the title of the article and its idea are inspired by a videotape that the distinguished colleague salah alsayer broadcast a short while ago, and includes an indirect response to what academics and history professors claimed of their belonging to this land simply because their ancestors had previously fought -- often with each other -- on its land, and what later became its oil fields.
and how did these people consider this temporary and transient presence, which was not originally documented, as evidence that they are from the “kuwait desert”, and therefore they have the right to hold its nationality?
my relationship with the residents of coastal areas far from the capital, and with the bedouins who used to visit the markets there, either to sell their products such as leather, wool, ghee, and dried dairy products or to buy their needs from the city of fabrics, food, etc., goes back to more than seventy years.
some people coming from the desert chose to keep their money in the iron box (tijori) in a reliable exchange shop, for fear of loss or theft, especially while they were sleeping at night in the open, often in the “safat” square.
this is in contrast to our continuous mixing with the residents of coastal cities and others far from the capital, whether to spend holidays in their green oases, compared to the barren squares of the capital, devoid of trees. or to complete my father and grandfather’s commercial transactions with the residents of those areas, especially in foodstuffs. the people of those coastal villages in the south and jahra in the north were honest and gentle in their commercial dealings with us and in their obligation to pay what they owed.
professor al-sayer says that there is a misunderstanding related to the issue of the “kuwait desert”, and many claim that they lived in the desert and that this gives them the right -- according to them -- to hold the nationality of the state, and he indicated in his recording that this statement or claim is incorrect, for a fundamental reason, as kuwait does not originally have a desert in the usual sense, and specifically over the past hundred years.
what is meant by the desert among the arabs is the vast area of land that has pasture and water and is devoid of urbanization. this definition does not apply to the kuwaiti lands, whose total area does not exceed a little over 17,000 square kilometers, compared to the badia of iraq, saudi arabia, jordan, and syria, for example, whose desert area is 90 thousand square kilometers, and therefore the narrow area of kuwait does not allow the existence of a desert.
al sayer said the nomadic people are defined as those who lived in temporary tents and moved from one place to the other compared to the city people who live in permanent houses built of clay, bricks, and other stuff of construction materials.
he went on to say talking about the desert of kuwait requires us to talk about modern kuwait starting from the era of sheikh ahmad al jaber al sabah and not in the era of his grandfather sheikh mubarak al sabah where kuwait had desert.
the period between sheikh ahmad al jaber al sabah and sheikh mubarak al sabah witnessed major changes including world war i, world war ii and the collapse of the ottoman empire in addition to the finding out of oil and the shrunk kuwait area as per the famous uqai treaty signed in 1922 which reduced the space of kuwait from almost 45,000 square kilometers to 17,000 square kilometers.
the remaining small area did not allow kuwait to have desert or wilderness and so it is illogical to have some people claiming that they are the desert inhabitants who deserve to hold the kuwaiti nationality. that desert was cut off 100 years ago, furthermore, the existence of some people on a specific land for a period of time or conducting some fights on it does not necessarily mean they belonged to it or became part of its people.
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footnote: the entire information circulated about brother muhammad al shaya and al shaya commercial group is not correct at all. the claims that al shaya is not satisfied with the commercial and business conditions in kuwait are not correct.
al shaya group is among the biggest investors in kuwait and they have the right to look forward to extending their businesses abroad. however, this does not mean the commercial and business conditions in kuwait are 100 percent perfect.