Interview with Waleed Al-Rujaib

Ok, aa my name is Reem Al Ali and the date is July 14, 2018. We are at the Writers Association, in Idailiya and mmm our interview today is with Mr. Waleed Al Rujaib as a part of the project of documenting the oral history by the American University in Kuwait. Mmm , thank you, Sir for agreeing to the aaa interview, will you please give me your full name, nationality and date and place of birth?

My full name is Waleed Jasem Al Rujaib, aaa you want the birth date? There are two…

Yes.

The date of birth, which is supposed to be real because my father and mother knew how to write so they recorded things, then when the official document was issued aa a mistake of a full year in the age happened. That has an advantage and some disadvantages too [He laugh]. My my real birthday, according to what my family told me is the first of January, 1954, on Sunday, to be more specific, the the official date of birth, which is in the official documents, is aa I think in August aa 1953 and of course, as I told you, that has its advantage and has a down side too.

What's the advantage and what's the harm?

I mean aa when one turns 65 aa they become elderly and they are given a priority card aa but should they want to take a loan, for instance, that was before, if you are 65, no, you can't take a loan or buy a car by installment and so on. Anyway, those are formal matters and change, I mean with time, you mentioned something else, a question?

Aaa the place of birth?

Aaa in Kuwait, I mean I was born at the Souq Shiyookh, not the market, the Shiyookh neighborhood and of course aaa I grew up, mm since I was a baby till I turned ten or eleven, in Hawalli. And for that I was lucky, because I lived there because Hawalli was a paradise, at the time, I mean it had sweet water and buckthorn trees and it had farms aa, and its air was very beautiful. In the spring the land was filled with the Nuwair flowers, grass and so on. When it rained, it flooded aa and it passed by our house and eventually went towards Sha'ab, I think ultimately. That was one of the most beautiful environments, and for your knowledge that environment aaa made itspoetry more delicate than that of the city, what proves that is the many poets who praised Hawalli, take for example, I think the poet Abdullah Al Hebaitir who said, “You, your taste is sweeter than Sharbat because of Hawalli's water.” Aaa Sheikh Ahmed Al Jaber said for instance, “O' Sa'ud, twenty-five days of the month have passed without seeing my beloved one, I fear for him of the dangers among the orchards in East Hawalli.” In East Hawalli. He also has another poem that became a song which says, “Last Thursday we went for a walk in Hawalli.” [He clears his throat]. That's the clearest evidence that Hawalli was a place aaa that generated poetic talents, just like the other Kuwaiti villages, like Funtas, for example. Funtas, as a village, is very beautiful, aa full of farms and there they grew vegetables of all types, cucumber, Armenian cucumber to even alfalfa, I mean as food for cattle. It also has the marine environment aaa all that made poetry and arts of utmost beauty particularly the art of Samri for example and the the poem emerged so the people of Funtas are well known for Samri, aa mm the families gathered and played the most beautiful aa types of Samri, they love art because of the environment aa, it's different from the dry environment which makes… which has nothing motivating, the... no waves, no rustle of tree leaves, no air, nothing aaa… perhaps, that's why in the desert you'd find the caravan leader and singer, who entertains himself, in the desert, leading the camels and singing on their footsteps, or the arts of war, like Ardha and other arts because it's known that the tribes were nomadic and aa dependent on invasions. That's old history, I mean even before Islam. So aa I was lucky indeed because I grew up in Hawalli and lived the most beautiful time there and that perhaps made my feelings more delicate, to that extent.

Just for the record, Hawalli back then was at the same location as it is today?

The same area which is aa between aa the Fahaheel Street and Cairo Street till Tunis Street. Some people call what's beyond that Hawalli but in fact that's Nuqra and there is more than one Nuqra; there are many names for those areas like Al Haddad Nuqra, Al Othman Nuqra and Al Tawari Nuqra but Hawalli extends to the Andalus cinema, which is now Al Muhallab. Aaa that was Hawalli and and of course it didn't have blocks of flats, I mean those blocks of flats appeared in the 1960s , one of those was there, it was painted in pink and we called it the Pink Building and aa it was inhabited by Palestinians who emigrated here, and the rest were houses. If you look at the area, you’ll see that it's a small space and aa when we were young, we thought those were vast areas. Near us very close by there was a mosque called Ibn Uwaiyed mosque. That mosque we thought was very huge then a long time later, after I graduated from the United States, in the 1980s, I went to visit the aa location of our house and the mosque only to find it was very small. We used to walk from our house to Saad Ibn Abi Waqqas school, on Tunis street, in a street called the Tael street mmm of course we went through many alleys to get there or when we went to the Hawalli market which is after the aa there was a street, it’s still there, and after that street, I don't recall the names now aa the Ibn Uwaiyed mosque is so small, we used to go around it, running, playing and so on and we felt it was so huge, those are the measures of children and they are different and a week or 10 days ago I went there because I heard that there was a buckthorn tree 150 years old…

Where is it?

Behind the Governorate building, where is Al Rehab… Al Rihab Complex? Just behind it. One of the people who... those... he felt sorry, he was interested in trees and stuff and he felt sorry because that tree was neglected and talked to the governor, the governor of Hawalli aaa and they surrounded it with a fence aa another one was close to it but they mistreated it and it was broken and its branches got torn apart, unfortunately. The buckthorn trees of Hawalli are beautiful; in addition to the fruits there are birds, a variety of birds, aa a chance for hunting or at least for listening to the birds, so I still long for Hawalli and that's why I go there, from time to time, to see if there is anything left? Of course, there is nothing left, they left nothing, unfortunately, so, yes, that's Hawalli, the Hawalli we know…

Aaa you said your childhood was there from your birth till you turned ten?

Approximately, yes.

Will you describe the house you lived in?

The the house I lived in was like many aa Kuwaiti houses, the... the home of the extended family and aa when my grandfather bought the aa land, perhaps in the early 1940s or something, the lands were almost empty so he bought a huge area and mmm later on he sold a part of it to the Al Khashram family, Al Fahad and built a residence, with a court of course, rooms and stuff, that was where my mother stayed after marriage. Then they left that house and built a more modern one but it was on the same land lot, I mean nothing was...

That was your mother's mother aaa your mother's father?

No, the father… the father of my father.

Yes, your father's father, okay.

My father's father, yes [He coughs] so aa there was of course a very huge court, the yard of animals or cows or… where sheep, cows and chickens were. I also remember there were two camels too and a horse. Two camels, the male was called Simran and the female was called Rumiyah and the mare was called Ashma because it was white with what looked like black paint or something, it wasn't spotted, no, it had like uneven dots. I also remember that I was so close to my grandfather and aa of course we were in the same house and at dawn I used to go with my grandmother to the sheep yard and with her there were some working boys who did the milking, collected the eggs and so on…

Those boys, where were they from? From Kuwait?

There were aa workers from Oman and particularly from Yemen, those were there and later on there were some Iraqis but the drivers, for instance, I remember a Kuwaiti, he was a poet and was working as a driver aa there were Saudi drivers aaa and later on Arabs came, Iraqis, Syrians and others, you know, but in the beginning most of the aa drivers were either Kuwaitis or Saudis. In Saudi Arabia at the time people left the country for other places looking for better chances and stuff. So that was the big house where my grandfather and grandmother lived and of course our family; my mother, father and brothers, my uncle and his wife, my aunt and her husband and many more. The nice thing about that extended family was that everyone in the house raised you, I mean mm whoever saw you doing something wrong argued with you, guided you etc. etc. Moreover, outside the house there was the diwan too, of course, then right outside the house there was an area called bahrat Al Rujaib (Al Rujaib’s sea). When it rained that area turned into a small sea, just like the... a running river so much so that when we waded into the water it dragged us away because of its strength and hence the name bahara (sea). Aaa later on my grandfather sold parts and rented parts for... he built small houses and rented them and so on. So that was the... the house which we, my peers and I when we meet, still recall where the water jar was, where...how to get into the kitchen yard and how to get into the other court for the early houses had multiple courts so aa and that's what is still in my mind

And...

Inspired by all of that, I beg your pardon, I wrote my first novel, Badriah, which was famous on a great scale aa all over the Arab world and many critics wrote about it from the Maghreb; Algeria, Morocco and so on to Syria, Lebanon and Egypt aa many wrote about it although it was banned.

Is it still banned or...?

No, no, it’s not banned anymore.

Ah [she laughs].

Yes, it was published, I think, in 1988 or 1989. At the time they... dissolved the National Assembly, on no constitutional grounds, which meant that it wouldn't return in two months and they suspended the constitution. They imposed prior censorship on the newspapers and all printed material, on everything of course and even the newspapers; in the newspapers they appointed censors who monitored every article written. For example, should there be an article that had the word “democracy” they removed it or something like “freedom” [he laughs], they just cancelled it. In such an atmosphere aa Badriah was published in Beirut and when it came... the awareness around literature is limited, until now, with many readers so someone might ask you, “who is this character?” or “who do you mean by it?” “are you referring to a leading figure in Kuwait?” “Does…why is he saying such and such, why?” Imagine that, I mean this is literature and one can't int... interpret it the way one likes, I mean and aa and that's not a record, it's true that you use real life but you add a lot to it, even the character you draw, as Márquez said is a collage, it's not, not one thing which you take from real life and write it down, you know. Here I might add that there was a good family who were our neighbors in Hawalli. I was talking about the Imam of the Ibn Uwaiyed mosque, those were the Ibn Uwaiyed family, aa the mosque was named after the man, may God rest his soul, he was a decent man, but many raised the Athan (call for prayer) at the mosque, my grandfather did and so did many others of the... I wrote about the mo'athin, the mo'athin of the mosque, describing him as being a hypocrite or something. Here they said, “you, you are talking about our grandfather.” And they sued me. I said to them that to record... I mean when Najeeb Magfouz wanted to mention things by the names he would say Al Nahhas Pasha, that's obvious here, but when he said the Minister of Defense, for instance, there must be a country with ministers and it has mm a minister of defense. There is a funny story that happened with me. I have a short story collection called, my second story collection, called “The Lord's Will Regarding the Condition of Abi Jasim Whose Income is Limited.” The original story says that Abu Jasim wanted a house, requesting a house. He grew so old and and didn't know the procedure to get a house from the government so he went to meet the the minister to explain his situation, you know. A colleague of mine, an academic at Kuwait University, read it and at the time I was working at Kuwait University. When he read it he said, “but that Abu Jasim didn't go to the minister.” I thought, “this could be a ne... new vision to the... I said, “How?” He said, “my brother had been the office manager of the Minister of Housing for seven years and he said he'd never heard of him, I asked him and he said he'd never seen that Abu Jasim.” Imagine that, that's the level of awareness of some people. Until now when they read about a character for instance they say, “that's you!” Of course, there are some features of me, one way or another, aa “you went through that aa adventure, you went through...” No, of course not me so aaa mmm that's the problem. When Badriah was released, they got it at the airport, they read it and gave it to the Ministry of Information. Then the Ministry of Information sent for me, because before that no novel had ever been banned, that was perhaps the first novel to be banned. They questioned me as if I had been in the State Security not the Ministry of Information. They scolded me and I asked them, okay? I said to them, “alright, give me a reason, why was the novel banned?” They said, “it's against the public interest.” I said, “what is the public interest? So I won't do that again.” They said, “We are more aware of the public interest.” It was shocking but what happened after that? I'm sorry I'm talking without a specific sequence aaa after that… people began to smuggle it in, from Cairo, from Beirut, from Bahrain and from I don't know where aa when people hear that something is banned they begin to... on the contrary, the university students began to photocopy it, they made thousands of copies and distributed them among the students and professors and it spread on an unbelievable scale, I mean in numbers exceeding the copies I printed and aa mm later on they allowed it. Someone, I don't know who, a prominent figure, they said, went and talked to the Minister of Information, after the liberation, may be in 1992 or something, and said, “isn't it a shame? A novel that raised the name of its country everywhere gets banned in its own country?” So the minister, with an order from the minister it was allowed. But aa censorship is still, I mean, something backward, no country now revert to censorship, I have three banned novels now [He laughs].

What are they?

It's not only me, many other writers. What is still banned until now aa and even Badriah is allowed now, it's in its third edition now but every time it comes in they handle it the old way and confiscate it and the poor publishing house has to go to them and say, “come on people, it's allowed.” They don't have new information, they don't have any updated about what's going on in the Ministry. I have aa a banned novel titled Love is not Destroyed nor Created, I have also a banned novel titled Who is Behind the Wall and there's also a banned novel titled The Call.

Mmm.. I'd like to go back a little bit before…

Yes

Aaa before you mentioned Badriah the novel Badriah you mentioned that in your old house at aa dawn you aa went with your grandmother and I interrupted you so will you tell that... complete that story?

Yes, I mean aa I lived that atmosphere, I mean, you know when you wake up at dawn and hear the aa sounds of chickens and animals or something, it was strange, it was notable that at dawn they talked like humans, as if they were whispering. When night falls when we want to talk in the darkness we whisper as if we don’t want to tear the cover of the night or breach it and so do they. The chicks, for instance, which followed their mother and so on, they made sounds and those sounds were very refreshing, you know, and so did the sheep and other animals and how my grandmother handled the animals, whether cows or sheep, she talked and spoke to them. That is mentioned in Badriah anyway. She used to caress them, for instance, and if a cow was in labor she spent the night with it and the workers checked up on it and yes, I mean, read Badriah and you will f... find glimpses of that in it.

And your grandmother looked after the... those animals?

Yes, and of course she got help, I I used to go with her to see the… how she fed them, I mean they boiled the date pits and poured them in long basins of cement and the cows, oxen and other animals came and ate from them. Aaa and our production of milk and eggs was good, you know, they churned the milk, the women, the women of the house, and got large chunks of butter, it was so delicious. Because many people lived in the house my grandfather used to buy huge amounts of the... vegetables, and food stuff and whatnot. There were large pickup trucks, they filled them with boxes of tomatoes, onions and stuff from the vegetable market in Shuwaikh. When they cooked meat or something, they had to slaughter because there were so many mouths to feed and you found groups; my grandfather is in the diwaniyya with the drivers and servants or any guests passing by, he used to say, “call him in.” Aaa women ate together aa, I was lucky because I was always with my grandfather, I mean I ate with him. I benefited a lot from my grandfather in aaa narration, my grandfather was a very interesting narrator and he had books, yellow ones, in fiqh, shari'a and others and about Islamic and historical stories and he didn't even have bookshelves to keep those on so he piled them in boxes or something. I also benefited from my father aa he was also a very interesting narrator, when he talked he got your attention. He also had a library, a more modern one of course with literature by Nageeb Mahfouz, Ihsan Abdul Quddoos, Al Siba'i and others and others and books on politics like My Struggle by Hitler, which everyone was reading at the time aaa and he also had collections of the Jahili poetry, I benefited from all those, I benefited from all those.

What I mostly benefited from was the practical guidance of my mother, my mother collected so many magazines, some of which were in Arabic, like Hawwa magazine, which was published in Egypt and and she had old editions, of course all of those were damaged when she moved from one house to another. She also had old fashion catalogues and before I even went to kindergarten, before kindergarten she used to ask me to copy the English and Arabic letters. At the entrance of the house there was a corridor, in that corridor they lined the rice sacks, one after another, one after another, and I used to lay down on them and copy the... aaa that, later on, made me love narrating, love reading and love the... and I was for a very long time excellent, ranking first in class or in school or... so it was fun.

You mentioned that your grandfather was a narrator, do you remember any story he told you? A story you favored and liked?

Believe it or not, I forgot but I'm sure those stories are still in my subconscious mind, I'm absolutely sure.

Or the type of stories he told you?

