KUWAIT CITY (AP) – More than a
decade after a wave of uprisings swept across the Middle East, countless dissidents have encountered grim fates: exiled, imprisoned, disappeared, dead.
Until mere months ago, Musallam al-Barrak, the icon of opposition in Kuwait, seemed another Arab Spring casualty. Four years ago, al-Barrak fled to Turkey so as not to face prison again. But now, he is home.
Kuwait has done what many countries in the region consider unthinkable — launched a widespread public reconciliation campaign that granted amnesty to prominent political dissidents last fall.
“It was an unexpected, incredible feeling,” al-Barrak recently told The Associated Press in his first interview with foreign media since his return. “We felt the truth, that this was a sign of the nation’s interest in our cause.”
Bahrain’s monarchy clamped down on protests, banned opposition parties and revoked the citizenship of high-profile Shiites.
The United Arab Emirates spent heavily to placate its citizens, jailed dissidents and silenced criticism. Saudi Arabia expanded social welfare programs to neutralize opposition and at the same time heavily suppressed it.
Kuwait, home to the most powerful parliament among its Persian Gulf Arab neighbors, has always been different. Where conquest vaulted monarchs to power across the Arabian Peninsula, Kuwait’s ruling Al Sabah family acquired its authority from an agreement among coastal merchants in the 18th century.
In pardoning al-Barrak and nearly three dozen other dissidents, emir Sheikh Nawaf Al Ahmad Al Sabah met a long-held demand of the opposition — a bid to break the worsening gridlock between the elected parliament and his hand-picked Cabinet.
But hopes for conciliation soon soured.
Some lawmakers withdrew support for the amnesty, rejecting it as a political ploy to win their silence. Others saw it as cosmetic step to avoid further concessions.
“Individualism is predominant ... We need collective action,” said opposition lawmaker Hamad al-Matar.
Only with political parties and freer elections, he added, “will there be value for the national dialogue, and for the ruling family if it wants to improve its political work.”
To make their displeasure known, lawmakers recently hauled in ministers for embarrassing questioning sessions over alleged misuse of state funds.