TOWARDS AN URBAN ALTERNATIVE FOR KUWAIT: PROTESTS AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION Towards an Urban Alternative for Kuwait: Protests and Public Participation FARAH AL-NAKIB With the launch of its oil industry in 1946 and the advent of modern planning in 1950, Kuwait underwent a rapid, state-led modernization process that resulted in the complete transformation of its urban landscape. With this process, Kuwait’s inhabitants lost what French urban theorist Henri Lefebvre refers to as a ‘right to the city’. As the population was suburbanized en masse, the city was transformed into a landscape of state power and ceased to be a centre of political discussion and debate as it had been prior to oil. At the same time, with state planning the public lost the right to participate in the production of a city based on their particular needs and desires. It has only been in recent years – more than half a century after the advent of oil – that a quest for a restored centrality has started to emerge among various social forces in Kuwait. This paper focuses on two parallel though significantly different groups that are simultaneously demanding a restoration of a right to the city: political opposition forces, who have brought public protest back into the heart of the city centre (after fifty years) in the public park now known as Irada Square, and a civil society group called the Arabana Project that has been advocating for greater public participation in urban planning and development for the first time in Kuwait’s history. With the launch of its oil industry in 1946 Qatar, meanwhile, have seemingly surpassed and the advent of modern planning in 1950, Kuwait in cultural, economic, and particularly Kuwait was the first Arab Gulf city to use urban development. Popular rhetoric within exponentially increasing oil revenues to Kuwait and around the Gulf asserts that undergo the kind of rapid urbanization and Kuwait’s democracy has worked against its dramatic transformation that has become own development; that constant political a common feature of Gulf urbanism in the bickering and opposition between the govern- twenty-first century. Kuwait is also the only ment and popularly elected parliaments in Gulf state with a popularly-elected parlia- recent years have delayed the country’s pro- ment – established in 1963 after the promulga- gress. This is contrasted with the top-down tion of the constitution the previous year – that approach practiced in the UAE and Qatar has the power to pass legislation. While where the rulers have used their absolute these two factors made Kuwait the leading authority to speed up the development Gulf state in cultural, economic, and urban process. development in the latter half of the twen- However, as Ahmed Kanna and Arang tieth century, the country now appears to Keshavarzian argue in their analysis of Dubai, have ground to a halt. Its southern Gulf neigh- ‘while the UAE is portrayed as being on the bours like the United Arab Emirates and fast track to capitalist development, there is BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  40   NO  1 101  ARAB  CITIES  AFTER  ‘THE  SPRING’ apparently no urgency about progress toward Historical Background democracy, transparency, accountability or political participation … those things can From the time of its settlement by a group wait’ (Kanna and Keshavarzian, 2008, p. of founding tribes in 1716 until the launch of 39). Conversely, while Kuwait is portrayed the oil industry in 1946, urban growth and as stagnating, the country’s current political development in the port town of Kuwait opposition movement – symbolized in the was largely unplanned. The port located in mass demonstrations taking place in the the middle of the town’s shoreline was the city centre since 2011 – has been enhancing locus of urban expansion, and the town’s Kuwait’s still fledgling democracy by dealing coastline, markets, and residential quarters with issues like transparency, corruption, all emanated from this central point. The accountability, and more public participation pre-oil town represented what Lefebvre in decision-making. Furthermore, when it refers to as an oeuvre: a city whose socio- comes to urban planning and development, spatial morphology was organically carved Kuwait is slowly, and perhaps unconsciously, out of the everyday needs and desires of its venturing into an entirely new era in which inhabitants and users rather than planned by the idea of public participation is extending design (Lefebvre, 1996, p. 66) (figure 1). The from the political landscape to incorporate town was built to the scale of the pedestrian the urban landscape. as everyone walked everywhere, and the On the one hand, though not explicitly narrow streets and close, clustered layout focused on urban issues, the protestors have of the built environment protected people reshaped the spatial contours of the public from the strong sun, spring sandstorms, sphere in Kuwait by bringing mass public and devastating winter rains. The climate, demonstrations back into the city centre coupled with the fact that most daily activities for the first time since the 1950s. The trans- were structured around prayer times and that formation of the public seaside park facing the there were no street lamps in use at night, parliament building into a space of political made it essential that home, work, mosque, contestation now popularly known as Irada and spaces of leisure and social exchange (Determination) Square has repoliticized the (like coffee-shops and diwaniyyas)1 were in city centre and demonstrated the importance close proximity to each other. The town’s of centrality for an urban society that has morphology thus both effected and reflected been entirely suburbanized since the advent the intricate mix of private, social, and poli- of oil. On the other hand, the political dead- tical life before oil. There was no central lock and concomitant socio-economic and state authority governing urban growth or urban stagnation has led to an increase development until the establishment of the in civil society activity, and one group of municipality in 1930, which oversaw clean- young architects and intellectuals known col- liness and hygiene, some minor road widen- lectively as Arabana has started exploring ing, and land registration.2 ways of incorporating public participation Oil was discovered in Kuwait in 1938 and in urban planning and development. These the first barrels were exported in 1946. The two parallel though significantly different shift from a port economy to an oil economy processes are simultaneously (though perhaps had a significant impact on the process of city unconsciously on the part of the protestors) formation. Kuwait’s oil revenues increased demanding a restoration of what Henri exponentially in the ensuing years, from Lefebvre calls ‘the right to the city’, which $5,600,000 in 1948 to $169,000,000 in 1953, and Kuwaitis arguably lost after oil (Lefebvre, kept increasing annually (IBRD, 1965, p. 23). 