There were kinds of stories I mean like the stories of some tribes, famous ones, how they invaded each other or landmark events that took place in the Arabian Peninsula or aa Islamic stories or the tales of the sea for he was a mo'athin, a khateeb (preacher) and an Imam but he worked in pearl diving too, he told me about that too.

Stories of the sea like what?

Many things, I mean like how he started working in the sea, and as I told you he told them in an interesting way. He worked as a saib, the one who pulled aa the diver out, he also worked as a diver too. Sometimes that was something we didn't understand, being kids; you are an Imam, he was the Imam of the Grand Market mosque, by the way, and his father before him but I don't know if his grandfather was too, but the house was in front of the Mubarakiya school, right in front of the Mubarakiya school and now…

Their house?

The, yes, our house, and aa there are maps now, I think, or old pictures, taken in the 1950s, that show the house and the houses of Qibla. We were in the Wasat neighborhood, as they called it, the center from which branched out the neighborhoods of Sharq and Qibla so [He Coughs] The diving stories, for example, were very interesting, I mean the stories of the sea and the desert mmm it's a great advantage that one has the experience of the desert and the experience of the sea. Of course I haven't got too attached to the sea or the desert but the idea was so beautiful that when I joined the boy scouts, for many years, I reached the rank of an adventurer, the one who goes hiking. They give you three matchsticks, a potato and some flour. At night you dig a hole to sleep in, I mean those stories were enjoyable. The directions of the wind, the east, the west and the... I developed a very keen sense of direction, very strong sense of direction, I mean when I travel abroad, anywhere in Europe or somewhere else, if I spend the whole day on tours and stuff, when I want to go back or something I can guess the direction of the hotel is this way, where? I don’t know but my sense of direction was so very accurate, I don't know if that affected me too, I mean the sense of direction, on my attitudes, maybe it helped my sense of direction to be right…

And your father's stories? You said that your father was a narrator too?

Yes, but he didn't tell me stories, he told them to his friends, for instance, or his brothers, sisters and so on.

But he had the talent of the...

A narrator, he was so interesting, very interesting and everyone loved him for that. They both, my grandfather and father, had charisma, they were very influential, with the voice, the performance and the... They were really influential, both of them, that's why my father mm the whole family, with no exception, even the distant relatives, respected him a lot and thought highly of him. Aaa I believe that character is the core of that matter. So when he went hunting or fishing or something, what he saw and so on, I was a good listener and it was good to absorb all that and I like to listen rather than talk, but I'm full of stories, should someone gets me started I go telling stories and I don't know how my subconscious mind sometimes links a story to another to another, particularly when one lets himself go freely as if in a trance. That makes one flow and basically creativity is like that, I mean there is no creativity in the conscious mind, all the creativity lies in the subconscious mind but the conscious mind supports it, I mean it corrects the path so things won't go so astray.

You mentioned that the... the house, where you lived, was that of the extended family aa who was living there, I mean how many of your uncles or aunts?

[He coughs] So many, I mean my uncles aaa mmm one, two, three, one of them was married and the other two were students, before they got married, in Shuwaikh High School and before that they were in Hawalli Middle School, where is Hawalli Park now? It was there. By the way, the one who took Hawalli Park, was keen on removing the sign that read Hawalli, Hawalli School and kept it in his house. He was my colleague in Al Hareeri, Al Hareeri school in Nuqra. Aaa my aunts were there too, mmm... one, two, the third left, the fourth was there and so was the fifth who was young, she was a student too aa…

And you were living with them?

We too…

How many brothers and sisters do you have and where do you rank among them?

I am the eldest and I have seven brothers and aaa one sister [A long period of silence]. Yes, seven brothers and a sister.

And you are the eldest.

I am the eldest.

Are there age gaps between you or not?

No, usually a year and a half or two years at most, because there were no contraceptive methods and stuff and that was the case; you could see that was common, unless there was a problem, a travel or something like that and being the eldest that too caused me a problem [he laughs].

In what way?

An advantage and a problem, the advantage was that I got everything because I was the first, the problem was that my father was working at the time, of course he assumed many jobs, for instance he was aa a teacher, an educator. He worked in the oil sector for some time, he worked in so and so and finally he worked in the Ministry of Public Works, the world was changing, you know. He was in charge of some department and when he came back from work he had lunch and went to sleep in the afternoon, particularly when the summer holiday started.

How old were you at the…?

No, I was young, I mean aa eight or nine or even younger. In the be... beginning we used to live in one very long room with, pardon me, a cement basin, they heated the water and bathed us in it. Then, on the other side of the house, my father built two rooms, connected to a bathroom as well and in one of those they put an air conditioner, the window type which they aa ran for some time, till the room was cool and then turned it off.

And the rest of the house didn't have air conditioners at the time?

No, no, there weren't any, we mostly slept on the roof top, in summer for instance. That was a nice thing, to be on the roof; you saw the stars so close, you saw them, you know. Between each family and the other they hung a bed sheet, to separate them [he laughs]. My uncle's family and the family of so and so and so on. The house was huge too, so it accommodated all of those. So as I was telling you, when my father had lunch he wanted to sleep, in the afternoon, he gave us a room and had another for himself. He used to come to me and say, “I'm going to sleep, I don't want to hear a sound, okay? If I hear a sound, I will do such and such.” He was charismatic and intimidating. He used to lock our room from the outside so that we couldn't get out to play, in the afternoon. Now those were kids, how could one control them? Of course not all of them were there at the time, so… and they began to make noises while playing so I used to say to them, “come, I'll tell you a story.” Of course children are attracted to stories so I used to tell them the tale of the dragon, the lion and I don't know what, the pirates and... there was nothing I didn't include in that story and they were mesmerized till the late afternoon when my father woke up and opened the door for us. Usually they used to reward us with a bottle of 7Up and sometimes ice cream, the Arabic mastic type. Now the summer holiday was almost four months long back then, the following day the same thing happened, “I don't want to hear a sound,” and locked the door. There was nothing but the story and I used to say, “if you don't keep quiet, I won't tell you what happened to so and so the hero.” And they kept silent. Imagine, Reem, that went on for four consecutive months. Where did the words come from, where did the characters come from, where did the events come from and where did the... I don't know, later on I discovered that I was a narrator too and I benefited from that a lot.

Were there certain stories or books that influenced you?

I read, of course, when I was young, back then reading was a deeply rooted habit, I mean people used to read and that was even before I went to public libraries, when they became... when they were established I used to walk long distances to get to them.

What year did they establish public libraries?

Hmm in the, no, in the 1960s, in the 1960s I remember that.

Aaaa... and by the way, that tale saved me once. I was in grade three and I was clever. One day, we came in the morning and the teacher said, “who did the homework?” I was the only one to raise his hand and he said, “come out here, clap for him.” The students clapped for me and the teacher said, “now I'm going to punish them, tell me, how many times should I beat them?” It was a mess and he asked me to give an odd or an even number, I don't remember now. I said, “two, two.” And he said, “that's an even number.” I said to him, “okay, four.” I mean I was baffled and couldn't concentrate or think. Anyway, I was wrong so many times that the number reached six and he passed by them with the stick, beating them. Their tears ran and their faces turned red and stuff. They kept looking at me in a way that frightened me. In the break I was sitting in the school yard, where I usually chose a sunny spot for warmth and all of a sudden I found two or maybe three boys, each of them having his fist ready to punch me like this. At once I said, “do you know how Antar died?” Now I realize what happened to him; he went into a trance, directly the Erickson style, just like that. His fist relaxed and I said, I added some suspense and some touches of my own. The bill went off and I said, “okay, tomorrow I will continue the story.” Over two or three days I kept telling the story of how Antar died and I kept adding details and stuff. After that period they became my friends, we are friends now [he laughs].

They forgot the matter of the [she laughs].

They forgot and they grew up and got important jobs, one of them became a minister or something. That saved me and when I think about the past and the childhood and stuff I realize that I knew that a story, the the metaphor sedates, I mean it makes a person go into a trance. Later on, when I learned hypnosis and learned those things I realized the value of being a narrator and the use of the induction of hypnosis. It turned out that I’ve been a narrator and a hypnotist for a long time [he laughs] but I didn't know it, of course, I was young.

Aaa that story happened to you in the elementary school?

Yes, in grade three.

What school did you go to?

I was in Saad Ibn Abi Waqqas.

Where was this school?

It was right on Tunis street.

Will you describe it to me? I mean the building from the inside?

No, you want the inside?

Yes.

Yes, on the inside aa yes, it seems that at the time it was small [he laughs] but I always thought it was big. It has a gate and a yard. The yard had classrooms and it had a second floor with classrooms too. Aaa mm I don't remember we had a theater in that type of buildings or anything, even in PE classes we played in the same court you know.

What were the classrooms like? The desks for example?

They were regular school desks, I don’t know what they called them. It seems that, I'm not really sure now, it seems that in the elementary stage the classes were not called first one or first two but rather first duck or first goose [he laughs] and so on.

To make it easier for the students to remember? [she laughs]

Aaa I don't know, but when I was in kindergarten…

Which kindergarten was that?

I was in Jol Jamal, Jol Jamal on Tunis street now, there is the Ministry of Social Affairs, the labor force census department or something, if you know where that is, that's Jol Jamal. I even had some paperwork to take care of there, I remembered my classroom and I went to it.

The same building?

The same building and the same court, which I used to think was huge and where the kids ran, it was so small. [He laughs] it had a bed of roses which they removed I think. I thought it was so big. There was another sandy court, with a slide and a revolving ride and a large sandbox where the kids played with sand. We had music too, and there were naps of course [he laughs] we slept, they made us sleep at noon.

In kindergarten?

Yes, they put us to sleep. There was food of course. Aaa old schools were much better, excellent, in both education and care. Kuwait was a country of social care at the time. The school uniforms too, they brought tailors to make them for us mm in the elementary, middle and high schools too.

The school provided the…?

Everything. I remember in high school, for instance, they gave us the fabric, back then there were summer fabrics and winter fabrics, they gave us shoes, black English shoes I remember and aaa they gave us money to sew them, everyone went to their own tailor, but they gave us cash money, I mean everything was available, it was a beautiful thing, even the buses were available back then.

In kindergarten and elementary schools, do you remember where the teachers were from?

There were Palestinians, those were more common. In fact many of them were honorable educators, I mean I can't forget some of them. Aaa I once complained to my father about one of the teachers, aa my hand was broken and and he punished me and hit me, it was not a painful hit but I went to my father and said, “the teacher hit me on my broken hand.” My father went to school to fight. He talked to the headmaster and stuff. They sent for the teacher and blamed him. Nevertheless a few days later he saw me playing on the street. The next day he approached me, that same teacher, whom I brought blame or something upon, and said to me, “you are a good boy, don't play with those boys in particular.” So to that extent he was an educator; he didn't just teach or something. And the education itself, imagine this, they used to give us homework to write or to copy, up to 20 times, a certain lesson or passage which they assigned or something. Reading was important, I mean a part of the curricula was reading and there were libraries in schools and homework too. Imagine that when we reached grade three of elementary school, we could read a newspaper or something, that became a habit to us. When I worked at the university, I saw male and female students, high school graduates, writing in the local dialect, they didn't know, they couldn't even read, you know. So education was solid and you had the Spring vacation, for two weeks, but you didn't enjoy it due to the amount of homework assignments and copying tasks you had and I think that was the reason for the excellence of that generation in reading, writing and language too.

What school subjects, in the elementary stage, do you remember?

The regular subjects, I mean reading in Arabic or... I mean we were before “Hamad has a pen.”

What was it?

It was Papa, Mama and Dada [he laughs]. And in the aaa books and curricula there were tales too, you know.

The curricula were from Kuwait, were they Kuwaiti curricula?

They were Kuwaiti, yes, aamm, the curricula were originally sent to the Emirates because the Emirates didn't have any and when Kuwait built schools there aa they taught the Kuwaiti curricula and gave us notebooks with the picture of Abdullah Al Salem mm I mean so many of those and pens and stuff, so imagine they learned our curricula. Kuwait also sent them Arab teachers and Kuwait paid their salaries so aa and math too, I mean such curricula as I recall.

What was the subject you liked most? The favorite ones?

It was Arabic for sure, it was Arabic, I mean, I think so.

Was there a certain teacher who impacted you the most or...?

In the elementary stage? The one I told you about, his name was mm Mr. Musleh aa there are faces I remember but I don't recall the names.

In elementary school, for example, my teacher, for instance, the Arabic teacher was a Palestinian poet.

What was his name?

Muhammed Al Astal... I mean he wrote poetry but I don't know if he published his work or not, you know. Mmm there was a Sudanese teacher whom I remember, I mean most of the teachers were Palestinians. There’s also something important was that the Palestinians, who came, some of them were freedom fighters, I mean they were with the Palestinian resistance and carried out operations, I mean old ones of course, so from time to time...

Just like all those who went into adventures, like we lived the adventures of the invasion, aa they talked to tell their stories and wanted to tell their experiences that they went through, you know, like the description of the battles and so on. They also talked in a charismatic way, “and on the night of July 13, so and so, we left the so and so base at night.” Such things attracted me for sure, just like the cinema did, the cinema played a very important role in my life.

Which stage of your life?

Ever since I was a child, since I was in elementary school.

What movies did you like?

Yes, just remember the question for…

Okay.

If you allow me…

Aa okay, we stopped at the point of movies, where did you see these movies or how?

The aa my father used to bring the cinema, the cinema machine, the old one with reels and 16 mm tapes, the wide ones, you know. They hung a sheet in the court and played the movies and in Hawalli there was more than one house with those machines.

Do you remember who had them?

Yes, the Bedah house and the Khashram house, they brought those machines. There were other farther places too, farther houses which brought those, they rented them from someone in Hawalli, facing what is now Al Muhallab, there were shops there and one of them rented them I think.

Do you remember the names of the…?

Al Samhan or Al Sarhan perhaps. So I watched movies, of course all of them were in black and white at the time and aa mm, by the way I admired Abdul Haleem Havez in an unreasonable way and I had the chance aa to see him twice, I will tell you that story so as not to leave the cinema subject aa then I began to save my allowance to go to the cinema. At the time they had already built the Andalus cinema and next to it there was the Hawalli summer cinema, an outdoor cinema without a rooftop. During the Eids I had to go aa I used to go and I was so young and my father noticed that just like he noticed, when I was ten or eleven, that I didn't spend my money but rather saved it to buy books, that's something we can talk about later. He asked a cook we had, his name was Abdullah, an Iraqi, with Iraqi origins, he gave him money and every Friday he took me to the Andalus cinema to see a movie. Sometimes it was a foreign movie and at the time the cinema scope technique and color films began to spread. The Hawalli cinema, for instance, my younger uncles, who were students at the Shuwaikh High School, used to take me to see the movies at the Hawalli summer cinema.

What year was that approximately?

In the 1960s, but let me tell you, it was before 1965 or 1966 because in 1965 we left Hawalli and lived in a rented house in Qadsiya because my father was building a house after the government granted him a lot of land and a loan. He built it in Rumaithiya and Rumaithiya at the time was so far so aa I became addicted to the movies.

What genre of movies did you like?

