Page 171 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

i68 Arabia, the Gulf and the West

elaborate trompe-l’oeil. The prohibition against discrimination would come as a
surprise to the Uitlanders whose children, among other disabilities, are (or
were) forbidden access to the state school system. Likewise, the foreign
labourers who perform all the menial tasks in the shaikhdom would be
astonished to learn of their right to combine in furtherance of their own

interests. All, Kuwaitis and Uitlanders alike, would be flabbergasted by the
blithe suggestion that ‘universal suffrage’ has been attained, when the elector­
ate actually consists of the adult, male Kuwaitis who make up about 5 per cent
of the population. As for the ‘act of faith’ on the part of the Al Sabah rulers that
the constitution is supposed to represent, it is not quite the bold gesture it
appears; for the preliminary articles of the constitution declare Kuwait to be an
Islamic state with the sharia as the principal source of law, and the sharia, as is

well known, not only places practically no limits on the power of the ruler but it
also enjoins complete obedience to his commands.
Where the constitution is in accordance with the political tradition of
Kuwait is that its very promulgation was an expression of that abiding talent
for accommodation and judicious appeasement which has characterized Al
Sabah rule during the two and a half centuries of the shaikhdom’s existence.

From the time of its foundation in the second decade of the eighteenth century
Kuwait led a precarious existence among its larger neighbours - the Turks in
Iraq to the north, the Persians to the east and, later in the century, the Saudis to
the south. When, in the early years of the nineteenth century, the British began
to make their power felt in the Gulf, the Al Sabah hastened to court them as a
counterweight to the other Gulf states. There had been some earlier contacts

with the East India Company in the latter half of the previous century, mainly
through the company’s factory at Basra, and dispatches between India and
England via the desert route to Aleppo were occasionally sent through Kuwait.
These contacts, however, did not develop into any closer association in the
nineteenth century. The Kuwaitis were not given to piracy, which meant that

there was no occasion for Britain to enter into treaty relations with them or to
bring Kuwait into the trucial system.
Another factor which contributed to Britain’s reluctance to have anything to
do with Kuwait was the shaikhdom’s anomalous relationship to the Ottoman
empire. Kuwait earned its living mainly by trade. It served as an emporium, or
the commerce of the upper Gulf, and Kuwaiti dhows traded as far afiel as
Africa and the Red Sea. Many goods destined for the Levant or Baghda were

shipped through Kuwait to avoid paying customs dues at Basra, and or is
reason the Turks were always seeking to set up customs posts in
territory. For the greater part of the century the Kuwaitis successfu y en
them off. As the Al Sabah shaikhs told successive British political rest^en s 1
the Gulf, they freely admitted to being Turkish subjects, flying e ur

flag when it suited them and paying tribute to the Ottoman sultan, r°^^antjy
in return, they received occasional honours and gifts. They were