1996). Abdullah al-Salem al-Sabah came to power in 1950 and vowed to use the country’s 102 BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  40   NO  1  TOWARDS AN URBAN ALTERNATIVE FOR KUWAIT: PROTESTS AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION Figure 1. Pre-oil Kuwait Town. (Source: Kuwait Oil Company) newfound wealth to make Kuwait ‘the best (Minoprio, Spencely, and P.W. Macfarlane) planned and most socially progressive city in was commissioned to create a master plan the Middle East’ (Minoprio et al., 1953, p. 272). to transform Kuwait into a modern city. In addition to launching a comprehensive The plan was based on the British ‘new welfare scheme including state-funded health- town’ model and therefore emphasized the care, education, housing, employment, and separation of activities and the creation of subsidized electricity and water, the govern- discrete functional zones (figure 2). The ment also took on the responsibilities of space encircled by the old town wall became urban development. By 1950 it was clear a commercial and administrative city that the old walled town was no longer centre, while new residential suburbs and capable of accommodating the demographic industrial, medical, and educational zones boom the country was experiencing, and a were built outside the wall in the former new era of comprehensive, state-led plan- desert, connected by a highway system of ning ensued under the umbrella of a new ring and radial roads (Gardiner, 1983, pp. planning apparatus that included the Muni- 24–26). Over the next two decades the old cipality, Public Works Department, and the town was demolished (as was the wall in Development Board. 1957), its inhabitants were relocated en masse In 1952 a British town-planning firm to the new suburbs, and new buildings were BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  40   NO  1 103  ARAB  CITIES  AFTER  ‘THE  SPRING’ constructed inside the city to make it the fully implemented due to high levels of cor- country’s centre of economic and political ruption, a chaotic planning system, and exorbi- decision-making. In sharp contrast to the tantly high land values that made city develop- mixed-use nature of the pre-oil townscape, ment extremely unprofitable for both state urban life became highly differentiated and and private developers (Al-Nakib, 2011). separated out into discrete zones. People The cityscape became notoriously incoherent went to work in the city centre, spent their and disjointed. Lack of off-street parking leisure time along the coast, shopped in the created severe traffic congestion, and open new commercial district of Salmiya, and went spaces and sidewalks were used as spon- home to rest in the suburbs, moving between taneous car parks inhibiting their public these spaces entirely by private car. usability (Al-Nakib, 2013, pp. 12–14) (figure As the city centre was vacated of its inhabi- 3). Insofar as city development from 1950 tants, during the early oil decades the govern- onwards catered for anyone’s needs, it was ment commissioned an endless line of plan- primarily those of the state and economic ners, consultants, architects, and transportation elite that shaped the urban centre. Most of experts to come up with plans to organize the buildings produced were commercial and and reorganize Kuwait’s primate city. How- state structures, particularly after the 1973 oil ever, despite all this time, effort, and expense, boom when top international architects were no plan for the city centre was ever success- brought in to design prominent buildings like Figure 2. The 1952 Kuwait Master Plan. (Source: Gardiner, 1983, p. 41) 104 BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  40   NO  1  TOWARDS AN URBAN ALTERNATIVE FOR KUWAIT: PROTESTS AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION Figure 3. Parking congestion in the city centre in the 1970s. (Source: Colin Buchanan and Partners, 1969) the Central Bank (Arne Jacobsen), Ministry plan, and the Municipality commissioned the of Foreign Affairs (Reima Pietilä), National English firm of Colin Buchanan and Partners Assembly (Jørn Utzon), and the Banking to design a new comprehensive master plan. Complex (Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill), as The Buchanan team, who were entirely un- physical manifestations of Kuwait’s wealth familiar with Kuwait, proposed at the start and progress (Ibid., p. 18). The interstices of their studies in 1968 that ‘a programme of the city between these new masterpieces of public participation be introduced’ in remained disjointed, with large vacant and order to solicit input and feedback in their undeveloped spaces making the city seem design process. However, ‘this was rejected dead and ‘empty’ after working hours (Bara, by the [Municipality] in favour of a process 1996). of obtaining “informed opinion” from repre- Urban planning and development in sentatives of government departments and Kuwait had become state-led processes with selected industrial and commercial under- no public input or participation. Through- takings’ (Colin Buchanan and Partners, 1974, out this rapid and large-scale urban moderni- p. 1131). Planning and development were zation process, state authorities never actually viewed as part of the patriarchal state’s new- asked the public what kind of a city they wanted found responsibility to its people. As one or how they wanted to live. By 1968 Kuwait government publication put it: had outgrown the limits of the 1952 master BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  40   NO  1 105  ARAB  CITIES  AFTER  ‘THE  SPRING’ Since the State is the only party controlling the oil Housing was distributed as either empty plots sector, government interference was imperative on which a villa could be built at the owner’s from the very beginning because it shoulders the own expense or through a government hous- burden of developing the society, modernizing the economy, and fulfilling the individuals’ well-being ing loan, or as a government-built house. to make up for years of suffering in the pre-oil In all cases, the single-family detached villa phase. (Hamoud al-Barges, 1986, p. 32) was the new housing norm. Residents could not opt to construct any other kind of dwell- The general Kuwaiti public (including the ing; apartments or other multi-occupancy majority non-national residents) had no structures were banned from these new neigh- voice in creating this new city and society. bourhoods, and could only be found in areas One exception was a 1960 social-residential designated for non-Kuwaiti residence such as survey conducted by members of the Kuwait the city centre and Salmiya (Colin Buchanan Municipality to supplement Colin Buchanan and Partners, 1969). With suburbanization, and Partners’ research. However, this survey Kuwaitis were introduced to an entirely new focused more on the existing lifestyles and lifestyle far removed from the firjān (sing. behaviours of Kuwaitis and non-Kuwaitis in farīj) of the pre-oil town, where clusters of their respective residential areas rather than courtyard houses, each containing many explicitly inquiring about their needs, desires, members of an extended family, were closely or hopes for the city plan (Department of connected through shared walls, blind alleys, Master Planning, 1971). and rooftops with low parapets. While the Through state planning and suburbani- built environment of the pre-oil firjān blurred zation after oil Kuwait’s inhabitants lost what the lines between public and private spheres, Lefebvre refers to as ‘the right to the city’. the suburbs introduced a new lifestyle that According to Lefebvre’s analysis, the right was highly privatized, with detached villas to the city not only entails a right to central- surrounded (and separated) by boundary ity (which is often undermined by suburbani- walls, with wide setbacks from the street zation), but also a right to diversity, spon- and ample space for gardens and garages. taneity, and simultaneity in the practice of Though fostering a dramatic change in everyday urban life (which is destroyed everyday lifestyle, the townspeople had no by the separation of people and functions choice but to relocate to these new suburbs through modern zoning), and a right to create and played no role in their production. One a city after one’s own needs and desires Kuwaiti man who experienced this shift first- (which is eliminated by state-led planning hand recalls that the government convinced ideology) (Lefebvre, 1996, pp. 128–129). people that their old houses were dirty, While Kuwait’s inhabitants lost all such unhealthy, and infested with insects, and aspects of the right to the city, the focus here promised to build them new, cleaner, and is on the last point: the right to participate better houses outside the wall.3 That is not in shaping and using the spaces of the city to say that the public resisted the changes; in a manner that satisfies the needs of the on the contrary, many Kuwaitis quickly people as much as those of the political and embraced their new lifestyle. When Zahra economic elite; that is, being involved in the Freeth, an Englishwoman who grew up in process of actually producing the city. Kuwait in the 1930s, lamented the demolition Even the construction of the new suburbs of old houses to a group of Kuwaiti women to which the majority of the national popula- on a visit back in 1956, one young woman tion was relocated after 1950 did not involve exclaimed: ‘Let them be demolished! Who much public input. These neighbourhoods wants them now? It is the new Kuwait and constructed in the 1950s and 1960s were not the old which is worthy of admiration’ designed like British new town suburbs. (Freeth, 1956, p. 83). Kuwait had been coming 106 BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  40   NO  1  TOWARDS AN URBAN ALTERNATIVE FOR KUWAIT: PROTESTS AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION off the heels of a severe economic depression Business Group, 2007, p. 137). The removal when oil was discovered in 1938, and by the of Saddam Hussein’s regime with the US-led 1950s the old town was associated with a life invasion of Iraq in 2003, however, put Kuwait of hardship and need while the new city and in the clear. Regime change, a surge in oil suburbs symbolized unprecedented wealth prices, and a significant increase in Western and progress. residents and visitors due to the high military, Though the public might have accepted contractor, and business presence across the many of the changes that oil brought, the fact border all led to the country’s second major remains that public participation was never development boom since the advent of oil. a factor in city formation in Kuwait. The loss The difference, however, was that Kuwait of this right to the city is a substantial loss was no longer the Gulf leader in the fields of for a society that has been predominantly construction, development, and investment urban since it was first settled almost 300 as it had been between the 1950s and 1980s. years ago.4 Robert Park argues that the city is Other Gulf cities, namely Dubai, superseded ‘man’s most consistent and on the whole, his Kuwait’s position during the hiatus of the most successful attempt to remake the world late 1980s and 1990s. The post-2003 boom was he lives in more after his heart’s desire… therefore Kuwait’s attempt to make up for lost Thus, indirectly, and without any clear sense time and catch up with its southern neigh- of the nature of his task, in making the city bours, with a sudden acceleration in construc- man has remade himself’ (quoted in Harvey, tion projects. After the Municipality’s exponen- 2012, p. 4). In which case, as David Harvey tial increase of floor-area ratios in commercial puts it: ‘the question of what kind of city we areas in 2004 in response to private sector want cannot be divorced from the question pressure, glass and steel high-rises rapidly of what kind of people we want to be… The began to replace the characteristic low-rise freedom to make and remake ourselves and modernist architecture of the 1950s and our cities is … one of the most precious yet 1960s. Yet the planning paradigm established most neglected of our human rights’ (Harvey, in the 1950s also shaped this new develop- 2012, p. 4). ment cycle, with the state in control of devel- oping the city in conjunction with private developers and the public still relegated to Post-2003 Development the ever-expanding suburban periphery, and Since 2003 Kuwait City has been in the with housing distributed by the state in much process of being remade once again, and the the same manner as before. changes to the built environment this time But despite the fact that Kuwait City’s are as dramatic as those brought about by oil skyline has altered dramatically due to the development, which lasted through the 1970s. building frenzy of the past decade, Kuwait Development lulled in the 1980s due to an is still considered to be lagging behind its economic recession caused by the 1982 crash Gulf neighbours like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and of Kuwait’s unofficial stock market, the suq Doha, which have all ventured down the al-manakh. The Iraqi invasion in August 1990 road of so-called ‘mega-projects’ (figure 4). then resulted in the ‘deep freeze’ of the post- Kuwait also incorporated mega-projects into occupation decade, when matters of security, its new 2035 development plan – approved national defence, and post-war reconstruction by parliament in February 2010 – which were top priority. The war also instilled fear aims to transform Kuwait into a financial in local and foreign investors of a repeat of and trade centre (Capital Standards, 2013). the events of 1990 in Kuwait, leading those Projects like the new ‘Silk City’ in Subbiyya investors to turn elsewhere in the Gulf and on the northern tip of Kuwait Bay, the cause- to