Many, adventure movies for instance, which I always narrated and when I talked I used to act with my hands or something. Sometimes I wore a sheet or a towel, like a cape of a knight for instance. The Arabic films, which I saw are so many; films of Shadiya, Abdul Haleem and Fareed Shawqi, who of course attracted al the youth because... and usually after the film they engaged in fights outside the theater, mimicking him, you know. I saw many foreign movies and many Arabic movies. Take for instance the movie “The Road of Heroes,” it was about the 1956 war, I think, the 1956 war perhaps? Yes, there was a group of heroes like Shukri Sarhan and Imad Hamdi. There were interesting movies and back then they hung the movie posters, very huge ones and those were paintings not pictures; they painted the pictures of the heroes and so on just like the western cinema theaters in the past, it was like that, I mean they didn't have modern posters. I was enchanted by the cinema in an unreasonable way and that, I think that helped in stretching my imagination so when I write aaa I write scenes and here the reader is reading as if they were watching a movie, unlike the narrative style “he went and so and so,” no it's a scene that attracts you, followed by another scene and so on, connected together in cinematic cuts as it’s referred to in literature and and that made the readers consider my stories and novels interesting and read them quickly, you know. So cinema was very important in my life, and still is. I still like to watch movies at night, before I go to bed I have to watch a movie or two, you know so...

You mentioned that you used to save money to buy books.

Yes

You saved your allowance to buy books, where did you buy these books?

Look, I in... after I finished the elementary stage I moved to Al Hareeri Middle School.

Where was it?

In Nuqra and it's still there, on the Fourth Ring Road but it's called Ibda' Academy now or something like that, in front of Jabriya. Back then Jabriya was a desert of course, there was nothing there and when I drove along the Fourth Ring Road I used to see my classroom and later on they covered it, mm I don't know how, they added barriers or passages. In the... the middle stage I was given an allowance, as usual and on the way from Nuqra to Qadsiya, first, since the elementary school days, when I went to Sa'ad Ibn Abi Waqqas School, people had stands for magazines, the comics and removed their covers so as to sell them cheaper because I don't know, perhaps they sent the covers back to the company or someplace, and those were cheaper than the new magazines sold fresh, they were older issues.

What were those magazines?

Mickey, Sameer and Sinbad till Superman was issued but I think at first it was in English so the pictures were more important. By the way I also worked on books too, me and my neighbor and colleague, Ali Al Khashram, who is a prominent army officer now. He used to draw very well and I wrote the scenario, the dialogue so we divided the notebook to sections, just like those comics and I wrote the story while he drew, like how the words popped out. I wrote the story and it was interesting, I remember not only one but more than one.

Have you kept any of them?

No, unfortunately not and what I feel sorry for is that when I turned almost fourteen mmm I started writing a novel titled The Cheerfulness of Youth I took the chance of the summer holidays to write a novel. I wrote a big part of it, I don't know how much but it was a lot nevertheless I didn't finish it. I lacked the tools but I read a lot; I remember at the age of twelve I read twelve volumes of One Thousand and One Nights during the summer. The summer was a good opportunity for reading, that was when I was young.

You said that upon... when you left school, on the way to Qadsiya…

Yes, I mean my father was then a driver used to drive us. In Qadsiya there was a bookstore aa on the way towards Qadsiya, it used to sell the books of La Bibliotheque Verte mm Cinderella and I don't know what, all those.

Do you remember the name of the bookstore?

No, really. Believe it or not I remembered it till a while ago, it sometimes surfaces but now I don't remember exactly mm aa the books of Arsene Lupin, aa Agatha Christie were... I remember. Then I began to like reading more, I finished a book so quickly so I stopped spending and starved [he laughs] I mean I didn't buy anything to eat, the other boys bought things to eat and so on but I didn't. I saved to buy those aa stories for a story of Arsene Lupin or of La Bibliotheque Verte and so on was higher, in price, than my allowance. Then my mother seemed to have noticed aa that my aa face was pale or something and said, “you don't buy anything with your money?” I said to her, “I'm saving,” or “I didn't spend” something like that. She went to my father and said, “I don't know what the matter is with him, he doesn't spend and I don't know what he does with the money.” My father sent for me and said... Ah, not only that, not only did I save the money, but I also sold some of my stuff, I mean if I had a medal for some time, I sold it, I sold I don't know what.

Who did you sell it to?

Aaa sometimes to a relative and sometimes to... of course to the ones close to me or I got in contact with and collected the money. My mother noticed that I sold my stuff too and when she said to my father, “he sells things,” my father sent for me and said, “why do you sell things? Do you need money or something?” Because I feared and revered him I was afraid he'd punish me so I cried and said to him, “I'm saving to buy books.” Here my father said to me, “okay, for every half a dinar you save I'll give you half a dinar, save a dinar and I'll give you a dinar.” And indeed it was a good chance so aa I needed a book cabinet to keep the... and my father said, “okay, I'll have a cabinet made for you and bring it to you.” They were two shelves, one on top of the other but they were not the same size, they were almost like this, and we used nails to fix them to the wall. I went on saving and I was pleased to sit in a far place to look at the books, increasing all the time. That was the... I looked for stories in any way possible and I could hardly believe that I could go to the public libraries to read.

Which public libraries did you go to?

Mostly, as I recall, in Hawalli. I used to walk from Qadsiya to Hawalli, on foot. To what is now the clinic or the government offices, which were on Beirut Street, the library was there and I think still is. But it's said that all the libraries are now covered in dust, neglected and the books are lost. I didn't miss a source of aa reading. My mother always said, “when you came back from school, you followed me while I was working or cooking or something and told me what happened with you during the whole day.” So I always had that story, which I gathered to tell later on, mm that was one of the...

Did you have other hobbies or other entertainment venues to go to?

No, I had hobbies, aa I used to play music and I thought that it was my calling, then I took up painting and thought that was my calling then I wrote poetry [he laughs] while I was young, yes, till I discovered, later on in the 1970s that my calling is to express and communicate it is the short story.

What musical instrument did you play?

It was the accordion, I was in kindergarten or first grade of elementary school and the accordion was all that was available, you know, and my pai... my painting developed, I painted well, poetry was non… nonsense for sure because I read a lot of poetry, I mean from my father's library mmm for sure it wasn't... I thought it was good, at the time and I kept a lot of notebooks with drawings, written material and everything. Then, by chance, I saw a book, it had pictures of the notebooks of Alexander Pushkin, the great Russian poet, he liked to draw while writing poetry and I saw almost the same in myself, he was deeply influenced by the story of his nanny and I was influenced by the stories too, of course there is a huge gap between me and Pushkin…

But you didn't have any games that you played or things other than the...?

No, the simple games of the past, I mean a car with which you played aa guns and stuff, the things people brought from hajj or things my father brought from Cairo, for instance or... all those were simple things [he coughs] the most important rewards were to get some colors or get aa notebooks or or books or something.

As for your brothers, what...

No, my brothers were not interested in reading.

What was your relationship with your broth… your brothers and... like?

We were kids and we went through what all kids experience; between playing together and fighting and arguing and stuff. That was the... but when we were in Hawalli they didn’t continue…

Did they share your interest in reading and...?

No, no, it seemed that I was the only one who had that and in fact it was thanks to my mother too, she gets credit for that. My father gave me a chance, when he told his stories I sat next to him. He didn’t address me directly. For reading, his library was available so I reached out and took the books while my mother no, she guided me, she practically guided me to the aa and the magazines were also a very important source of culture with the pictures or the comments on them and so on. So...

You mentioned Hawwa magazine which your mother used to give you…

Yes.

Are there any other magazines you remember or…?

Actually I forgot for Hawwa was there in huge numbers, she had big piles of its issues and she had many magazines, most of which were Egyptian I think but Hawwa in particular was... I even said to her a few years ago, “if you had kept those, they would've been valuable as an important archive.” because they were the early issues and I don't think the magazine is published now so aa mm and by the way that made me, in the middle school stage, always get ten out of ten in writing or composition classes, always aaa and that was not common for the students, “why are you the only one who gets ten out of ten?” Because composition is not like one plus one so…

Did you have any stories, in middle school, like the ones you mentioned in elementary school when the students came to you and you told them a story? Have you gone through situations of that kind or any memories with your peers in middle school? Anything you recall?

Okay, you see, at school, in general and particularly in elementary or rather kindergarten, elementary and middle stages, I was so polite, I even remember a teacher in middle school who said to me, “you are too polite.” It seems that it was, in part, because I was shy. It seems it is because of the discipline we had at the time, I mean we had been taught decency at home, it was a vital matter aaa it was impossible to be vulgar in a word or an action with the upbringing of that early generation. They taught us the important basics, so I had little contact with the students but after that, in Al Hareeri School I had many of my relatives, mmm whether from from Hawalli or from Nuqra or something. Then friendships began to take shape little by little and I still have friends from middle school.

Do you remember any of them to tell us about?

Yes, I have for example a the ambassador Jasim Al Mubarki, a close friend of mine till today and and his nephew is also my friend, Fahed Al Mubarki and others of the same family, I mean I was close to them in the... and there were friendships, which you can consider temporary, but during the middle stage and by the way in elementary school I joined the boy scouts.

Mmm, will you tell me about that experience?

Yes, the cub scouts, there wasn't much to do, you know, perhaps they made us line up to greet someone or something like that but in middle school I joined the scouts and it was my dream to join the scouts. I joined the land scouts, as they called it. Every year, with the scouts, I went to the scout camp, during Spring vacation, for fifteen days. It was a little bit to the south, I mean in front of Funtas or something and and the all the schools, all the scout teams of the schools, gathered there mmm where they practiced the arts of ropes, rope tying or pitching a tent over a tower or something. I enjoyed those things a lot till I reached high school, particularly in the first year, I joined the sea scouts. The sea scouts mmm used boats sometimes, where were they? Perhaps in Shuwaikh High School, close to the sea, there was rowing activities in boats, I don't know what they called it, I forgot. The uniform was different, it was a white shirt and blue shorts and the cap wasn't like that of the land scouts, no, it was a marine cap the... I passed all the tests, as I told you, till I reached the adventures test where they gave you a mission and aa watched you, they gave you secret messages aa you opened the first and it said, “go to the so and so direction at the so and so time,” or “open I don’t know what a tree here or there and you will find a paper and…”

They gave you like clues?

Yes, yes, exactly and that gave me a great pleasure. Later on, when I had kids, I used to play with them that game for I enjoyed it so much, it has an adrenaline rush [he laughs], it was very nice, yes. After the first year of high school aa and of course the Ministry of Education sent me, with people they selected from Kuwait, four or five of us, in 1969, to go to Turkey after they'd given us a course in aa first aid. So we went to Turkey, to represent Kuwait in a mm a scouts and first aid camp.

In which stage were you?

First year of high school.

How was the experience in Turkey? Was it the first time you had travelled?

Turkey? Yes, it was my first time visiting Turkey but of course I had travelled before that many times, to Cairo for instance since the 1950s, I mean we travelled and…

According to my father and mother ours was the first Kuwaiti car to go to Cairo, to reach Egypt.

You travelled by car?

By car, yes, via Aqaba, Jordan and the Aqaba bay and we once went, I remember, via Beirut, by ship. Some funny things happened to them, my father and mother aa they went once to Shibeen El Koam, a rural area and their car was a convertible Ford and the spare tire was in the back. People there said to my father and mother, “where are you from?” They said, “we are from Kuwait.” And the people said, “is Kuwait in Upper Egypt or Lower Egypt?” They thought Kuwait was in Egypt, you know. My mother also kept pictures of that period; they had photographs with many actors aa Fareed Shawqi, Sayid Bedair and many others and those even held me. I travelled a lot and to Lebanon too. I'm familiar with Egypt, there, in Egypt, one year, one year I was nine, aa in 1963, I memorized all the songs of Abdul Haleem by heart, when I was young, I mean I was about seven or eight years old, my father loved modern devices and had a huge cassette player, the reel player type. He used to record me, when I sang. Anyway, in 1969, we stayed at the same building where Abdul Haleem lived, in Ajouzah, overlooking the Nile, it was called the Saudis' Building. Aa and by chance my uncle, may God rest his soul, lived in the same building and so did my aunt, so we used to play at the entrance of the building. At a certain hour, at night, Abdul Haleem went out, with two people. So every evening I waited for him, by the stairs, when he came down, I clapped for him. Then I noticed that a certain ironer, who came bringing Abdul Haleem's clothes. That man usually came around noon and one day I said to him, “I want to see Abdul Haleem's flat.” Of course he had that authority but he said, “that's not possible.” Anyway I went and bought him a sha'et fool that's half a loaf of bread stuffed with beans, a beans sandwich, you know, with Egyptian bread, to bribe him [he laughs] and he said, “okay, come along.” I went upstairs and he knocked on the door and the maid opened. He said to her, “he wants to see aa the mister's flat.” He talked and charmed her and stuff. I went in and I remember everything was purple; the curtains were purple, the... some of things, his bed, I saw his bed and I recall there was aa mm what's called... the aa I forgot what they call it, something with drawers and stuff and a table with pictures, pictures of people I didn't recognize, there were and pictures of Abdul Haleem, of course. Then I went into the bedroom and I found purple linens. I walked around touching things and I put my hands on stuff. I didn't have enough; I wanted a picture of Abdul Haleem so I started a friendship with his driver and said to him, “I want a picture of him, please.” But he shunned me till he caved and said, “okay.” I said, “but I want his signature on it too.” And he said, “okay.” Indeed, two or three days later he brought me the picture, it was this big, with the signature and I kept it for so long [he laughs] till one day aa I had a fight with my brother or something and he wanted revenge. He went for the things I cherished and tore all of them into pieces and I lost the picture. Then, in 1968, I travelled with my father, after the 1967 war, the defeat, mmm in 1968 he went to check on his friends, in the Kuwaiti army there, they were high rank officers, that was in 1968. By chance we went to a villa and there were so many people, my uncle was an ambassador in Cairo at the time and a large number of people were there. While sitting Abdul Haleem went in and behind him Baleegh Hamdi and by chance he sat next to me and he touched my hair, that was when I had hair [he laughs].

[Al Ali laughs]

He said to me, “how are you, Pasha?” I was so bashful and composed and said, “good.” My father said to him, “do you know that Waleed memorized all of your songs by heart and he sings them?” He said, “do you really like music?” I said, “yes.” And he said, “alright then, I'll get you an oud.” I said, “I don't want an oud.” He said, “why not?” I said, “I want a fiddle.” And Abdul Haleem, may God rest his soul said, “a what?” I said, “a fiddle, they call it a violin.” And Baleegh Hamdi said, “okay, we'll get you an oud and a violin.” You can't imagine my feelings with Abdul Haleem being there and even sitting next to me and talking to me? Then my uncle, who used to play the Qanun, Hamad Al Rujaib said to me, “what did Abdul Haleem say to you?” I said, “he said he would get me an oud and stuff.” He said, “no, forget about him, come, after two weeks, to our house in Shamiya and I'll give you something.” Two weeks later I actually went to him, in his house, which was in Shamiya, and he gave me an old Qanun, inside of which you could see the inscription Hamad Al Rujaib – 1954, it was, I think, I don't know who told me, a gift from Sheikha Lateefa, because he was a close friend of Sheikh Sa'ad's, at the time. Perhaps it was the first Qanun my uncle had ever had [he coughs]. Unfortunately a a friend of mine, who played music, borrowed it and never returned it [he laughs] so I lost it, it could've been an antique and that was my story with Abdul Haleem.

With Abdul Haleem, mmm you mentioned that you moved from Hawalli to Qadsiya.

Yes.

Will you describe Qadsiya at the time? What was it like and what was your house there like?

Aaa the house… the houses of Qadsiya were built in… in a modern style, I mean with multiple floors…

Which year was that?

Starting from 1965, I mean 1965 or 1967, aa as I told you my father used to build in the aa…

In Rumaithiya.

In Rumaithiya but we always, on Fridays, went to Hawalli and gathered, with my cousins in their house so we gathered again. They stayed there for a while, I think in the 1960s, then moved. So the... the houses were modern but they were not air conditioned but people bought air conditioning units and fitted the houses with them as the electric current grew strong, at the time, you know…

Then we had a telephone, at the time telephones were rare, you know.

