لقاء نسائي مثير

اقامة لقاء نسائي اول مثير بكرة السلة بين (الفتاة) الكويتي ومجندات الجيش الامريكي

Al-Mulla & the Kuwaiti Tent (Washington Post)

Kuwait's Political Tent Makes Room for Women

By Nora Boustany

Wednesday, June 29, 2005; A18

When Lulwa Al Mulla first tried to participate in Kuwaiti politics 24 years ago, she and four friends would park outside tents where male-only campaigns and debates were held, fiddling with their car radio knob to listen in. Relegated to the sidelines, they were curious, frustrated and desperate to crack the barrier shutting them out of politics.

"Our numbers grew, and we started breaking these taboos and walls -- just by being there," Mulla said during a visit to Washington this week. She traveled here with three other Kuwaiti female activists to promote the milestone reached last month when the country's parliament passed legislation allowing women the right to vote and run for public office.

"Just imagine how we progressed," she recounted. "After a while, they started reserving a small area inside those tents for us. With time, we were grudgingly allowed to be part of the discussions." In the most recent election, "we sat side by side with the elite," she added, referring to men.

When the bill passed on May 16, Mulla said, she and other female activists stood up, breaking into applause from benches at the rear of parliament. "We started singing Kuwait's national anthem at the top of our lungs. Ministers and deputies remained silent at first, but then they joined in," Mulla recalled with a proud smile.

What was hard, she acknowledged, was that despite being one of the most advanced countries in the Persian Gulf, Kuwait was one of the last to grant women political rights. She said the progress made by women in other Middle Eastern countries made a deep impact on her and other Kuwaiti activists.

"You cannot help but be moved by the changes in your environment. What happened in Lebanon really affected us," she said, referring to the popular uprising last spring against Syrian domination of the neighboring country. "Is it possible to stand by and watch Iraqi women massively head to the polls, conquering the threat of terrorism?"

Although Kuwaiti women agitated in vain for their rights for many years, there is no doubt that times in the region are changing, Mulla explained. "They call it winds of change, and we are blowing along with them," she said optimistically.

Mulla began her university studies at the Beirut College for Women in 1968, a time of ferment that she described as very formative.

"The liberal atmosphere there affected me immensely," she recalled. "I was part of the Arab Cultural Club there. I attended all their lectures and took part in demonstrations. I helped organize carnivals to raise funds for Palestinian refugees. When I returned to Kuwait to be married, I continued my activism at university and ran for the student council."

Mulla and her colleagues have no illusions about the challenges ahead, however, including the dual battles to raise awareness of women's rights and win acceptability, she explained.

"Kuwaiti women are already active at universities, in companies and chambers of commerce. What is new is that everyone has to accept the fact that women will not only vote but they will be running for seats in the parliament," she said. Many Islamic lawmakers consistently opposed a royal decree issued in 1999 calling for equality in political life, and in some homes, conservative tradition must still be overcome, she added.

"We really have to work hard to convince women and men of the importance of their participation and cooperation," Mulla said. "Change is never easily embraced. We will learn much by 2007," when national elections will next be held, "but until then we have to organize workshops, prepare manuals and guides for the electorate."

The move toward political change in the region, she said, is developing its own momentum in Kuwait. Some members of the hard-line Muslim Brotherhood are changing their views and beginning to map out strategies for gaining the support of female voters. One of the group's female members is even thinking of nominating herself for the 2007 election.

On May 16, several lawmakers who had vocally opposed the equality decree in the past voted for it. Mohammed Abdullah Mubarak , a member of the royal family and adviser to the Foreign Ministry, was recently quoted as saying, "I am against the rights of women. Even if my mother were to run, I would be opposed." But there are now rumors that even he has come around.

Mulla emphasized that the Kuwaiti constitution ensures justice, freedom and equality to all citizens. She played down the importance of a clause in the new electoral law stipulating that female candidates and voters should stick to "Islamic guidelines."