other international destinations (Oxford way linking Subbiyya with Kuwait City, the BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  40   NO  1 107  ARAB  CITIES  AFTER  ‘THE  SPRING’ Figure 4. The Kuwait City skyline today. (Source: CC M. Alattar Alattar) Mubarak al-Kabir deep-water port on Bubiyan off resulted in violent clashes between police Island, and the Kuwait Metro were all intro- and opposition forces in late 2010, and duced in the plan as part of a ‘revival effort’ eventually led to Sheikh Nasser’s resignation to counter the perceived lack of development in November 2011. By October 2012 the in Kuwait in comparison with its neighbours main point of contention became a decree (Mekaleh, 2011). Though some planning has passed by the Amir while parliament was been done for most of these projects, none dissolved reducing the number of votes per has yet been started. citizen from four to one to eliminate electoral corruption and vote buying, a move the opposition was staunchly against. According Political Opposition to the constitution, all Amiri decrees must be The delay is largely blamed on political voted into law by parliament; however, the tensions and deadlock between the govern- one-man, one-vote decree was to be put into ment and opposition forces that have plagued effect during the December elections before the country in recent years and have resulted the newly elected parliament could vote on in significant parliamentary interruptions it. Most opposition leaders and thousands and obstructions in passing legislation. Since of citizens boycotted the elections in protest; 2006 Kuwait has witnessed a series of political though the courts ruled the Amiri decree to confrontations between the government (con- be constitutional the following June, new sisting of the ruler, crown prince, and prime elections were called once again for July 2013. minister, all members of the Al Sabah, and Opposition to the government and ruling the cabinet of ministers) and an increas- family is not new to Kuwait, which has ingly oppositional parliament (popularly a long history of contentious politics and elected), which has led to six parliamentary enjoys more political freedom than most of dissolutions and seven elections between its neighbours. However, this new wave of 2006 and 2013, and more than a dozen cabinet opposition has had two significant effects reshuffles. In 2010 the government and oppo- on the Kuwaiti political landscape, and by sition forces entered an unprecedented dead- extension, on the urban landscape. First, lock over allegations of financial and political it has sent tens of thousands of Kuwaitis corruption against the Prime Minister Sheikh of all political leanings on to the streets in Nasser al-Mohammed al-Sabah. The stand- mass public demonstrations for the first 108 BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  40   NO  1  TOWARDS AN URBAN ALTERNATIVE FOR KUWAIT: PROTESTS AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION time in decades; the protests against the organizations for the first time since the Amiri decree in October 2012 were labelled 1960s. A court ruling that same year found the largest political demonstrations in the restrictions imposed by the 1979 law of Kuwait’s history (Westall, 2013). Second, this public gathering, which required gatherings political deadlock has created public fatigue, of more than twenty people to obtain a with citizens expressing not only election police permit, unconstitutional. A new press exhaustion but also frustration at the fact law was passed in 2006 that permitted the that the country’s development plans are opening of private television stations and not being implemented due to the political additional private newspapers, immediately stalemate that prevents legislation from exposing the Kuwaiti public to even more being passed. It is not surprising, then, that political views, discussions, and debates, Kuwait has witnessed a flurry of civil society both pro- and anti-government. And, in early activity unfolding alongside this political 2006 the former Amir Sheikh Jabir al-Ahmed contention. Some groups like Sout al-Kuwait, died, leading to a brief succession crisis and established in 2008, have focused specifically then the monopolization of most government on educating the public (particularly youth) positions by one branch of the Al Sabah. about the constitution, voting responsibly, This led to publicly-aired (in the new private and the country’s democratic system, while media) infighting within the ruling family also working to amend laws that contradict and the creation of new political alignments the constitution. Other groups deal with up and down the political hierarchy. The pressing concerns that those in power (both opposition to the prime minister in 2010, elected and executive) have been neglecting, the increase in public demonstrations since such as the environment, the education 2011, and the heightened civil society activity system, human rights abuses against migrant can all be attributed to this combination of labourers, the plight of stateless persons, and factors. so on. It has been tempting for commentators to The Right to the City align all this political contention and activism in Kuwait to the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, The mass public demonstrations and occupa- Bahrain, and elsewhere. While the opposition tion of city squares like Maidan Tahrir in perhaps felt empowered by regional develop- Cairo and Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain ments, the current political situation in Kuwait during the Arab uprisings beginning in has evolved from very specific local circum- 2011, coupled with the actions of the Occupy stances. In 2005 women’s rights campaigners movements in Europe and the United States held the first large and successful demon- that same year, have drawn global attention stration in the public seaside park facing the to the intrinsic link between political contesta- parliament building to demand their political tion and the importance of centrality and rights, for which parliament voted in favour access to urban space. These events have made that May. Building on this momentum, salient Lefebvre’s assertion that the city and in 2006 young bloggers launched another the urban sphere are often both the setting popular movement to reduce the number and the stake of political struggle (Lefebvre, of electoral districts from twenty-five to five 1991, p. 386). For Lefebvre, the quest for in order to curtail electoral corruption, also centrality, which can be identified in these demonstrating in front of parliament. They mass protests, is symbolic of a public cry too were successful. Other factors contributed and demand for a restored right to the city to a rise in social activism in the late 2000s. In (Harvey, 2012, p. xvii). This is certainly true 2006 the law of associations was expanded to of the space in front of parliament in Kuwait allow