Do you remember, when you got the telephone, what…?

Yes, but we... there was a telephone at my uncle's house so we knew it and with our travels, particularly to Cairo, we were familiar with the telephone but of course when they had one in the house it was different; they kept it in a high place so the kids couldn't reach it and play with it, they put it in a basket, and the baskets they brought for aaa special telephone baskets, which they brought from Cairo, made of aa nylon and wrapped in a special decorations. It was the old black telephone, that very heavy one, you know. Moreover my father, for instance, had telephones at work, colored ones; one black, I don't know what for and one red I don't know why [he laughs], what was that for? And so did my uncle, and the telephone bec... gradually became familiar.

How many digits were there? Because they are 8 now.

Four I think.

Just four?

Fo... four or six, I saw them all, I think they were four in the beginning, yes I think four, then they became six, yes, that's how the numbers were and you could memorize them because the digits you dialed were limited.

Then you moved from Qadsiya to Rumaithiya?

To Rumaithiya.

That was about when you were in high school?

No, I was still in middle school.

You were still in middle school?

Yes, I was in aa grade three of middle school, in 1967, and it was a building in modern style too.

That was your house all by yourselves, I mean your family?

Yes, my father, mother and brothers and it was in front... it was on a corner in front of the sea, in front of Salwa, aaa but there were no roads, at the time, because they were trying to build roads but when it rained in aa winter those roads turned muddy and cars got stuck in them and that went on for a long time till they mm organized the area so aa and... but in in Rumaithiya I had my own room and what did my father do? He did something smart, he made cabinets first, built in cabinets in the walls and made me a small book cabinet, in the wall too and the desk opened like this so when I finished writing or studying and so on I closed it, you know so it would occupy a reasonable space and that was my own room. And... while every two of my brothers shared a room they stayed there so it was an advantage.

Then you moved from aa Al Hareeri Middle School to high school, which school?

In the first year of high school I was in Abdullah Al Salem School, the Abdullah Al Salem Cultural Center, that was Abdullah Al Salem High School. I spent the first year there then they built Rumaithiya High School so for second year of high school I moved to aa Rumaithiya and finished high school there of course then went to Cairo to study.

Aaa in high school, do you remember what your interests mostly were? Your high school friends?

Yes, in high school I became more outgoing and aa more neglig... not more negligent... I began to be careless.

With studying?

With studying, yes, mm high school is the teenage period in which someone who studies is considered a geek, you know, so I didn't mmm but I was clever, I wasn't that... and there was also fooling around for I got a car early on.

How old were you?

No, I got a car when I was 16 perhaps, yes.

What kind of car? Do you remember it?

The first car was a red Fiat, I think I named it Wadha.

Why Wadha?

I don't know [he laughs].

[Al Ali laughs]

Because of the red color perhaps or something, I don't know mm the next car was an automatic Dodge and at the time there were no automatic cars in the first place, I mean they were rare and…

Did you give it a name, like the first one?

I named her Ahasees (Feelings), Al Mamloha (The Beautiful) I named it the Beautiful [he laughs]. It seems that I have named all the cars. In high school I made some friendships, some of them I totally remember now and some of them I still keep, I mean a close friendship, for instance, grew between me and Sheikh Muhammed Sabah Al Salem, who became the Minister of Foreign Affairs aa mm and until today if there is an occ occasion or something we see each other, I mean sometimes I go to their diwaniyya, to congratulate them in Ramadan or if there is a funeral we met somewhere, respect is still mutual between us, for instance mm there is a friend for instance who was with me in middle school then in high school and after that in Cairo and even in America, but he was in a state and I was in another. There are also aamm friends like Muhammed Al Ruaishid, the elder brother of Abdullah Al Ruaishid, he was also an excellent music player. There mm was a group of friends.

Do you remember any stories that you experienced together in the high school?

We were somewhat naughty, I mean in high school and many things happened but the most important serious event that took place was aa…

In 1973, when the assault on Al Samta happened. I remember that some schools went on demonstration aa particularly the girls school next to ours perhaps, so we refused to go to the classes. Me, Muhammed Sabah Al Salem, I think and someone was with us, I don't remember. The headmaster came to us, Mr. Abdullah Al Luqman, and said, “why don't you want to go to class?” We said, “we won't learn, the country has been assaulted. The girls go on demonstrations while we sit still to learn?” They killed some border guards and stuff. After that we began to go out on demonstrations and we aa demanded to carry weapons. The National Guard created a quick program which they called The Youth Program mm where they trained high school students in military techniques and aa the use of rifles and machine guns and stuff. They took us to the shooting range to shoot, you know. And that happened, by the way, in 1962, I think, when Abdul Kareem Qasim threatened to occupy Kuwait, the Kuwaitis volunteered in the army, my uncles and my father did, and they carried weapons, they were armed aa…

Those demonstrations, where did it take place?

I remember we went to the city, I mean we all went and after that everyone went with their family not with the…

Not with their colleagues.

Not with their colleagues, I mean some went with their colleagues but that was in the beginning but after that what mattered was the youth.. the Youth Program I mean.

What exactly was the program?

Exercises on discipline and the uniform pace of steps and stuff.

Was it voluntary or…?

No, no, it was…

Compulsory?

It was voluntary, of course, for the interested high school students. Of course many rushed to join, everyone wanted to join, I mean the spirit of patriotism was there, there was a sense of citizenship that had nothing to do with small affiliations, you know, and later on the issue was settled and we began…

The cars were available so we began to go out. For instance, the only place one could frequent was Salmiya, there were no malls, like the ones inside, no, just that small street and those old shops.

Which street?

Mm what do they call it? Salem Al Mubark, I think.

What was there back then?

Shops, but there was a shop called the Juice King which became the gathering point for young people.

In which year was that?

Aaa it was... in the early1970s, the early 1970s. Then cars began to spread, the 442, GTO and others, that was a trend that started where you could hear the loud sound of exhaust pipes, see races and so on. That was a stage too, I mean it was a new st stage for us, you know, the stage where you put the ghetra on the shoulder like this and sometimes it was folded, perfectly ironed and kept like this, that was the elegance and the hair of course [he laughs] with it, that was it…

What else was in Salmiya, other than the juice shop?

In fact what did they do? They just spent the time freely, I mean they walked up and down, or went for rides by cars up and down the streets, that's exactly what they did in Bhamdoun, Bhamdoun El-Muhatta, Lebanon. They went on car rides or walked, girls and boys, and the cars went around [he clears his throat]. That was the youths' fun.

And were there any places other than Salmiya?

There were the aa shopping spots, I mean in the city and the elegant places like Fahed Al Salem street but of course aa because of the cars and because young people, our age had cars and went shopping there were many places, even in Shuwaikh, opposite Al Salam Palace, people sat there, it was the trend, at the time, for people to sit on the streets, under the light posts, to study but I doubt anyone studied in that... They took flasks of Vimto or tea and so on and spread a sheet, to sit on and while they were studying, on the pavement, race cars kept moving up and down the street. Yes, those were the popular places. Then gradually new places emerged aa like Jabri, who sold in Fahed Al Salem, his name was Adnan or Muaffaq Jabri, I don't know, they were two famous ice cream shops. Cinema theaters too, became places one could go to. And after that, in some places, coffee shops started, like in Ras Al Salmiya, which was not well organized. There was also a coffee shop where we went to order tamarind, I mean tamarind juice, it was something exotic.

Do you remember the name of the coffee shop?

No, unfortunately I don't, between the Andalus and Fardoos cinemas, on the roof, there was a cafe where people sat too. The best thing was that cinemas had restaurants, I mean there could be small diners that sold Falafel, mix sandwiches and stuff. Sometimes... the joy of buying a sandwich with a Pepsi or something equaled that of watching a film, I mean it was a complementing part of the film journey, you know, and it was nice that in the Eids cinemas started early in the morning, for many shifts...

All that was during your high school years?

As I told you, before and after.

Mm, okay, let's stop now at the end of the high school years and next time we'll continue with university and after that.

Okay, aa my name is Reem Al Ali and the date is July 19, 2018. It’s 7:11. We are in Kuwait, in Idailiya, at the Writers Association. Today is our second interview with Mr. Waleed Al Rujaib. The interview is a part of the Oral History and Documentation Project at the American University of Kuwait. Mmm, thank you again, Sir, for…

You are welcome.

For agreeing. Mm last time we stopped at the high school years and you mentioned that your personality, in high school, changed from that of elementary and middle schools. Will you explain how it changed and what the elements that influenced you were?

It wasn't throughout the high school years, maybe in the last two years of high school aaa in fact I don't know if I got tired of mm being of using the school and the atmosphere of the school just for learning and excelling or I should be like other people who enjoy, particularly in the age grade which one was in. Mm it's a stage that changes one's character and makes one eager to prove oneself among one's peers and show that he is like them. So aa I began to study less and be feistier but in a funny not an evil way [he laughs].

[Al Ali laughs]

So with that I felt things changed a bit, nevertheless if I remember I think I was still somewhat shy on the inside, although I discovered that I was a clever and solid speaker aa with a lot of information and an encyclopedic culture but I also had to live that stage aa I didn't go astray [he laughs] but I moved from complete shyness to aa exceling in areas other than studying.

You mentioned you were a little bit mischievous, do you remember certain stories or things that took place?

I don't recall any but even the bickering, between me and the teachers, didn't annoy them, they were… on the contrary, it made them laugh; it challenged them but it wasn't... aa mm I didn’t play many pranks and stuff but my relation with the teachers was good but it wasn't that of a geek with [he laughs] a teacher, no, it was the relation I considered healthy, at the time, of a person who is bursting with energy and stuff. I wasn't a sports person to excel in sports and be prominent through sports but from the intermediate stage on there were clubs; the elocution club, the painting clubs, the music club and so on. I always went to the elocution club and aaa that was the direction and to the story club too. So there were… there were enjoyable stages which one can never forget and with each of them you said it was better than the previous one and so on. That is also applicable for the decades; the sixties, the seventies and the eighties. With every decade we advance we say that the previous one was better. Of course from the technological point of view it wasn't; technology is more advanced now but perhaps we mean the simplicity of tolerance, the country was more of a civic state at the time, there was a project to build the modern and civic state, in the 1960s and the 1970s then that project came to a halt, it was deliberately stopped and we began to be more of a tribal society, the society of individualism in everything a mmm the members of the National Assembly, the members of the government and also the choice of ministers became different; they used to select men of state and the men of state at the time were intellectually fit and reliable aaa but now the choice have no criteria; there are the criteria of quotas, for instance and the criteria of loyalty. Those are the… the things that make you recall the sixties were better or finer. It was better considering the cultural and social life of that period, better considering the modern civic state one lived in, the state of the civil society institutions but it's a chaos now, the whole state is in chaos [he coughs].

Mmm you mentioned the elocution club and the story club, will you tell me more about those clubs?

In the elocution club, for instance, they taught us aa how to talk with enthusiasm and our teachers back then were Arab nationalists and stuff because most of them were Palestinians and... So enthusiasm prevailed in speeches so much so that we mixed the meaning of elocution with that of enthusiasm as if every speech must be enthusiastic, you know. And that was a nice thing I learned. What helped me later on, in high school was the change I went through; I began to be rebellious, in the sense that I rejected injustice, rejected exploitation and rejected the... that revolutionary thinking began to take shape in me, defending the students and defending so and so, that made me admire Guevara, that stage, which I called the Guevarian stage, was a stage that many teenagers and young people went through and…

Here in aa Kuwait?

In Kuwait and everywhere all around the world in fact. Particularly that the world, at the time, after World War II, witnessed many national liberation movements, in Arab countries, Asia, Africa and Latin America mm with Guevara and in Cuba there was Castro, Guevara in Bolivia and others. There was also the Vietnam America war and the resistance of the Vietnamese against America and others and others. Here too in the Gulf, in Oman, what was called the Dhofar Rebellion, led by the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Gulf and Oman. All that affected the formation of consciousness so when we went to university there was a revolutionary consciousness developing and that made me read about revolutionary theories.

In high school?

And scientific theories… in high school and what followed it, so I began to get familiar with the scientific way of thinking I mean the scientific approach in thinking and in aaa philosophy, I began to have my own life philosophy represented in tolerance, avoiding austerity, respect for religions, respect for creeds, respect for differences and the respect for all of that. That contributed to shaping my personality, I mean my personality was formed in that direction and was ready to take that direction.

Those readings or those books, were they part of the school curricula or how...?

No, they were not...

Did you come to know them?

They were not on the school curricula. In fact it was the feeling, that feeling of rebellion was what... what made me a hippie for a period of time, the hippie movement, the thought calls for peace and denounces wars and enmity and calls for brotherhood among humans and so on. That also made me look for outside readings, I mean outside the curricula and those were available in the Arab world. I got my bachelor degree from Cairo so [he coughs]. That gave me a huge opportunity, in the time of Jamal Abdul Naser and then Al Sadat, all the the books were available; the books of Marx, Lenin, and even the books and diaries of Guevara, diaries of Ho Chi Minh and many others. Books about Angola, mmm that made reading easy and books were very cheap; one could aa they were affordable for the students and one could buy and read them and begins to discover that the world is not still but it's rather moving, the world… has movement at its core not stagnancy, and of course moving forward towards advancement. That was the base for me, for my beginnings and that also helped me with literature, in aa my social behavior, in raising my children and in everything.

Mm in the elocution club and the story club, do you remember the activities you practiced or your peers who were with you in those clubs?

No, that'd be difficult, I mean that was in middle school and they came during a short period, not all year round. It was like what they call school activities, in certain times of the week or in a meeting of that club or this club so aa it was like that. At first a speech was prepared for us and we delivered it. After that we were charged with writing the theme of a speech and we delivered it among ourselves aa mm and in the story club there were reading sessions, each one read a story, wrote a summary of it or recited that summary to his peers or others.

What were the stories you chose or did they choose for you at school?

Most of the aa the books, most of those who were with us, we took them from the school library, you know, and you could get the books from somewhere else, I remember I got them from from my home library. I took a story by Ihsan Abdul Quddoos, or Yousef Al Siba'i for example and so on. I even took once a novel titled a Whiff of Faith, okay? I didn't know the meaning of whiff so I had to go to the Arabic teacher so he could tell me the meaning of whiff so that when I went to the club [he laughs] I would know the meaning. When he saw the aa the novel he said, “you'll be reading this?” I said, “Yes.” And he said, “God bless.”

How old were you then?

I think eleven or something. So aa that was about all the activities, of course sports activities were the prevailing among students so they joined the football team, the basketball team, the handball team, the swimming team and so on. So were painting and music and music indeed played a vital role in refining the taste, at the time, and now it's a sin, of course, I mean everything is a sin [he laughs] and forbidden; painting and music but back then that wasn't the case and artists… they created artists, I mean the painting lessons and the drawing activities.

And those activities were they during school hours or after?

Yes, during the school hours there was something called the school activities, during that school activities period education stopped and certain hours were dedicated to the… those school activities. Everyone joined the activity in which they were interested; the theater, for example, arts and others. That was during the school day. There were things, of course, that took place after school hours ended, like the matches, that were held sometimes, among schools or teams or something. There were also summer activities, in the summer clubs, where schools held summer activities, which were also mostly related to the sports, artistic or literary and many other activities, or the theatrical activity, some theater actors emerged from that activity.

And those school activities were they taken up by all the students?

They were available for all those interested, they were not compulsory for anyone, I mean they were available for everyone willing to join a certain activity. Of course those who didn't take up an activity... there were some students who liked to attend the matches, for instance, you could find those present in the matches but some didn't feel like being committed; to finish the classes and get committed to those activities and those avoided them so that they could leave school because there were no classes, you know.

