TRIBES AND TRIBALISM IN KUWAIT
It may not be too far-fetched to say that part of the reason that police in Kuwait are so reticent, inefficient and ineffective in dealing with crimes against foreigners (and the property of bus companies) has to do with the fact that many tribes have members of the family on the police force.
In a way, tribalism in Kuwait is reflective of a mafia-godfather family in terms of definitions of honor, duty, and respect for law and people outside of one’s clan.
For this reason only a week ago in Salmiya City, one tribe attacked the authority’s at a Criminal Investigation unit who had just arrested some of their tribe’s family members for blatantly breaking national laws on electioneering.
Several officials and tribesmen on both sides ended up in hospitals.
In short, many tribesmen in Kuwait feel they are above the law, and these tribesmen feel they are supposed to protect the so-called tribal honor by never even arresting tribesmen—let alone taking them on to court to have a trial by judge
These sort of physical attacks have nothing to do with religion--as many tribesmen are not particularly strongly religious. This version of tribalism is simply part of system of protecting and assisting blood brothers.
At last Tuesday night’s lecture at the AWARE CENTER in Kuwait, Dr. Mohammed Haddad, a famed anthropologist and Professor at Kuwait University provided and an example as to how Kuwaiti tribalism functions, i.e. to the detriment of most everyone—i.e. except to members of the tribe in question.
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