for the registration of new civil society City now popularly known as Irada Square, BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  40   NO  1 109  ARAB  CITIES  AFTER  ‘THE  SPRING’ the spatial and symbolic heart of the protests. their daily lives. Such practices create heterotopic Until the women’s rights demonstrations spaces all over the place. (Harvey, 2012, p. xvii) in 2005, public demonstrations and rallies since the 1960s primarily took place in the Irada is one such heterotopic space created headquarters of civil society associations or by the thousands of protestors of all political in the diwaniyyas of opposition figures, both leanings who use it to articulate their par- located in the privatized world of the suburbs. ticular cries and demands for change. Indeed, the violent clash with government Equally significant is a new space created special forces that pushed thousands of within the contours of civil society in demonstrators to take to Irada in early 2011 Kuwait in which the right to the city is being occurred not in the city but during a political construed and pursued first and foremost as gathering in a parliamentarian’s home in the public’s right to play a role in shaping the the suburbs (BBC, 2010). By moving into the city according to their own needs and desires. city centre, these demonstrations became Because so many development projects have much more public and visible. Thousands of either ground to a halt or been delayed by demonstrators of all political leanings began the political deadlock, the opportunity has to hold protests and rallies in Irada over arguably been created for civic groups to the next two years, and the public seaside emerge and play more of a role in urban park became Kuwait City’s first real urban planning than ever before in Kuwait’s history. commons, which Harvey describes as a One significant example is the Arabana public space ‘for open discussion and debate project, another heterotopic group that aims over what … power is doing and how best to create something radically different for to oppose its reach’ (Harvey, 2012, p. 161). Kuwait. While the protestors in Irada may Lefebvre would characterize this quest for not have urban change as one of their goals – centrality in political protest as a cry and though by bringing public protest back into demand for a restored right to the city. the city that is precisely what they achieved ‘The right to the city’, Harvey argues, ‘has with the creation of an urban commons – to be construed not as a right to that which this was explicitly the objective behind the already exists, but as a right to rebuild and formation of Arabana. re-create the city … in a completely different Arabana was established in 2010 by two image’ (Harvey, 2012, p. 138). He goes on young Kuwaitis, Abdulatif al-Mishari5 and Ali to ask if there is an urban alternative and, Abulhassan as a multifaceted concept, which if so, from where might it come? According they call a ‘territorial curatorial collabora- to Lefebvre, this right cannot be restored by tive’.6 It is a space: a renovated warehouse the same force that destroyed it (the political in the heart of Kuwait’s industrial Shuwaikh and economic elite), nor by the same process district that sought to bring together architects, that eliminated it (planning from above) artists, designers, and other creative indi- (Lefebvre, 1996, p. 178). Rather, only a social viduals and entities in a shared, mixed-use force has the power to restore what was lost studio, exhibition, and performance space in what he calls heterotopias, or, as Harvey (figure 5). But Arabana, which in Arabic puts it: means cart, is also a concept: a vehicle or mechanism to allow people to become more liminal social spaces of possibility where active participants in the making of their ‘something different’ is not only possible, but environments. In a way, the one led to the foundational for the defining of revolutionary other, in that the frustrations its founders trajectories. This ‘something different’ does not necessarily arise out of a conscious plan, but encountered in trying to get the warehouse more simply out of what people do, feel, sense, constructed and licensed forced them to and come to articulate as they seek meaning in experience first-hand the problems inherent 110 BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  40   NO  1  TOWARDS AN URBAN ALTERNATIVE FOR KUWAIT: PROTESTS AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION in the urban planning and development According to the official statement on its process in Kuwait. This led them to realize website (www.arabana.com) the idea of and promote the need for change. Insofar Arabana was born in recognition of the as its main intention was to gather together urgent need to identify and provide ‘alterna- and offer support to diverse entrepreneurial tive scenarios for development, urbanity and design initiatives through the shared and to life in general’. The aim is to support workspace of the warehouse, Arabana was and encourage individuals to become ‘active designated an ‘incubator’. They were told participants in the production of their that in Kuwait, incubators could not receive environments and in increasing their stakes private licenses and could only exist as and involvement in their localities’. Central national projects (that is, initiated by the gov- to Arabana’s mission is a belief in the need ernment). The warehouse was forced to func- for organic intervention, communication, tion unlicensed, which hindered Arabana’s and mobilization in the aim of locating alter- development as a space, but, perhaps para- native options, opportunities, and ‘other pos- doxically, bolstered its evolution as a broader sible tomorrows’, in the development of a effort. more usable and pleasurable built environ- Figure 5. The Arabana warehouse. (Source: Ghada Al-Kandari) BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  40   NO  1 111  ARAB  CITIES  AFTER  ‘THE  SPRING’ ment (www.arabana.com). The warehouse will be the country’s second city and will was one step in this process: it built a com- permanently change Kuwait’s status as a munity of innovative individuals that became city-state. Al-Mishari proposed to both the closely associated with one another through Municipality and the MGP team the idea their shared space, and in turn became of organizing focus groups to provide the intimately connected to the space itself. It is planners with detailed information on the not surprising that many of the individuals kind of living environment young people who first gravitated towards the restored in Kuwait would like to see created in the warehouse – itself a novel space on the new city. With the Municipality’s approval Kuwaiti urban landscape, where old build- and backing, Arabana held a series of work- ings are regularly demolished and are rarely shops with diverse sectors of society, includ- retooled for new innovative uses – were ing non-Kuwaitis, to