You mentioned the school library, will you describe it to me?

The school libraries were simple ones, by the way, I mean they had a good amount of books but they were simple books that started with La Bibliotheque Verte, which published Cinderella, the aa Snow White and others. Gradually you moved to other books till you reached the serious books. All… most of the available books were novels or stories but simple ones, some translated and some in Arabic.

Were they available for any student interested in borrowing?

Of course you could borrow from the library, you wrote your name to register that you took that book which had a number and everything [he coughs] I remember that the books had a stamp that said: the library of so and so school and you read the book, if you wanted and returned it and there was a period called the library period, one of the periods like those of Arabic, math and so on, there was a library period aa in which all the class went to the library, chose books and read them. Sometimes a teacher might be a little bit more active and asked for a summary or asked the students about what they understood from the... and sometimes he just let them read till the bell rang and that was it.

Did the students choose the books to read or the teacher did?

They chose, they chose. Of course some students said to the teacher, “how about choosing for us? We don't know.” Here it became clear who had seen books before, who had a library at home or something, and those who, are seeing books for the first time [he laughs].

Some aa took comics too for sometimes they were available and those were easy.

Comics like what?

Mickey, Sameer, Tintin and Sinbad, there were many magazines tr… translated into Arabic and [he laughs] and not even in Arabic but in the Egyptian dialect and the nam… the names were different from the foreign ones.

Like what?

I mean Donald Duck is Battoot, [he laughs], okay? And that one, what was the rich uncle's name? I forgot what it was.

It was Dahab I think.

Yes, his name was Dahab, Uncle Dahab [he laughs]. It was like that. And there were magazines, but those were few, in the Lebanese dialect mm and those... don't take comics lightly because they were so important for forming consciousness as they had drawings too. They attract the aa... a child may be attracted to the drawings, at first, but later on they want to know what those drawings say, so no one should take those lightly or say, “no, we won't give you that.” And the family would go directly to buy big novels or something. The comics enriched me, personally, a lot and drove me very very much towards looking for more reading. There is something about reading I forgot to tell you about, when I became totally fond of reading... now you remember I told you that my mother pushed me, she was the one who pushed me the most, directly and deliberately towards reading and culture, but later on, when I continued and the matter turned into almost an addiction for me, she got worried about me and said, “don't read too much, you'd lose your eyesight.” She even switched the lights off, while I was reading, so that I would go to sleep because I had school. I used to get a flashlight and go on reading under the covers [he laughs]. I read books and novels, you know. So mmm I felt that reading was my life, at the time but now unfortunately you don't know; is it the time or the pressure of responsibilities or what that makes one hardly finish a book or read that book till one gets bored and goes to look for another as if one is afraid that life would quickly come to an end before knowing a multitude of things, you know. So at the time reading was a deeply rooted habit in the Kuwaiti society but it no longer is, unfortunately.

Aa you mentioned in high school the books, things and the new theory, in which you were interested, aa did you, in high school, know what you wanted to study, when you grow up or what you wanted to be?

In fact I was a victim of my family, I mean I went to the science major although that wasn’t the direction I wanted to go in.

In high school you majored in science?

In high school aa because my family hoped for me to be a doctor aa and that was why I got tired and bored with studying scientific subjects, I was good, you know, but not... I didn't study with the required passion.

Mm and when I applied for the scholarship it was… they gave us seven requests or perhaps more, I mean selections and my first selection was the College of Medicine, then the College of Engineering and so on, many items and my last one was the Institute of Social Service and they accepted me in the social service which was a new science derived from psychology, you know.

Aam will you tell me about the application for for the scholarship, at the time you applied for it?

Yes, usually those who got high grades mm applied for the Ministry of Education and aa they gave them the choice, I mean as I recall, “write down the selection or the college you want to join.” Of course all the scholarships were abroad so one registered their selections and aa after a while they got the approval and were sent to the assigned country and I went to Cairo of course.

You chose Cairo?

No, no, they chose Cairo and the Institute of Social Service was in Cairo, at the time. Even the medical education was there, in Cairo and Alexandria mm for instance. Many of the law school graduates, among my friends, studied in Kuwait, I mean there were many fields of specialty that were available in Kuwait while many other fields, like medicine and physical therapy and others and others were mostly in Cairo.

Aaa…

Very few were in western countries.

How old were you when you applied for the scholarship?

I think 19, maybe.

And you went to Cairo?

Yes, I went to Cairo.

Aa explain to me how you went to Cairo to study?

I took a plane and went [he laughs].

[She laughs] No, I mean when you got there and the beginning of your studies and the different life…

Yes, mm it was easy, I mean when I aa went to Cairo, I wasn't unfamiliar with it, I had seen Cairo before and mm that time I had everything arranged; where to stay, where to live and so on. I had a friend, with whom I was supposed to stay but aa that friend went there about a month before me so he moved to stay with some other people. Back then when the students travelled they gathered in one flat, they rented a flat and lived together, each one took a room and aa lived together. I spent over a month with no place to stay in, I moved from one place to another till I finally found a group to stay with. Of course there was a problem with the routine of the university forms; how to register and how... the majors and how to join them. Those were new things for us and tough too, so our friends who were colleague students helped us with those matters. The transportation was also a problem, the students, a few years older, had brought cars with them and it was difficult to go to college by a taxi, public transportation or on foot or... so in the first year I went a lot on foot, a long distance, or went by a taxi for instance and returned walking or aa... waved down someone to drive me. Mmm that was somewhat difficult till I got used to it. Later on I brought a car there and moving around became easier. In the second year I changed the group I lived with, why do people always change? Mm what happened was that the young people there every one of them came from a different house, everyone came from a different background, everyone came from a different family. Now, I'm not saying that this was right or that was wrong, but we were different so you saw problems among them sometimes; someone's behavior didn't appeal to someone because in his house he wasn't used to that and so on. Just like the difference among neighborhoods; each one came from a different neighborhood so I kept… I moved twice perhaps then, because my uncle's house was there I stayed in my uncle's for a period of time, not a short one and finally I rented a flat all by myself [he laughs] so as not to bother anyone or be bothered by anyone, you know.

How many people usually stayed in a flat?

Four, they were four, I mean mostly around that number, more or less sometimes.

From Kuwait?

Mm Kuwaitis, yes.

Do you recall their names or remember them?

No, I mean not in details because those were not close friendships nor did they last or perhaps lasted through college years, or for a year or two. I remember one from the Al Jarallah family, one from the Al Bader family and one from the Al Faris family aa so those are the ones I remember. There was also a... because I stayed at my uncle's, there were two of my cousins with me, I lived with them but for like a temporary period because it was difficult to stay in their house but I stayed there till I would find a flat mate but I couldn't find one so found out that instead of losing my habits and values or acquire habits [he laughs] or values that I didn't want, it'd be better to live alone to be free to read or study or anything.

Mmm…

I found myself, I found a flat on a rooftop in Almuhandseen and I think I was the first and last Kuwaiti to live on a rooftop [he laughs]. Imagine that, it was like the black and white movies, I mean there were clotheslines and a maid would come, carrying a basket full of clothes and go, “good morning Si (Mr.) Waleed” [he laughs] and she hung the clothes and... so it was a very nice experience, that was, I enjoyed it a lot and learned how to cook well and learned amm I had direct contact with society and at the time Egypt was poor, it wasn’t new... I mean the openness of economy took place in about 1974 and gradually the country opened up and goods began to flood in and so on. So we suffered a lot, in the first year, for instance, my salary was 30 pounds, with which I paid for the rent, food and transportation. When I graduated my salary was 120 pounds but now everything is in thousands, nothing is in hundreds now or... everything was cheap, I mean in the beginning, during the first year, a group of people could have dinner for one pound and there was no variety; there were nothing but beans, falafel, grilled meat and such stuff aaa but the Egypt experience was very nice, very very nice. I mean I learned from and enjoyed it, particularly that I found the books I wanted and discovered a lot of books too. Aaa I also tried to write; while in Egypt I published more than one story, by the way, among my first story collection, aa I think two or three stories you know.

Where did you publish them?

I published them in Kuwait, in the newspapers, mostly in Alwatan, at the time. Mmm I've been a story writer since I... I was a student in Cairo. The way I played the guitar developed too, in... in Egypt because my cousins played too and we gathered to play, yes, I played the guitar at an early age, I mean in 1968, in middle school. Yes, at the time no one knew the guitar and it was a shame [he laughs] to play the guitar, it must be an oud or you'd be considered a foreigner. Aaa many things… there were many relations that I cherished, from which I learned and learned from my mistakes and did foolish things, I mean like all people, there is no human who hasn't done foolish things and aa... it's nice for a person to admit it, yes, I did foolish things [He laughs] that might be unforgivable but the youth period was mm... I mean the mind is not steady or wise and being young makes you stubborn and do things that you might regret when you grow up, you might lose people, lose relations and lose... you are not as cautious as when you are older in age so I can never forget Cairo.

Aaa you mentioned the flat you lived in, will you describe for me the building and the area it was in?

The one on the rooftop? It was in Almuhandseen and Almuhandseen is an upscale area. The building had four floors, on the upper floor lived Najah Sallam, the singer Najah Sallam. I was on the rooftop, a flat consisting of a room and a hall, a small one, you know, like that of the movie Our Sweet Days, you know? The one in Our Sweet Days was more elegant, no, it was simple, it was so simple and and aa the area was good, the Almuhandseen neighborhood is one of the good and clean areas, now one can't know one's way around it or go to; it has restaurants, shops and... it changed and its features changed, you know. It had beautiful trees and was close to the Shooting Club and was so beautiful and by the way in the first flat I lived in my neighbor was Ulaiyya Altunisia, the Tunisian singer Ulaiyya Altunisia mmm With Najah Sallam, sometimes when they had rehearsals, aa her husband was a composer, I couldn't sleep at night [he laughs] in that flat I told you about.

Aaa you mentioned that you mm learned how to cook.

Yes.

What dishes did you make?

I am a master in Machboos, whether with chicken or meat then my dishes varied but that one I could do blindfolded, I cook authentic Machboos, you know that being away helps in that area, imagine, because we took everything from Kuwait. The the other flats with groups, that had the financial ability, had a cook, a cook who cooked everything well but I couldn't. Back then even Nescafe, we took Nescafe with us for it wasn't available there and we took Carnation Milk, because in Kuwait we were used to drinking Nescafe in the morning so those things were difficult, they were a difficulty for us. There were no canned food, the food cans too but at the end, during the last year perhaps, things began to get somewhat better, you know.

You mentioned that in the beginning there were Kuwaiti students who helped you with registration for majors, was there a union for the Kuwaiti students for instance?

Yes, there was aa students union there, and of course the Kuwaiti Union of Students, which was established in Cairo by the way, and most of the state figures here took part in establishing it there.

What year was that?

It was established? It was established in the 1950s, then it became the students’ association in Cairo and Alexandria too. Those branches offered good help to students but all the students were ready to help and the beautiful thing was that when a girl, a female student, went to study there she was treated like a sister, everybody respected women and protected them as if they were their sisters [he coughs]. The female students who went there, it's true that they had their own residence, cars and drivers, assigned for them by the embassy, cooks and everything but they felt so safe and highly respected because the relations were so civilized at the time; there wasn't what you see in Kuwait now, let alone abroad, you know. So aa and they were indeed together, in parties, occasions and seminars for instance [he coughs] the general meetings, discussions and other events, they were present in all the committees.

Do you remember certain names of your male and female colleagues?

I don't like to mention any one but I remember many of them, yes, I can give you the names of those who became public figures, for instance Dr. Muhammed Al Jarallah, who became the Minister of Health, he was one day aaa a member of the administrative board, there is also Dr. Ghanem Al Najjar who was also a member of the administrative board and so many other figures.

Aa you mentioned that aaa after the first year aa you brought a car, your car, wh... do you remember what type of a car it was?

Yes, I do, [he clears his throat] it was a Subaru, in an ugly green color, it had five speed transmission system, it had a manual gearbox and without an air conditioner of course but of course on the first day I took it to the university I went to a lecture and when I came out I found all the students sitting on it [he laughs] for them it was a car at the time, when was that? It was in 1974 perhaps.

And you brought the car from Kuwait?

From Kuwait, yes, I mean I drove it from Kuwait to Jeddah and from Jeddah I loaded it on a ship to Alexandria and from Alexandria I drove it to Cairo.

Have you given that car a name too? Because you gave your other cars names.

I don't remember I gave it a name aa perhaps because I was too happy [he laughs] too happy but it made many things easier for me; transportation was so difficult in Cairo.

How?

I mean taxis were abundant of course, but it was costly to move around in a taxi, you couldn't ride the means of public transportation, like a tram or a bus or others because of they were over crowded so it was tough, you know, you depended your youthfulness to walk for long distances so yes, I remember it, that car and I brought it back to Kuwait, by the way, after I graduated. I used to drive it, in the heat of Kuwait, without an air conditioner but I was a fighter, you know [he laughs] I was aaa I didn't mind suffering, it wasn't a problem and it didn't hurt me. I remember I once put a newspaper, to ease the heat of the cushion, when I arrived the newspaper had been printed all over my back [he laughs] because of the heat, you know, mm…

Aaa let's go back a little…

Yes.

To Cairo, mmm and the aa you studied social service.

Yes.

Wh... what was the nature of the field or the subjects that...?

The the social service of course began as social services provided for the aaa like social care but it developed, later on, to become a part of of psychology, including the sciences concerned with dealing with the individual, the group and the society, I mean there is something called an individual service, a group service and a society service which they call organization of the society so as to work in public institutions [he coughs] There are many supporting subjects, it's a nice field. Mmm we had 3 years of practice; aaa they sent us to institutions, for training, and the best place for training is Egypt; you went to small alleys and very poor areas where you found a small institution, a run down one. You went and tried to work with them, with simple resources and obsolete tools too. I mean you wrote on a paper, with a carbon paper under it, to make copies, one for you, one for the teacher and one for... the work involved a lot of writing and many interviews, explanations and so on. Those things irritated me a lot; I don't like such things and consider them unnecessary so when I graduated and started the clinic I stopped doing all those things and even when I taught at Kuwait University I was aa in the field training for social service aa now the forms, I have in the clinic, are so simple and I write incomprehensible things so that I wouldn't write much explanation; I write things that remind me and no one can understand them, you know. So the... the social service was, in the past, not very respectable, particularly by students.

In what way?

It was like “what kind of a study is that social service?” People looked at the social service provided in Europe in the past, you know, but it developed and even studying it in America or Europe has advanceed, I mean the academics, who graduated from there, are excellent but as I told you, it wasn't the... my choice for the scholarship.

What was your choice?

Medicine was the first choice.

But was that the family's choice?

[Al Rujaib coughs]

Or your personal choice?

Medicine? I had already had imp... the impression that I'd be a doctor so I was upset, at the beginning, for I wasn't... I mean I didn't study medicine but now I say I’m lucky I didn’t become a doctor because my profession, which I took up, and in which I didn't work much; I worked, for instance, at Kuwait University as I was a social worker, first in a school then moved to the field training, training male and female students in institutions as well. Then [he clears his throat], I worked for the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, as a consultant, at first, then as the manager of the culture department. When I retired, I started this clinic and went for higher studies, so as to see how the developments in the world were going, you know, and mmm and now I’m in psychology, in psychology I benefited from art and science of social service too in psychology. There is a difference between a physician and the the psychologist, who deals with the human psychology and that suits me because in literature I also tackle the character and its psychological dimensions, I di... sear...dive and search in the inner depths, as they say. Mmm. had I been a doctor, I would've been stiff, and probably limited, limited in thinking, I mean if someone told me about hypnosis, I'd say, “this is nonsense.” If someone told me about the science of energy or energy therapy, I'd go, “where is that energy? This is nonsense.” So there is no broad thinking, I mean there are developments in the fields of medicine, the discovery of treatment and the discovery of so and so but there's not the same broad thinking in the... the integrated treatment because a human being is holistic, in mind and body so a successful doctor deals with that; the human being as a whole, anyway, life has passed and we are towards the end of life now [he laughs].

