Living Free..

Nut and sweet seller in Salmiya

My Laundry....

Being here in Kuwait has made me question so much about our freedoms and democracy in the west and how we all perceive freedom.

This morning I ran and as usual I thought much about my day. What I had to do  and when I would do it.  To blog was one of my tasks so I thought about continuing from the last one. I would walk to my office, Cafe Supremo, and take a few shots on the way. I would focus on people though.  In the end I didn’t take as many shots as I would have liked as I got a disturbing call so that took my focus for a while so I jumped in a cab.  I will shoot more later…

The Kuwait I have seen so far has been beautiful. The people are relaxed, happy, work hard, play hard and generally contented with life. There is certainly a multi-cultural society here too…

In UK we claim to have a multi cultural society but each of the cultures tend not to co-exist but rather set up their own communities in parts of the country or parts of a town. They then keep to themselves and rebuild their own little countries within the UK. Here it is different. Locals live next to Pakistanis who live next to Syrians who live near Lebanese and so on… I am sure there are pockets of cultures but it is certainly not so evident.

Freedom is another anomaly. We here of how the Middle East is not “free”, the things you can’t do but I have not found any of these here or any other Middle Eastern country I have visited. In Kuwait you can’t drink alcohol or openly be affectionate. Adultery is a crime and all the other crimes we know pretty much are the same here. I can’t kill another person or steal from them but as those are all things that I consider crimes too I cannot see that they hinder my freedom. In fact I feel more free here than at home.

In England there is police everywhere, CCTV cameras, your data is held by all authorities, we have huge taxes that we pay but have no idea where it goes other than straight out of a tank barrel or machine gun at 70k a pop in Afghanistan in order to secure better gas prices in the future. NI pays for what? A pension? Our health service is the largest employer in Europe and third in the world. For what? And as I found out more recently we have little rights over our children. We are beholden to a banking system that encourages a debt society in order to keep everyone working and under control and in general we are living with our hands tied. Thats my moan for the day…..

Kuwait has laws that protect people, no taxes as such, no or little CCTV and I can pretty much do what I wish as long as I do not offend other human beings. Business is good and flourishes and people seem to be very happy.

It is not without its issues. Obesity is a problem. Poor general health is a problem as fitness had not reached here until recently. There is an American fast food legacy here where if the packet says its healthy this tends to be believed…..I was asked recently “is Subway was healthy? It must be healthier that a Big Mac, surely? The advertising says it is”. My reply was that it was the equivalent of smoking light cigarettes instead of full strength……He was shocked.  This is not un-resovable and certainly not something that inhibits freedom, though, the original reason for this blog..

On my run, I started getting angry.  Cross with what we are led to believe by what we see on the news, what we read and what we are taught in school.  How we lead our lives without real personal responsibility but reliant on rules and laws that control and inhibit us. Rules here are more set by personal discipline. That of Islam as well as the legal system. But you are free to be non religious, not attend the mosque or lead your life as you wish but with personal responsibility.

One funny example I have seen here everyday is in the driving. Hugely funny, hugely scary at first but then quite ok once you see how it works – a bit like La Place de La Concorde or l’Arc de Triomphe roundabouts in Paris!. Each time I have taken a taxi or a lift from a friend I notice the roundabout discipline. At first I thought there was none….  Then, with a friend, having put my hands over my face, screeched inside and burst out laughing probably more from fear, I asked “Shaikh, whats the protocol on a roundabout?” His reply was curt and needed no clarification….. “first one goes!” And it really is.  If your headlights are in front its your right of way! I have now seen this many times.. I have seen no accidents and in the same time in Paris I would have witnessed a few!  In London there is no such disorder. But here is works. Drivers are careful and it reminded me of an experiment in Holland where in a town roads were paved and pedestrians and drivers had equal rights of way. Because of this, the drivers drove slowly and carefully. Sometimes at walking pace weaving in and out of the pedestrians who wandered from shop to shop. There were no accidents and it was proven to be very successful. The roundabout protocol is similar here in that you take more care and traffic just flows.

There is so much to say about Kuwait and I have more on this subject too. I like it here a lot and resent more the lack of freedoms we have in the UK. Paris first showed me this and Kuwait even more so. It provides a good income for many people. Its safe, you can sunbathe, swim, run, walk the streets, write, photograph without being harassed, go home and watch a good movie. It’s very family oriented and a fun place. It does not have places to get drunk and be abusive to fellow human beings and does not tolerate that either.  So what? You can “do and be” here very safely.

The images above are of a couple of places I visited on the way this morning before my call that distracted me. My laundry man and  a shop that sells nuts, coffee beans and sweets. The latter wanted to sell me two kilos of coffee beans and if I had such a machine I would have bought them. He was Egyptian and very kind. Both were very happy, chatted for a while and went on with their lives once I left.