discuss in detail the young architects (like al-Mishari himself). human dimensions of the proposed city, It became a nurturing space for Arabana with particular emphasis on housing options. and its broader goals, in that those who No planning project for any part of Kuwait were interested in the warehouse as a space since the advent of oil urbanization in 1950 became more interested in Arabana as a ever actively solicited public participation, concept. involvement, and feedback in such a manner. Among these young architects congregat- Nor had Kuwaiti civil society ever engaged ing in the warehouse were Deema al-Ghunaim, in this kind of an urban discourse; again, who at the time worked in the Structural planning and development after 1950 were Planning Department of the Municipality, top-down processes from which the general Dalal al-Hashash who worked in the Partner- public were entirely disengaged. ships Technical Bureau (which deals with private sector development projects), and Between Irada and Arabana Zahra Ali Baba working in the National Council for Culture, Arts, and Letters (the Though Irada and Arabana both represent main government entity that deals with bottom-up movements in that they are social museums and historic buildings, among other responses to government mismanagement cultural concerns). All were using or frequent- and stagnation, Irada represents a more ing the warehouse for their own personal populist movement. The tens of thousands work, separate from their day jobs. None- of demonstrators that consistently protested theless, it was through these individuals against the government between 2010 and that al-Mishari started to gain access to the 2012 were mostly non-elites. They primarily state planning and development apparatus consisted of members of the Kuwaiti popu- in which they all worked, which in turn lation still labeled as ‘badū’ (Bedouin) in helped Arabana pursue its goals ‘outside popular discourse despite the fact they no the warehouse’. For instance, it was at a longer practice a pastoral lifestyle and are Municipality workshop organized by al- technically urbanized (‘hadar’, which in Ghunaim in 2010 – which brought together Kuwait refers only to the former townspeople all the different foreign planning consultants and villagers). These groups have been working on state-commissioned projects socially marginalized in Kuwaiti society at that time – that he first met the team for several decades, which is reflected in from Malone Given Parsons, the Canadian their spatial isolation in so-called ‘outlying planning consultants working on the devel- areas’: mass housing districts constructed opment plan for Subbiya, the northern sub- by the government for Bedouin settlement region of Kuwait. This area includes the site from late 1960s in peripheral areas that of the proposed Silk City, which, if built, historically received inferior state services 112 BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  40   NO  1  TOWARDS AN URBAN ALTERNATIVE FOR KUWAIT: PROTESTS AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION in comparison to the more elite central what they thought were the biggest problems suburbs where the former townspeople they faced as youth and to come up with reside.7 As such, the occupation of Irada discussions, ideas, and proposals to fix them.9 certainly represents a demand for social Many of the youth who were approached and spatial centrality. Arabana, on the other for the project declined as they saw this as hand, like most civil society organizations a highly political ploy by the government in Kuwait, is representative of the country’s to counter and co-opt potential opposition. more educated, ‘hadar’ elite, although they Indeed throughout Kuwait’s parliamentary explicitly promote equal rights and access for history the government has often responded all citizens in their work. The right to the city, to political contestation by seeking out new in other words, is being pushed from both the political allies: Islamists, tribes, women, top and bottom of Kuwait’s social hierarchy.8 and now youth, who the government no The government has responded differently doubt wants to pull away from the grips of to these two attempts at reclaiming the right oppositional MPs (see Crystal, 1995, p. 83). to the city – the one through urban protest Nonetheless, many of the youth who accepted and the creation of an urban commons in the invitation did so because, regardless of public space, and the other in the creation the political motivations, being attached to of a dialogue through which the public can the Diwan al-Amiri would get them access to play a more active role in designing a city people and information as they investigated according to their own needs and desires. the problems that, as active members of On the one hand, though protests have civil society organizations, they were most been permitted in Irada over the past two passionate about, thereby benefiting their years, the government explicitly restricted own grassroots work. Al-Mishari was one the thousands of demonstrators protesting such participant, who was nominated for against the Amiri decree on 21 October 2012 the NYP due to Arabana’s aforementioned from marching across the city and forcibly Subbiya workshops.10 tried to restrict their movement and activities The NYP members had to identify national to Irada (Aboudi, 2012). The use of force that priority areas to focus on, and Kuwait’s night, and in several subsequent incidents, ‘housing crisis’ was a top concern. The reflects a government crackdown on the waiting list for government-issued land rise of the new urban commons, once again and/or government-built houses in Kuwait demonstrating that the city is as much the is extremely long; families can wait up to stake of political struggle as it is the site of twenty years before their application is that struggle. fulfilled. Land is also exorbitantly expensive, The government’s reaction to groups like which prohibits individuals from obtaining Arabana, however, alongside other civil their own housing. Young Kuwaitis are society groups calling for greater democracy, therefore finding it impossible to become transparency, and public participation in homeowners, hence the NYP’s prioritization decision-making, was more accommodating. of the issue, on which al-Mishari and three After the February 2012 elections – which other members focused. After researching the produced the most oppositional assembly in crisis from various perspectives, they came the country’s history – the Diwan al-Amiri up with four areas on which to concentrate (the executive office of the ruler) established discussions: readdressing Kuwait’s philo- a National Youth Project (NYP) made up sophy of housing needs (should Kuwaitis of fifty volunteers aged between 18 and 30, continue to expect the government to provide selected from existing civil society groups. Its them with housing); housing laws (e.g. purpose was to give