This angered many Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood (Sunni) members who responded violently. Salafis and Muslim Brotherhood members first asked that the microphone of the member they did not like (al-Qallaf) be locked so he won’t be able to talk and express his opinion. At the end of the session they attacked the Shi’a member physically, and this involved other members into a fistfight.
It is not clear why the term “al-Qaeda graduates” angered the Salafi Islamists, since the detainees are at least suspected of al-Qaeda affiliation and many Salafis pride themselves on at least ideological al-Qaeda ties (either openly or covertly). The term “graduates” itself is sensitive to some Islamist Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood politicians because many of them are graduates of Saudi Shar’ia schools which teach the strict Wahhabi doctrine that is hostile to “others’. That ‘Dr’ some of them have in front of their names is not in nuclear physics or math, not even in economics.
In my not-so-humble but ‘biased’ view, Salafis are acting as Saudi agents in the Gulf states, pushing a dangerous agenda of political chaos and possibly further integration under the al-Saud hegemony of absolute tribal monarchy coupled with Wahhabi theocracy. In the process, they are trying to stifle dissent.
Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com