May I go back a little…

Please.

To Cairo, how long did you study for? How many years?

Four years.

And you said that three of them had been on the field?

On the field, yes, but of course during these years there were...

Subjects.

The field study was for two days a week and the remaining days were, no, they were theoretical.

Will you tell me about the field study? What was it like?

It was like I told you, we... there were professors, specialized in the aaa field studies and they distributed us, sometimes individually and sometimes in groups, among institutions; schools, hospitals, prisons and social care institutions in general, the institutions are so many and Egypt was full of these institutions. We went to those and the people in charge of them became our supervisors and aaa we worked with them, they trained us and we wrote our reports to the professors. Of course we were committed to certain hours, which had a minimum, so that we succeeded, otherwise we wouldn't pass the subject.

Did you examine certain cases for example or met with...?

Yes, yes, there were individual cases, we met with, aa those had family problems, if we were in a family facility or health problems. Sometimes the problems were multiple mm somewhat complicated and so on. We interviewed those people and made plans and solutions for aaa the problems.

How was that experience for you? How did you feel about it?

It was troublesome mmm I didn't like it because first aa I prefer to be left free; to discover that human being to discover their problem or something, I don't like to commit to parameters imposed on me for those make me feel stupid, I mean I just follow this item and that item and follow that... consequently in the eyes of that case, I'd look like someone with shortcomings and someone who lacks culture and consciousness enough to communicate with them and unable to... in the human communication when I change my tone or something. I'd also look like a liar because I'm committed to certain templates but no, I mean that's a field that calls for an individual effort and based on my own skills I can do more. So I didn't like that, perhaps because of its restrictions, that's one of the reasons, I mean aa I'd rather be in a lecture, to learn things and techniques and so on... and not to go somewhere to do so and so, within certain parameters, you know. Nevertheless I think training is important for a person and for their skills because I am a person... personally was a trainer; I worked as a trainer at the university mm but I tried to be rather interesting, I mean I wasn't restricted to education and stiff tr... training. I used to invite people from other institutions, an officer from a correction facility to talk about his experience and stuff; they must relate to society not only to ideal words. I also used stories a lot too, to make things more interesting, moreover I learned hypnosis early so I used to say to them, “try…”

At the university?

At the university I learned hypnosis early on aa, all by myself, I mean not in college. I used to hypnotize the students and say, “we can use this technique to aa help the person we deal with.” Things are different today, I mean in the past my colleagues in the department used to say, “you are introducing hocus pocus into the curriculum.” Currently I represent the American and British societies in the Middle East, the societies of hypnosis and treatment through hypnosis.

Aaa what attracted you to aa to hypnosis?

I don't know, since I was a kid I wished to have super powers, you know, sometimes I wished to be Superman, sometimes I wished to be a wizard and sometimes I wished to be aaa to have special powers, you know the Marvel characters, those who are different from one another, the Rubber Man, the so and so man, the Flash, the fast one. I wished to be like those, I mean to be able to do something aaa particularly that once, when I was a child, we had [he clears his throat] a worker who was bitten by a snake in the desert, [he coughs]. He came to my grandfather, I wrote about that in the introduction of my book, The Science and Art of Hypnosis, he came to my grandfather and said, “a scorpion stung me.” My grandfather recited over it and said, “it's okay now, it's gone.” And it was really gone, how? I know that my grandfather had charisma and that his influence was great in talking, narrating and in so many other things but was it to the degree that poison would disappear by just a recitation? That puzzled me for a long time until I discovered that man has an enormous power called the subconscious mind, that no, the subconscious mind is what leads us, not the conscious mind and that one can overcome the poison and stuff, particularly that when I was young I read the story of Rasputin. When they wanted to get rid of Rasputin they fed him poison that could kill a horse. He drank it but he didn't die. They first made him drink a lot of wine then gave him the poison and he didn't die. They shot him but he didn't die. They tied him in chains and threw him into the Volga river and when they got him out they found he was not dead so they threw him into the river once again and left him for a long time and when they brought him out he was dead, how could that happen? Later on, I found out through reading, that Rasputin had the ability of hypnosis and to regulate his heart beat so as not to use much oxygen. Furthermore, man has an immense power enough to make him die from the smallest of things and not to die even if shot or to resist poison. Man's mind is stronger than chemistry, what prove that are the many cases, I witnessed, of people who have a phobia of flying. In well-known cases, of people who have a phobia of flying, a doctor prescribes for them sleeping bills, to sleep on the plane. In that case a woman takes a bill but she is still afraid and refuses to board the plane. She takes another bill and still refuses to board the plane. They brought her aboard and gave her a third bill but she still refuses and says, “I want to get out.” She leaves the plane and takes a taxi, as soon as she got into the taxi she fell asleep. Her mind was so strong that it prevented her from going to sleep, the chemistry didn't affect her but when her mind relaxed she fell asleep, she slept for two days perhaps because [he laughs] she had taken three bills or something [he coughs]. That was what led me to hypnosis. Of course when I was so young I thought that hypnosis was one of the super things a hypnotist could do but later on I discovered that it was the opposite, every hypnosis in the world is self-hypnosis, whether... every hypnosis is self-hypnosis, whether a person hypnotized themselves or a specialist helped hypnotize them, if they didn't want to sleep they wouldn't. A specialized hypnotist just shows you the way and of course the more intelligent a person is, the wider concentration and imagination are, the deeper they would sleep. People used to think the opposite; they thought those with weak minds and weak personality were the ones who slept deeper, faster and so on. Of course if the person resists, no one can force them to sleep.

You mentioned aa cases that you witnessed, were there cases that affected you, while you were training in Egypt? Tough cases or cases that affected you in general?

Yes, I didn't like to see many miserable cases, mm mmm I tried to avoid them and tried not to ask for those. When I interviewed such people I lost my ability to communicate. Mm la... later on I trained myself, of course, not to get too involved with the problems otherwise... People always say to me, at the clinic, “aren't you affected by the many problems you hear about?” Of course I am not affected now, those who get too involved with the situation are affected. Aaa I must sympathize but no, you must not live the problem itself, you know. So in the beginning I tried to avoid those people because I felt I lost my confidence with them. Yes, of course there were many touching cases, particularly those with real miseries, you know. There are frauds, of course, and some were... Cairo has so many things of course.

What was the most common problem you’ve seen aa, cases with a certain problem, what was the most prevalent one?

No, of course every institution had its own problems. Take for instance dysfunctional families, this is very common, children become homeless or... turn into beggars or something and girls could resort to prostitution, and selling their bodies and stuff. The... the painful thing is that a woman is obliged to sell her body to feed her children. Look at unethical capitalism, and those who employ children, those who employ children and women, those are really savages, those made me angry; it makes me very angry and upset to see a child abused and what for? So that he'd eat or so that his mother could get him a bite or something. I mean that was awful and that, by the way, made me adhere to my revolutionary spirit and the rejection of exploitation. When you read the... my novels, pa... particularly my earlier books, you find the dimension of the class conflict prevailing and until this moment, my main subject; remains the human being, I'm biased towards the exploited human being.

Considering those, I mean those difficulties and those tough cases you encountered, you mentioned that some mmm some students saw that field as useless or unimportant, how did you deal with those...?

That is culture, a culture that looks at prestige; that's a doctor, he is completely different mmm although I've just said that a doctor could be very backward, you know, or that's an engineer... those measures and that culture were what made my family wish and prompt me to become a doctor, although I didn't want that, I mean I wanted to be a philosopher or an author or something else, you know. By the way that was one of the things which made me not excel in that stage being in the scientific section. So from here that culture is reflected on many of those people. I think until now if you are a lawyer that is really good, if you are a doctor, you are respectable and what's even worse is that when there is a Dr. before your name you'd be the greatest person in the world although we see the aaa the examples. Aaa and that still persists, until this moment, that culture. In the past, so long ago, in the fifties or perhaps in the sixties, one proposed to a girl, declaring proudly that he was a graduate and they accepted him saying, “that's a graduate.” And they accepted his proposal, that's why we have a college graduates society, it's not a professional one [he laughs] it's a society that gathers all the graduates and everyone who graduates joins it, you know.

Were there Kuwaiti students with you in the same field of study?

Yes, there were students from Kuwait, there were females, male and female students.

In the same field?

Yes, and male and female students from Ba… Bahrain, yes, Saudis... I don't recall there were any Saudis at the time, perhaps there were but I don't remember. Of course Ghanem Al Najjar was with me, in the same college, aa so was Ahmed Al Kulaib, who became a minister later on, he was at the same college too and I had some female colleagues, who worked with me at the university too, those colleagues so yes, there were many and a Bahraini female colleague, who I get in touch with whenever I get the chance.

Was that field, in particular, aa I mean new and desirable... in Kuwait?

No, it wasn't known, it wasn't known. The generation that graduated before us studied social service in an institute for only two years, so those who came back worked for the social affairs, the Ministry of Social Affairs, anywhere in the Social Affairs, what mattered was for them to be in the Ministry of Social Affairs, mmm our generation perhaps since Muh... Dr. Muhammed Al Rumaihi studied the... in the same college, that field, the social service has started to take effect. By the way, until now many people say that they are social service graduates and they are mostly social workers and what's even worse is that they are considered lower than teachers, which is not right, that situation of course. So there was... the Bahraini community, the male and female students were so many and their union is one of the strongest student unions and all of them were revolutionaries.

Aaa you mentioned that you used to attend seminars and celebrations, what topics attracted you at the time?

In... in the association?

In Cairo.

Yes, I mean first, I don't want to forget, mm I attended a concert for Sheikh Imam, in the flat of one of the Bahraini young men and there was something strange while I was going to the flat. Of course a Bahraini friend invited me, we all wanted to go because we heard the tapes, which were not so clear at the time you know. All along the street police detectives were standing, all of them in white clothes and all of them holding newspapers at night [he laughs] okay? I don't know, as if they wanted to say, “we are detectives.” When I entered the flat there were no available spots, people were sitting on the floor, and so were male and female students. At the time the revolutionary atmosphere, which I told you about, was dominant; everyone was a fighter or militant, everyone was a Marxist and so on. And aa Sheikh Imam was of course influenced by the the Egyptian left wing too when he was in prison and met imprisoned fighters. He was there with Ahmed Fu'ad Nejm and someone who beat the drum, called Muhammed Ali. He sang Guevara is Dead, he sang What an Honor Nixon of Watergate and sang many songs, I mean like The Students are Back and many other songs. That was a very important event... there were many seminars held by the students, whether Bahrainis or Kuwaitis, which we attended. Many of the lectures and events were daring; with criticism of the government and administration and the governmental failures. There were two groups, not like now, there were two rival groups; one called the patriots and the other was called the government supporters, the governmentalists. The Muslim Brotherhood wasn't there... I mean not yet [he cough] the Muslim Brotherhood hasn’t yet joined the union and taken control of it just yet; the left was prevailing at the time [he clears his throat].

Who lectured in those seminars?

I can't remember now, Reem, I might remember some of the parties more than the seminars.

What parties, other than the one you mentioned?

No, no, for example the union of Kuwait students invited singers, aa Abdul Kareem Abdul Qader for instance, or Al Jumairi... Ahmed Al Jumairi, amm singers used to come back then.

Parties organized by the... union of the...?

The union, yes, or the... they had an annual party, those of the Alexandria branch and we paid the fees and buses took us from Cairo to Alexandria, where they booked hotel rooms for us and we attended the party, the samra, girls and boys, yes, dancing, singing and clapping. It was amazing and life was beautiful. Late at night the young men went with the girl to get her safely to her room or something so aaa those were wonderful parties indeed, bands came from Kuwait and if nothing the students themselves, all alone, could carry on parties all... all night long and those ended at dawn.

You mentioned the left and Marxism at that period, were you inclined to that thought?

Yes, I am a leftist from early on, even before that period. I told you, I began to explore that thought early, yes, I was a leftist and a Marxist, and still am until now. I am more mature now too, I mean I'm proud that this philosophy organized my life and made me closely adhere to morals. It is an ethical philosophy, with a lot of respect for the other, aamm respect for differences in religions or whatever. Aaa it rejects aa injustice and exploitation [he clears his throat] with huge respect for a human being as a human being and aa my children grew up with that, without dictation, they grew up that way because they witnessed the environment like that, the home I mean. I am still like that and even my writings are in the same direction; the left direction and the Marxist direction you know.

Did being in Cairo affect the development or growth of this thought?

The the…

For you?

All that period was like that, in Kuwait and in Cairo. In Cairo that thought was widely spread so Cairo helped me with interactions and books; there were so many books, available and cheap aamm so for sure my thoughts were gradually maturing, perhaps Cairo accelerated that, that's possible you know.

And after you finished your education in Cairo, in what year?

I finished aa when aa in 1978, 1979...78…

And you came back to Kuwait?

I came back to Kuwait, yes.

What was it like, I mean after living in Cairo for a while by yourself? When you came back to Kuwait, what... how was it?

No, of course I went there and came back for holidays and so on aa but when I returned, for good, I was shocked because I tried to look for a job and spent six months not being able to find any, that was in the seventies. I applied for a job at the aa Oil Company, they had something called the industrial relations, the industrial relations [he clears his throat], is a specialty in social services, I mean I studied it. When I went to work, the man in charge said, and I quote, “favoritism is highly considered by us.” I said to him, “I thought Kuwait would be opening its arms for me to hold me. This is my field and you've just established a department called industrial relations.” Because we have something called labor service too, in addition to the other things; it deals with the workers, I mean their problems, so it was a shock for me, aa that was in the seventies, note that, in the late seventies, so I had to work as a social worker for a short period then went to the United States of course.

Where did you work as a social worker?

In fact in a number of schools, I worked aaa I worked in a school in Ahmadi called, Ibn Majid, Ahmed Ibn Majid I think or Ibn Majid I think its name was. I worked in Abdullah Al Salem High School, which is now Abdullah Al Salem Cultural Center, but in the afternoons, why the afternoons? Because I wanted to work with the Palestinians, Kuwait dedicated the afternoons for the children of the organization; the Palestine Liberation Organization, they taught them after the end of the school day there were afternoon classes for the Palestinian students. Of course what led me to that was my revolutionary thinking and aa the feeling that it was necessary to deal with the problems. And indeed, when I got exposed to that society, I found many problems regarding their situation as aa refugees, I mean economic situations, social and political situations and many others. The problem was that when I asked to be transferred to that school in the afternoons, some officials said to me, “if you insist on going there, your file will be kept on the shelf.” I said, “no problem, let it be kept on the shelf but this is my duty and I feel I must do it.” And indeed I worked there for about a year then yes, I went to the United States.

What was the situation of the Palestinians like during that period?