"Maybe it is too early to tell, but will the parliament be different from all other institutions where women show up and work without Islamic cover?" she asked. "Our constitution guarantees such personal rights. This clause is not a real issue. It is the last card our opponents have to slam on the table."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

We Are All French Now? (Friedman)

June 24, 2005

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Ah, those French. How silly can they be? The European Union wants to consolidate its integration and France, trying to protect its own 35-hour workweek and other welfare benefits, rejects the E.U. constitution. What a bunch of antiglobalist Gaullist Luddites! Yo, Jacques, what world do you think you're livin' in, pal? Get with the program! It's called Anglo-American capitalism, mon ami.

Lordy, it is fun poking fun at France. But wait ...wait ... what is that noise I hear coming from the U.S. Congress? Is that ... is that members of the U.S. Congress - many of them Democrats - threatening to reject Cafta, the Central American Free Trade Agreement? Is that members of the U.S. Congress afraid to endorse a free-trade agreement, signed over a year ago, with El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic? Mon Dieu! I am afraid it is. And for many of the same reasons France has resisted more integration: a protectionist fear of competition in a world without walls.

Yes, we are all Frenchmen now.

Well, not quite. But that is where we are heading in the U.S. if we let the combination of the sugar lobby, which wants to block more imports from Central America; the A.F.L.-C.I.O., which doesn't like any free trade agreements; and Democrats who just want to defeat Cafta so they can make President Bush a lame duck have their way and block Cafta ratification. I understand Democrats want to stick it to Mr. Bush, but could they please defeat him on a policy he is wrong about (there are plenty) and not on expanding free trade in this hemisphere, which he is right about.

The French economic instinct is not one we want to start emulating now, just as the global playing field is being flattened, bringing in more competitors from Poland to China to India. This is a time to play to our strengths of openness, flexibility and willingness to embrace creative destruction, and lead on free trade.

The McKinsey Global Institute just published a study of how both Germany and France have suffered, compared with the U.S., by trying to put up walls against outsourcing and offshoring. It noted: "A new competitive dynamic is emerging: early movers in offshoring improve their cost position and boost their market share, creating new jobs in the process. Companies who resist the trend will see increasingly unfavorable cost positions that erode market share and eventually end in job destruction. This is why adopting protectionist policies to stop companies from offshoring would be a mistake. Offshoring is a powerful way for companies to reduce their costs and improve the quality and kinds of products they offer consumers, allowing them to invest in the next generation of technology and create the jobs of tomorrow."

Cafta is critical for enabling U.S. and Central American textile firms to compete with China. U.S. firms specialize in the more sophisticated work of making dyes, designing patterns and manufacturing specialized yarns, threads and fabrics, and the Cafta countries specialize in the labor-intensive sewing. Because the Cafta countries are right next door, U.S. retailers can respond quickly to changes in the marketplace, which far-off Chinese factories cannot do as easily. That's also why, explains Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, that a shirt that says "Made in Honduras" might contain 60 percent U.S. content, while a similar shirt that says "Made in China" most likely would have none.

Finally, there is geopolitics. In the 1980's, we were worried Central America was going to go communist. Now we are worried it is going to go capitalist? We spent billions fighting communism there. Now we have a chance to help consolidate these fragile democracies by locking in a trading relationship with the U.S. that is critical for their development. Shame on us if we balk.

But President Bush needs to spend some political capital and sell this deal in these terms. "The administration has to get out and connect the dots for people," said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and author of a thoughtful new book on foreign policy, "The Opportunity: America's Moment to Alter History's Course." "Otherwise the vocal minority will trump the interests of the majority. We should not assume that this backlash [against free trade] that is going around is just a French malaise or Dutch elm disease. It could happen here." But if we think we can indulge protectionism and not worry about the geopolitical spillovers in our own backyard, that is a real illusion. "The world is not Las Vegas," added Mr. Haass. "What happens there will not stay there."