young Kuwaitis direct equalizing benefits to women and removing access to the political leadership to articulate legal hindrances to private sector inclusion in BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  40   NO  1 113  ARAB  CITIES  AFTER  ‘THE  SPRING’ housing provision); the economics of housing greater public attention than the sessions in (e.g. the high cost of land and the creation of the library. mortgages within the banking system); and The public thus responded to these two physical manifestation (how these relate to parallel movements in different ways: while planning principles and the physical shape Arabana’s activities resonated with a smaller, of the city). more elite crowd of architects and intel- To respond to these issues, al-Mishari lectuals, the protestors in Irada held the and his team from Arabana organized a attention of the masses, and the media. While week-long series of public discussions called Arabana is explicitly focusing on restoring ‘Housing Sessions’ in November 2012, the right to the city in its promotion of public funded by the Diwan al-Amiri. The sessions participation and dialogue on urban issues, brought together specialists in all areas Irada perhaps more subtly yet arguably related to housing, from social and spatial more effectively opened the public’s eyes to perspectives, and from public institutions the importance of the city and of centrality and the private sector. Participants not only in meeting their needs and making their included government officials and architects, demands. Despite these differences, however, but also economists, sociologists, historians, both are doing something similar. In his entrepreneurs, and members of the general analysis on the city as the setting and stake public: that is, end-users. The main question of struggle, Lefebvre asks: ‘How could one the Housing Sessions sought to address was aim for power without reaching for the places whether the national housing strategy put where power resides, without planning into effect in the 1950s is still suitable to the to occupy that space and to create a new country’s and the population’s needs in the political morphology?’ (Lefebvre, 1991, p. twenty-first century, or whether Kuwait 386). This can of course be applied to the needs a new housing paradigm that moves protestors in Irada, whose occupation of the away from the norms and standards that the state capital was a poignant symbol of their early oil generation received and grew to opposition to the government. It can also, expect. This was the first time the Kuwaiti however, be applied to Arabana. Though public was invited to actively discuss, their goal is to encourage the public to take critique, and play a role in shaping state a more active role in the production of their housing policy, something the development environments, the first step is to open up the plan, with its focus on mega-projects, almost way to do so by reaching the place where completely ignores. power resides: the state planning apparatus The main goal was not to find a solution to that actually builds the city. Though poorly the crisis, but to foster public participation in attended, the experience of the Housing decision-making, and provide a space for city Sessions was once again formative for residents and users to vent their frustrations. al-Mishari, who was nominated and selected But though most Kuwaitis count the housing to be a member of the Planning Council, crisis as one of the nation’s top priorities an advisory board to the Prime Minister (as evidenced by the fact that most of the under the Supreme Council for Planning fifty members of the NYP identified it as a that reports to the Minister of Planning. One priority), the sessions were poorly attended. of the committees he serves on relates to The talks were held in the National Library housing and urban development. His journey in the city centre; also taking place that same from the warehouse to the Planning Council week only a few metres up the coastal road has allowed al-Mishari (by far the youngest were demonstrations against the Amiri council member at the age of thirty) to bring decree in Irada: another forum for the venting the vision of Arabana to the power-holders. of public frustrations that received much Architects are not miracle workers, 114 BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  40   NO  1  TOWARDS AN URBAN ALTERNATIVE FOR KUWAIT: PROTESTS AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION Lefebvre says, but they ‘can individually or Dubai is the present, Doha is the future’. in teams clear the way; they can also propose, The implication is that Kuwait, the former try out and prepare forms’ that can help leader of the Gulf, is falling behind, which is move other social forces towards seeking an largely blamed on its own political stalemate urban alternative (Lefebvre, 1996, p. 151). and concomitant stagnation. However, the That is when true public participation in current political deadlock is arguably paving urbanization – beyond surveys, focus groups, the way for Kuwait to advance both demo- or town hall meetings – can emerge for the cratically and urbanistically in a manner creation of something different. that is potentially more sustainable and In this sense, spaces like Arabana and Irada important for the country’s future than the are both: mega-projects that are being delayed and that foundational for the defining of revolutionary serve to only benefit the commercial elite and trajectories… We do not have to wait upon the capitalist speculators. Rather than being left grand revolution to constitute such spaces. behind, Kuwait appears to be embarking on Lefebvre’s theory of a revolutionary movement a new urban agenda that is slowly shifting is the other way round: the spontaneous coming away from the prevailing Gulf paradigm of together in a moment of ‘irruption’, when disparate heterotopic groups suddenly see, if only spectacular urbanism towards greater public for a fleeting moment, the possibilities of collective involvement and participation in shaping the action to create something radically different. city. (Harvey, 2012, p. xvii) NOTES Conclusion 1. A diwaniyya is a predominantly male socio- The cries and demands we see rising for a political gathering space in Kuwait that is restored right to the city in Irada and Arabana physically located in a private home but is are not only creating something radically technically open to all members of the public. different for Kuwait, but for the Gulf at large. 