They were miserable, and had deep anger issues. Some of them broke things; they unleashed their anger by breaking chairs and glass and [he coughs] they were not serious, the teachers whom I dealt with, were not so serious in teaching them, you know. Of course they got rewards, for teaching I mean, but I managed to make friendships with them, with the students for I treated them in a humane manner. At first they avoided me, because I wore a ghetra and an iqal, and aa ultimately I managed to establish relationships with them, I made the obnoxious ones leaders, at school, they led groups and we started our projects, like painting the whole school, at their expense and they brought the tools too. I worked with them and we painted the school then [he laughs] the headmaster sent for me, after we finished painting, and said to me, “why did you paint the school?” I said, “it's better now, instead of the writings, dirt and stuff, we cleaned all of that.” He said, “yes, but there's an amount of money dedicated for painting the school.” It turned out that he took that money. He got upset and said, “the so and so amount will be deducted from your salary.” I got upset because the salary was small, at the time. Anyway, the bell rang announcing the break and the... those Palestinian students went out and saw me sitting on the pavement with my hand on my cheek and went, “what's going on?” I said, “that fool deducted I don't know how many days worth of salary.” Here I heard the words “strike guys!” Out of the blue I found someone, this tall man, who was holding a machine gun, in a battle which I don't know, another was a leader of I don't know what and another who was a guerrilla fighter in so and so, all of them had held guns and knew how to handle them. I said to them, “hey, hey, take it easy [he laughs] take it easy, we don't have to… there's no need.” That proved that that society was so violent, full of frustrations and had many problems, and when you dealt with them in a humane manner they turned into friends, they welcomed me when I came to school and said goodbye to me when I left. They stayed... some... some of them stayed as friends of mine till this moment, they live in America now, they have their jobs and they are married and everything but they still remember me and still call me from time to time.

Aaa how old were they?

They were in high school so they were, I mean, 16, 17, 18, some younger and some older, it depends.

And they didn't study, I mean in the morning period, with the other students? Why were they in...?

Back then, according to my knowledge of course, all the students went to school in the morning, they could be expats or something aaa but obviously the numbers grew huge after the 1967 defeat and you know the Black September events in Jordan; many became migrants I mean that caused a pressure on the Central Bank of Kuwait, because their number became about 400 thousands in Kuwait and they were a huge consumer power by the way. It seems to me that an agreement was made, with the Liberation Organization, of course you know that all the groups were formed in Kuwait, from Fatah, the Popular Front and the Democratic Front, all of them were established here in Kuwait and Kuwait nurtured them, gave them headquarters and everything and the education of the... the Palestinian children was in the afternoons. I currently see a school in Nuqra, while I'm coming back from the clinic I hear their voices in the court so it's possible that that system still exists, you know.

But not all the Palestinian students were in the... in the afternoon period, I mean some of them were in the...?

I think there were, I mean there were people who continued their education in the morning period but aaa there were some of course who didn't I mean they continued in the afternoon period, in agreement I mean like a form of organizational process.

Aaa will you tell me about the Kuwaiti society, at the time, with the presence of Palestinians in the numbers you mentioned?

It was as I told you, the Palestinians were about 400 thousands, which wasn't a small number and they coexisted, you know, the Kuwaitis coexisted with other people; I mean when we were in middle and in elementary school too, there were Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese with me. They were a part of the Kuwaiti society, you know. So was the situation in high school and education in general so there wasn't a big difference. We used to go to their houses and they came to ours, I mean we didn't have a problem with that. Of course there are some people who impose that isolation and not just that type of isolation; they impose a sectarian isolation or a tribal isolation. But for me, personally, and for so many others, we have friendships with the Palestinian and other communities. And as I told you they were people who bought a lot so they differed from the Egyptians and other expats, with due respect for all of them, those worked and saved to go back home while a Palestinian lived here and had no other country but here so they spent their money here, inside the country. There weren't too many social problems caused by the expats, like those of today, I mean the crimes whether moral, penal or other types of crimes which are too many now, particularly in the... Jleeb Al Shuyoukh and other areas, where they gathered, you know. In the past, that wasn't the case and the bachelors were mmm not the majority, there were mostly families and real estate people were pleased because all the flats were rented and everything was available, you know.

So yy you mean that the Kuwaiti society was in general tolerant?

Yes, of course, of course, and they've been here not since that period but long before that but not in those numbers, they were not in those numbers.

Those numbers were in the seventies you said?

Yes, in the seventies for sure, I mean in the seventies and eighties, yes, they grew in number.

And you taught at th… that high school? For how long, how many years did you teach in the high school?

The... I worked.

I mean as a social worker.

One year.

One year?

One year, yes.

Then you went on a scholarship to the United States?

Yes, yes.

Will you tell me how, I mean how did you think about going for higher studies in the... America?

In fact…

In fact that project was on my mind but what happened was that I got married in that period, in...

While you were a social worker in Kuwait?

In 1980. My wife was studying medicine in Cairo, the aaa when we married it became difficult for her to go back to finish her education there and stuff so what I decided was the following; to be together I couldn't go to Cairo so let me ask for my scholarship to be in the United States where she'd finish her education and get her bachelor’s degree and I'd finish my post-graduation studies.

She’d complete her education with you in America?

Yes, yes, and there, as soon as we arrived we discovered that she was pregnant [he laughs] and so my first son was born there.

What major did you continue with there?

The the major which... which I found was Education Leadership and teaching… teaching any major you wanted was in the community college so it became like teach… specialized in teaching social service in universities, something like that.

And you were on a scholarship at the expense of the state?

Yes, at the expense of the Ministry of Education.

Which state did you go to in America?

When I first got there I went to Washington, Virginia then I moved to Madison... Milwaukee I think, for a month after that I went to Michigan, and graduated from Michigan.

Which university? Michigan University?

In Michigan? From Western Michigan University.

That was in the early 1980s?

Yes.

How was life there different from...?

In fact I had a stand against America, which I now regret, because it didn't allow me to blend in and learn aa the many cultural aspects of America. My intellectual and political stand made me aa concentrate on things in Arabic, so I took with me tens of books in Arabic and in each time I went on vacation I took more [he laughs]. And I had subscriptions with Arabic magazines and newspapers aaa that didn't make me embrace the society there with love. I had a stand against America, the policies of America and stuff and so… what made things easier for me was having a partner with me. Then I got pretty preoccupied because my wife was pregnant and that was a new experience for us you know. Then, when she gave birth, it was a joint care aa I went out in the mornings and came back to care for the baby and she aa no, no I cared for the baby in the mornings while she went to college and when she came back she cared for him and I went to my classes, in the afternoon. We learned a lot; how to nurse and feed him, and how to... Such things kept us busy, you know, but I'm really sorry that there was a chance for me to get to know the cultural aspects of the country, instead of what one only saw in the media or through limited direct contact. So that was the situation, then we gradually began… when did we begin to enjoy things? Perhaps towards the end; we began to travel and see different states, we went to places and after my son grew up a little bit that was possible, you know and it became more fun because there were friendships and there were… there were things that one began to get used to, you know, so aa that was Cai.... America.

Were there any Arab or Kuwaiti students with you?

There were many.

Were you closer to them?

There were so many Kuwaiti and Arab students; Iraqis, Palestinians and Leba... they were so many, America is full of them so I established friendships with them and I still maintain these friendships with Iraqis, who originally escaped from Iraq, and went to live there and aa with Iranians too and we are still in touch. It's a society with a huge mixture of the... ethnicities [he coughs]. There were also Saudis and there were Emiratis, I remember the Emiratis, whether when I was studying in Cairo or even in America, were still a few; the Emirates didn't send large numbers of the… may I drink this?

Yes, yes, please. What was it like to study in America? Compared to... let's say Cairo?

It was different, I mean in America the process was smooth and very advanced, you know, aaa the complications were in the beginning regarding the registration and how to do so and so. Thank God I didn't have a language issue; I went there with a good command of language aa back then, as I told you, at school they taught us well, in aa everything including language. That’s what happened so studying there was nice. The... in the beginning, like during the first year, one was apprehensive... about the situation and this and that aaa and it turned out that that apprehension was ju... justified [he laughs] because I once... I don't know, one of the professors asked me about the... my opinion about the aaa attack that took place in the... on the Marees... the Marines in Beirut, I think. Of course I just snapped; I kept talking and said, “the government of the United States is lying to you, you know, and with the tax money, which is taken from you, it aa sends you to die and so on” and the people and I went through the whole story of imperial and colonial America and I don't know what and consequently he took it out on the [he laughs] my grade, and failed me. Then I went and filed a complaint. Of course I was wrong; it is supposed to be, as they say, that America is the land of freedom where you can say whatever you want [he laughs] and that turned out not to be true. The head of the department wrote “Incomplete” and said, “this way you can retest” and that was it; I stopped getting in contact with them, you know, you could say something and you don’t know if that person was with the intelligence or a CIA agent or something, you know. I followed the news of the left there, by the way, the Communist Party USA, at the time the president of the party was the fighter Gus Hall and with him was Angela Davis, she is still alive of course. I used to follow their news and see how the media did them injustice indeed. I also had a subscription to their magazine, I forgot its name, the Morning Star was the magazine of the English... the British but I forgot this.

Do you remember any other experiences you went through in America?

Many experiences but in which direction is what matters, I mean in one of the things I remember a vendor in aa Seven Eleven, it was a small shop and I don't know what I aa said to him about the... about literature, about Tolstoy or Dostoevsky or something and he answered that perhaps he was familiar with them, which was something I missed; I spent a while unable to find anyone with such culture so I invited him to my house and we kept talking about literature and stuff. It turned out that he was a good reader but he was an antagonist to the Soviet Union, at the time, racism is deeply rooted in them, in an unbelievable way so I hated having discussions with him [he laughs] after that and and... but it was difficult indeed to find someone there to talk to about world literature or something, or even about American writers; for instance about John Steinbeck, the author of The Grapes of Wrath, the most important novel, despite being an adversary, by the way, of the left and Marxism but the novel was written in si... sincerity and he wrote it with a leftist and a Marxist touch [he coughs] criticizing the situation during the Great Depression of 1929 in America, showing how deeply it affected people, the farmers and so on. It's a wonderful novel, a dazzling one. They don’t know much about it, the Americans themselves. William Faulkner for example, no one knows him and those are university students let alone regular people. You say to someone, “I'm from Kuwait” and he goes, “yes, it's in Latin America.” You must tell him that it's neighboring Saudi Arabia or Iran... it's too late it seems?

Ok, we can aa stop here and continue next time, God willing.

God willing.

Okay, aa... the date is July 11, 2019. We are in Idailiya at the Writers Association. Aaa... my name is Reem Al Ali and today is the third interview with Mr. Waleed Al Rujaib and it’s 7:00 o’clock now. Thank you, Sir, for agreeing to do…

You are welcome, not at all.

The interview, the... the… in the previous interview we stopped at studying in America and you talked about having your first child in America, aa tell me about that period…

Of course we [he clears his throat] went to America around 2001.

2001?

2000 mmm in 1981 [he laughs] 81 aa I had been married for about a year and a half so when we went to America aa my wife got sick, on the plane, and suffered from a slight bleeding and we took her to a gynecologist. That was mmm after a month or a little bit less than a month. He called me to assure me and said, “your wife is pregnant, you know.” We hadn't planned for that because we had planned to study and we'd been married for about a year and a half.

And your wife was studying too?

Aaa she was with me in Cairo, she was in her final year, I mean in... sorry, in my final year while she was in her first year at the college of medicine but when we married she dropped out for some time and so on. I had plans to go to finish my higher studies so I said to her, “what do you think? I'll finish my higher education and you'll continue your medical education.” We thought studying medicine was available there, in America, for the students, particularly the foreigners, and that is the story of aaa America and having a child. In fact we moved to another state where we settled. Pregnancy began to show on my wife and we were all by ourselves, arranging our life and we had a feeling that we couldn’t accept that society; the American society, so we got more attached to one another, we had so many problems and worries mmm, we could communicate between ourselves while perhaps we couldn't communicate with others, particularly considering the little amount of the... general culture among the Americans, it's not significant, I mean, you might talk about literature, a novelist or something, even the classics or even an American and sometimes they didn't know, while the British are a little bit better at… so we kept [he clears his throat] studying [he clears his throat] till [he clears his throat] we had our first child, in 1982, in May 1982. That, first of all, was a new experience for her and for me, you know, nobody was with you; no family, no mothers, no one, to guide or care or anything so we made up our minds that we didn't want the classical and traditional way, to crave something before birth and after you delivered you became like a paralyzed woman for a month and a half or two, you know, I've read a novel titled The Good Earth by Pearl Buck, about China, about the villagers of China, a female villager there gives birth while working in the fields and she picks up her baby and puts it in a basket and goes on working. So throughout history humans, men and women, were able to do that, not sticking to traditions that say a woman after giving birth should stay put for forty five days or I don't know for how long, or sometimes for seven days and so on, there's nothing like that, you know. Of course bodies differ; sometimes a woman can tolerate and sometimes not. When we had aa our first child she was very well, I mean she didn't stay in bed for too long. Of course I was keen on giving her the chance to restore her strength and rest and so on but no, she got up and worked, it wasn't that exhausting type of work but it was movement after all. Now we had to study, so how could we look after the boy? He was a baby, just an infant so we made the following agreement; I took my classes in the afternoons and she took hers in the mornings to cooperate in looking after him. And actually that was what happened; she registered in the morning classes and I registered in the afternoon ones so in the morning she went to college and I stayed with the baby, that little infant, washed him, fed him, changed the diapers and all such things and I gained experience [he laughs] I mean a considerable amount of it. She came back in the afternoon and I went out, in the afternoon, and came back at night while she looked after the baby. And days passed that way and the baby grew up while we were there, you know, so mmm that also, you can say, was a first-hand experience in dealing with a child, dealing with even an infant or a child older than an infant so it was a life different from that of being free, he and his wife; moving easily and stuff. But nevertheless it wasn't an obstacle, for my wife for instance, giving birth didn't hinder her and having a baby didn't hinder us either, our movement was easier than that of other families.

How many years did you spend in America?

Four years perhaps, between four and five years till we aa finished, I finished a year before my wife and aa came back, I had to go back aa despite I had, through the embassy, an admission for another university to go further.

For the Master's degree and the…?

The PhD, I had already got the Master's degree so… then a decision was made here, by the Ministry of Education, dictating that those who finished their Master's degrees must come back or they'd get fired so there was no chance for me to continue and ignore that, I mean because I was on a scholarship after all, so I came back and mmm here a small problem emerged because our son sometimes stayed with me, in Kuwait, and all of a sudden she took him, mm it was tough for her, considering that she was studying and stuff, so she sent him back again and he stayed with me till she finished. That was a little bit tough as a first experience; just like building a new thing you know but it went well.

And when you came back to Kuwait, where did you work?

After I graduated, from Cairo, I was appointed as a social worker in a school…

And aa the... when I came back from aa America I worked for Kuwait University aa as a field training supervisor for the social service students because they went for training in institutions, whether schools, hospitals, prisons or aa nursing homes, I supervised their training, I mean it’s like teaching but in addition providing them with the experience so it wasn't only theoretical.

That was let's say in the mid-1980s?

The mid-eighties.

What was Kuwait University like at the time?

As I saw it, it was a very simple university, by simple I mean it didn’t have good standards and the other thing was that many of the professors, the academics there, were not that great and those who were academically acceptable were not cultured, I mean their cultural awareness. And that was somewhat, I don't know, it was shocking in fact. I remember the head of the department, in a meeting with us and with the professors and so on, said, “for me this one, with only a Master's degree, is better than all of you; he has more awareness and more knowledge and aa he's more aware of the...” So the level was not so good; I mean they went to get a degree and came back but they didn't improve themselves in the general culture or even on the academic level sometimes aa they didn't do any research or anything at all. Of course some did, there are renowned competent people, at Kuwait University, I remember once Khaldoon Al Naqeeb, may God rest his soul, Dr. Khaldoon Al Naqeeb, became the dean of the Faculty of Arts, because we were annexed to the Faculty of Arts, yes it included sociology, social service and the…

Where was it at the time?