2. For more on the Municipality see Najat al- Urban development across the Gulf in the Jassim, Baladiyyat al-Kuwait fi Khamsin ‘Amman twenty-first century, with its emphasis on (Kuwait: Kuwait Municipality, 1993). mega-projects, ‘starchitecture’ (Kanna and 3. Interview with Mr. M.H. Dashti, 6 April 2009, Keshavarzian, 2008), and superlative develop- Dasma, Kuwait. ment (the biggest, the tallest, the most expen- 4. Though Kuwait before oil also included sive) has focused more on satisfying the needs nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoral tribes in the of what historian Thomas Bender (2007) refers deserts beyond the town wall, Kuwait itself was to as the city’s ‘temporary citizens’ (bankers, established in 1716 as an urban settlement by a group of Najdi tribes who had been sedentary transient employees, tourists, even celebrities) before migrating to the coast to escape drought than on their permanent ‘urban citizens’ and famine. The first population breakdown we (nationals and long-resident non-nationals). have, provided in John Lorimer’s Gazetteer of the This approach to urban development, which Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia, shows that writers like Yasser Elsheshtawy (2010) and in 1904 70 per cent of the inhabitants of Kuwait principality lived in the town, 4 per cent were Khaled Adham (2008) accurately refer to as the villagers, and 26 per cent were Bedouin. Lorimer ‘spectacle’, has prevailed in the Gulf more so also found that ‘in Kuwait the whole country than any other, and arguably more so in the depends for its wealth and prosperity upon Gulf than anywhere else in the world. This the one town, and the political predominance focus on image-ability over usability – which of the capital is here greater than in almost any country’. After the advent of oil, the tribes and Kuwait experienced first during the 1970s villagers abandoned their pastoral lifestyles and oil boom – gave rise to a notorious saying in were urbanized through employment in the the Gulf in recent years: ‘Kuwait is the past, oil industry, army and police forces, and state BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  40   NO  1 115  ARAB  CITIES  AFTER  ‘THE  SPRING’ bureaucracies, and through the provision of state BBC (2010) Kuwait rally: PM Sheikh Nasser faces housing (Lorimer, 1986, p. 1074). quiz over clash. BBC, 9 December. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle- 5. The following discussion on Arabana and its east-11961692. members is primarily based on an oral interview with Mr. Abdulatif al-Mishari, 25 September 2013, Bender, T. (2007) Conclusion: reflections on the Shamiyya, Kuwait. culture of urban modernity, in Çinar, A. and Bender, T. (eds.) Urban Imaginaries: Locating the 6. Arabana website: www.arabana.com. Modern City. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 7. For more on the hadhar/badu dichotomy in Kuwait in relation to state housing policies, see Capital Standards (2013) Kuwait Development Plan al-Nakib (2014). (KDP): Progress or Retreat. Kuwait: Capital Standards. Available at: www.capstandards. 8. It should be noted that non-Kuwaitis, who com/PDF/KDP%20-%20Progress%20or%20 constitute approximately 65 per cent of the Retreat.pdf. population, are banned from participating in Colin Buchanan and Partners (1969) Studies for a protests and demonstrations, from establishing National Physical Plan for the State of Kuwait civil society organizations, and from most forms and Master Plan for the Urban Areas: Technical of public participation in decision-making. As Paper 18 – Housing in Kuwait. Kuwait. such, the current quest for a right to the city inadvertently continues to leave out a substantial Colin Buchanan and Partners (1974) Kuwait. portion of the population. Architects’ Journal, 159(21), pp. 1131–1132. Crystal, J. (1995) Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers 9. National Youth Project website: www.youth. and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar. Cambridge: org.kw. Cambridge University Press. 10. Skype interview with Mr. Abdulatif al- Department of Master Planning (1971) Social- Mishari, 18 June 2012. Residential Survey for the State of Kuwait. Kuwait: Department of Master Planning. Elsheshtawy, Y. (2010) Dubai: Behind an Urban REFERENCES Spectacle. London: Routledge. Aboudi, S. (2012) Kuwait protests challenge Freeth, Z. (1956) Kuwait Was My Home. London: ruling family. Reuters, 24 October. Available at: George Allen & Unwin. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/24/us- Gardiner, S. (1983) Kuwait: The Making of a City. kuwait-politics-idUSBRE89N0MS20121024. Harlow: Longman. Adham, K. (2008) Rediscovering the island: Hamoud al-Barges, B. (1986) A Twenty-Five Year Doha’s urbanity from pearls to spectacle, in Era of Kuwait’s Modern Advancement: On the Elsheshtawy, Y. (ed.) The Evolving Arab City: Occasion of the Silver Jubilee of the National Day Tradition, Modernity and Urban Development. on February 25, 1986. Kuwait: Kuwait News London: Routledge. Agency Information and Research Department. al-Jassim, N. (1993) Baladiyyat al-Kuwait fi Khamsin Harvey, D. (2012) Rebel Cities: From the Right to the ‘Amman. Kuwait: Kuwait Municipality. City to the Urban Revolution. London: Verso. al-Nakib, F. (2011) Kuwait City: Urbanisation, the IBRD (International Bank for Reconstruction and Built Environment, and the Urban Experience Development) (1965) The Economic Development Before and After Oil (1716–1986). PhD thesis, of Kuwait. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Uni- School of Oriental and African Studies, London. versity Press. al-Nakib, F. (2013) Kuwait’s modern spectacle: oil Kanna, A. and Keshavarzian, A. (2008) The UAE’s wealth and the making of a new capital city, space race: sheiks and starchitects envision 1950–1990. Comparative Studies of South Asia, the future, in MER 248: Waiting The Politics of Africa, and the Middle East, 33(1), pp. 7–25. Time in Palestine. Washington DC: Middle East al-Nakib, F. (2014) Revisiting Hadar and Badu Research and Information Project. in Kuwait: citizenship, housing, and the con- Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space, trans. struction of a dichotomy. International Journal of Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Blackwell. Middle East Studies, 46, pp. 5–30. Lefebvre, H. (1996) Writings on Cities, trans. Bara, A. (1996) Jarrat al-Bahar al-Mansiya. al-Qabas, Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas. Oxford: 29 November. Blackwell. 116 BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  40   NO  1  TOWARDS AN URBAN ALTERNATIVE FOR KUWAIT: PROTESTS AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION Lorimer, J.G. (1986) Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia. London: Archive Editions. Mekaleh, M. (2011) Kuwait draws up 1,100 projects in huge revival effort. Gulf News, 14 September. Minoprio, A., Spencely, H. and MacFarlane, P.W. (1953) Town planning in Kuwait. Architectural Design, October. Oxford Business Group (2007) Building for the Masses, in Annual Business Economic and Political Review: Kuwait, Vol. 2 (Emerging Kuwait 2007). Westall, S. (2013) Kuwait protest movement shifts focus ahead of election. Reuters, 25 July. Available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/ 2013/07/25/us-kuwait-election-idUSBRE96 O0CX20130725. BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  40   NO  1 117