It was in Shuwaikh.

Shuwaikh.

Yes, it was in Shuwaikh then they moved to Kaifan and came back later, you know, aaa such stuff.

What was the university building like at the time, if you remember?

To tell you the truth I think aa it was, I consider the university building a heritage site, something well established, mm I don't know, I didn't go to Shuwaikh High School or even visit it, while it was still a high school but I don't know, I felt nostalgic when I looked at the... so with any offense, on campus or something or in the colleges or… I get so upset. Even the abusive division of the off... for instance the offices or this or that no, I feel this is not it, it is different and was supposed to be preserved just as it is. So the buildings were like that, of course they became old and you know that there were no restoration or renovations or anything else so they stayed the same, since when? 1957 or 1958, you know.

Can you describe to me the... buildings at the time? Or the building where you worked for instance?

The college for instance was beautiful, at the entrance there was an arch, a high one, and by the... in the garden, by the the main gate, near the wall, there was a huge globe with an arrow aaa in the center and that pic… that globe always appears on post cards, which we sent abroad or for the tourists, when they came to Kuwait, they always took that picture, I mean it was a landmark of pride; not only a constructional landmark but an academic landmark, I mean it was an academic symbol, when you saw it you said, “this is the Shuwaikh High School,” it was like that and the... the buildings, the buildings where the classrooms were or the... the offices or something, were classic and nice, I mean they had a classical distribution, compared to the buildings built later on which they made with no regards to aesthetics but not those, they had so many beautiful aspects so much so that I sometimes deliberately drive towards the sea and pass by the students' residence, which was on campus; whether for foreign students, from the Gulf, or the Kuwaitis. My uncle, for instance, was in the dormitories, it was far from Hawalli, at the time, let alone those coming from Funtas for instance, which was so far, or from the Gulf, the Gulf countries; Sharjah and others, the... Bahrain, so I loved to look at the old classic buildings. Of course they added buildings, those concrete ones which have no beauty at all, as residence for the professors mmm I mean there was no place for those, in the first place, because they recruited many teachers from outside Kuwait, non-Kuwaitis, and they built a huge building in the middle of the... it has an enormous court, luxurious and huge enough to fit another university so they began to add buildings of that kind consequently wasting its beauty. In my opinion, it was okay, even if they had wanted to make it an academic establishment, they should've tried to preserve its old style and from time to time they could've restored and decorated it, you know. Mm and we see that, in Britain for example, look at the well-established universities, hundreds of years old and they still study in them, the same old heritage building, they didn't change it, while here the mentality doesn't know the meaning of heritage; neither the materialistic nor the moral, the same happened to the old houses, by the sea, instead of restoring them, like they did in Sharjah or Bahrain where they did that in the Muharraq area, they knocked them down and built a shopping mall in their place. What matters is the profit, I mean even the commercial mind is simple, just like that of a shopkeeper, who sells and takes the money, there is no place for development. In Europe, in Britain for instance, the huge companies, the gigantic capitalist companies, dedicate a part of their revenues for the culture and its manifestations, for example a huge company endorses the Shakespearean theater and others endorse ballet companies; including the training, the salaries and everything. They also have groups of companies that establish funds to support culture, to spend on the culture, not because such companies love culture but because they know that supporting something like that is a part of the social responsibility and consequently people will like them, you are interested in Shakespeare, or songs and music or an orchestral band. That kind of brilliance makes them benefit more while here, in Kuwait, no, they build a mall and take the revenues of the shops or build a block of flats and collect the rent aa even the commercial thinking is superficial in that sense and that basically was what happened with Kuwait University or Shuwaikh High School, you know.

You mentioned the mmm the classes, mm how were they? How were the students; was there a mixing of the genders, at the time, in classes?

Yes, there was, [he clears his throat] at least from what I recall, around 1986, it was mixed, mm with me in any given group there were boys and girls, mm I didn't feel that segregation was there... there wasn't, for instance that… that cover or that aa veil or the all black outfits and stuff, no, the girls were in regular hijab and all but it was regular. Of course when you look at the pictures of Kuwait University in the sixties, no, you'll see something else, you'll see the the girls without hijab, all those things are a part of the... [he clears his throat] a part of the freedom that makes them responsible for the... I wear what I want in aa decency, you know, but I preserve myself, for the upbringing is what matters, that way but now that full cover could be used in a negative way, in the first place, is my intention to pass or is it something else? [he clears his throat]

Mm.. you mentioned the professors and that they were not up to a certain level, were the professors mostly from Kuwait?

A number of them, you know, I can say a large number of the professors were Kuwaitis and mmm but at the time, in 1986, huge numbers graduated, with graduate degrees, and came back but that didn't give them aaa, they had degrees but what was the value of those degrees without having a certain status in society? You must have the academic charisma and that's why I gave you the example of Khaldoon Al Naqeeb, may God rest his soul, Khaldoon Al Naqeeb was different, he was a researcher and a thinker, from whom the society benefited but how would society benefit from those? Now I no longer know the names, neither of professors nor of others, you know.

Did you have personal encounters with them? Do you remember any story that happened to you with these professors?

That show they were…

Or anything that happened between you and them, whether a funny story or...?

[He clears his throat] You see, I had good relationships with everyone and they all completely respected me, respected my ideas and respected... but to show you how huge aa the contradiction between the academic degree and the general awareness and the culture of someone is, one of the Kuwaiti professors, when my collection the Lord's Will Regarding the Condition Abi Jasim Whose Income is Limited was published, I gave him a copy, like I did with my other colleagues. Abu Jasim in the story was aa an old man but he didn't get a house through the government, you know, so he began to feel that he was growing older and so he should get a house, being his right, so he kept going around among different departments, ministries and so on till he finally went to the Minister of Housing. In the story it says that the office manager told him to wait or something. The minister went out, carrying his besht, and didn't talk to him. Now the story was like that. A while later, a week or more later, that professor came to me and said, “it's a good story and I enjoyed it but I'm telling you that that Abu Jasim never went to the minister's office.” I thought, good, this is a new vision, let me see what it is. I said to him, “how so?” He said, “my brother has been the manager of the minister's office for so many years and I asked him if that Abu Jasim had gone to him and asked him to see the minister or something and he said ‘no, I don't remember anyone called Abu Jasim coming to me.’” And he continued, “he didn't go to the minister, you know.” I said to him, “yes, perhaps he lied to me, I don't know.” I wrote the story but I said, “perhaps he lied to me, I don't know.” That was the level; when they read a story or a novel they always connected it to real life literary although literature is not a replica of reality; it's based on reality, that's unarguable, but imagination is added to it, even the characters, you take them from reality but you change their features or something.

In that aspect, how did you aa let's say manage your academic work as a teacher at the university and writing literature?

It was okay, aa I mean nothing stood in my way, the aa first I had free time, in aa my office at the university and I read a lot, I haven't stopped aa reading and the workload was normal, I mean I didn't work in shifts or something; my work hours were from the morning till 2:00 in... in the afternoon, so I had enough time to write, I even sometimes wrote while being at the aaa university, I mean those short stories or something.

What were the topics you mostly aa tackled in the eighties?

The... I published the first collection in the local newspapers, I'm supposed to be from the seventies generation and some crit... critics say I am from the eighties generation, I sent it to Beirut, to Alfarabi publishers. At the time there was the civil war, if you remember, and the manuscript got burned or something happened and the manuscript was lost. Back then, it wasn’t like now when you type something on a computer and send it via an email and they send it back, in PDF format and and you modified things and... no, you wrote something and rewrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it so as to make your handwriting better and make a text readable without mistakes and you sent it by mail. A while later they sent it back to you, I mean two or three months later, to correct things and send it back and so on, two or three times and it was printed there. That was the old way, when there were no computers so aaa what happened was that in the second time, after the revisions and stuff, the first collection was published, in 83, mmm in the eighties I wrote the novel Badriah, I wrote the Following Day... the ... I wrote the Lord's Will Regarding the Condition Abi Jasim Whose Income is Limited. So the subjects the... in the first collection was totally class biased aamm in them I was clearly biased in favor of the crushed working class, the lower class, the class... and at the same time in a humane way, you know. In aa Abu Jasim I was a little bit free, I was still going in the same direction but more liberated. Of course Badriah wasn't, I was still in the same direction but more liberated, you know, particularly that it was a novel not a short story.

Mmm was there a reason that made you decide to publish it in Lebanon?

First the... Alfarabi house, with which I published, at the time, was a good establishment and well known, all over the Arab world. Another thing is that those establishments participated in book fairs around the Arab world and mmm that's very important, if one wants Arab readers or Arab critics to read their work, it's better to publish abroad because here you can publish fancy editions and everything but the distribution won't be that good.

You mentioned, during the previous interview that aaa the novel Badriah aa was banned aa…

Yes.

It was banned in the… at the time, is it still banned or...?

No, supposedly not, I mean it's from aa maybe from 1993, aa it was allowed b… by an order of the minister. I even got to know the story of a Kuwaiti man, someone I still don't know, who went to the minister and said, “now that's a novel that raised the head of its country among all the Arab countries and it gets banned in its own country?” The minister ordered to allow it, nevertheless every time Alfarabi brought it they confiscated it, up until last year; I mean this is the third edition, I published it but it must be subject to… I mean every time I must send a copy of the approval for... to Lebanon and when they bring the novel they bring that approval along and say “look…”

You mentioned, in the previous interview, that you didn't know the reason behind banning the novel, do you still don't know?

No, they just said it was against the public interest and they questioned me, at the Ministry of Information, in a harsh manner as if I were in the Ministry of Interior or the State Security. They also scolded me; they didn't just question me but they also rebuked me and amm they said, “it's over, it's banned.” I said, “why is it banned?” They said, “it's against the public interest.” I said, “may I know what the public interest is so that I wouldn't do that again?” They said, “we know the public interest better than you do.” I said, “okay then, give me a paper stating that it's banned.” They said, “we don't give any papers.” So that was the reason... I guess there were many reasons. Remember that professor? The one I told you about who said, “he didn't go to the minister”? I think those were the ideas; that character is the character of Abu Nashmi, like aaa the one you read about, who does he represent? He certainly represents someone in a high position, yes and what do you mean by so and so? What does this dialogue mean? Who are you referring to with the so and so character? This is one of the things.

Another point was that they weren't used to a novel that talked about that period; the period of the English and showed that the English and Indians were higher than the Kuwaiti workers, the citizens of the country and the owners of the oil riches. They somewhat didn't... didn't accept that as if I was saying that it was colonization, of course it was colonization, one way or another, you know, a protection agreement or a foreign representation agreement, ultimately it was colonization, why? So that they could seize the wealth of other countries India or this or that country, so indeed when they were there they got the largest percentage of the oil production.

Will you elaborate on this point, this subject which was in the novel Badriah?

Which point exactly?

Aaa… British colonization.

No, of course I didn't call it colonization or said aa anything.

But the relation between the aa I mean in the novel, the relation between the mm let's say the British masters and the and the workers under them.

Of course when the Kuwait Oil Company was established aa they needed workers and of course they brought workers from abroad, of course, but the Kuwaitis, the sailors and so on; I mean such things, like travelling and pearl diving, were not like they used to be, particularly with the discovery of cultured pearls in Japan which dominated that trade. Those people moved to to work on the ground, you know, and when Kuwait still didn’t have that much prosperity yet, they worked as workers at the oil company and the English trained them, with some Arabs, and housed them in sheds and brought them water tankers, which passed by them, and poured the water in aa tanks. They used that water for drinking, washing and everything. They were treated as inferiors; they were forbidden from being with the senior staff… they were not allowed to ride cars, bicycles or horses, that were allowed only for the English then the Indians, but the Kuwaitis were not allowed to. Aa that was the situation, they exerted huge efforts because it was something new for them, machines, equipment, o... orders and English vocabulary. They were given English courses, related to work and the smartest, among them, were taken for the aa the more accurate and more sensitive jobs and were given courses and some of them, later on, in the fifties, were sent to take courses in Britain and other countries aa but those in the middle stayed as they were. So the relation was not an equal one or a relation that you could say was moderate or humane or something, no; they, like they dealt with any colony, like they dealt with the Indians in India, did the same, but without much violence, it was as limited as possible for aaa they knew that this was a different society and they didn't bring troops or controlled the country's institutions or something but smartly began to take the aa oil without occupation or violence or anything else.

What were the names of the families that worked with the English?

Many, many but aa all of them were individuals from poor or middle class families and of course there were people from aa rich families, who wanted to work. Let me give you an example, when the Ministry of Public Works was established, it was a department then turned into a the Ministry of Public Works, some of the departments of the Ministry of Public Works had storerooms, warehouses and stuff, where Kuwaitis worked and some of them were rich, I mean imagine one, [he clears his throat] who came in a Mercedes, of the latest model, stepped out and changed into the blue suit of a worker and worked with his hands, he wore his ghetra casually and worked with his hands.

What year was that approximately?

That went on until a recent period, till the sixties, I mean the sixties and perhaps the early seventies, you know, then they grew older and the expats began to increase in numbers and the departments developed so they were in carpentry, in smithery, in so and so, in installation and in lifting and carrying things so it was... it was common for them to work in the oil sector and the municipality, oil companies and many places, those who worked in the... the sea and the generations that followed those, grew up and reached the work age, worked as well.

Have you heard any stories that happened with the English?

I mentioned, in the novel, the cinema incident.

Those were, I mean real events that took place?

Real but it wasn't the English who... it was the Indians. What happened was almost the same, they peaked over to see the films, they didn't have a cinema for themselves, and a fight broke out among them, mmm that was one of the stories. Of course there were details which they told me, some of those who worked there aa one of them was a relative, from the family or something but I don't recall the aa details now. The funny thing is that the English words continued to be used later on. For example the aa one in charge of four workers was called a foreman, the... and so on. Let alone the aa names of... of cars and of I don't know what.

Like what?

The “wanait” or the one eight pickup truck [he clears his throat] things like that in the engine there is a coil in the engine and they called it coil, so many things, I mean if I try to remember many things, aa English words, you know, particularly those who worked at the oil companies knew them.

Let's go back to the eighties, when you worked at Kuwait University, after you returned from America, for how long did you work in the university before you finished your PhD?

No, I aa finished my higher studies not from the university but from the Ministry of Education and when I returned, you know, I worked at the university.

In the eighties?

In the eighties.

So when you came back from America, you were done with the PhD and worked at Kuwait University?

Yes, I mean I had the bachelor’s degree from Cairo in mm 1978 1979 and worked as a social worker.

First, of course, there was the aa beginning of the Iran-Iraq war, in 1979, 1980, so aa they took us in the army, the conscription system had just started.

In 1980? 1979, 1980?

Yes, in 1980, I was in the second batch perhaps or something, you know, and aa that took from us, in addition to the nine-month draft period, I was punished, among a group because in the camp we protested against the favoritism towards some of our colleagues; whom they wanted to push, that was the son of so and so and they sent him I don't know where and that was the son of so and so, while we toiled. I also rebelled at the aa at the college itself [he laughs] I mean a little bit, aa [he clears his throat] and we protested. The aa the officer had a problem with university graduates and he said, “you, college boys, are rebels.” We said, “what rebellion now? We're talking about something logical, aa regular and fair, justice, we want justice.” He said, “put your keys on the table and get out and wait.” They punished us with tough exercises and the weather was so hot and aa some of us fainted and we carried them away. It was... it was a prison or detention, in the camp, because we were officers, we graduated as officers in the camp aa twenty days or about a month. And the... they forced us to sleep in... rooms mm that had nothing, aa nothing at all in them, you know, aa even the beds aaa were rusty and under them you could see scorpions and stuff so at night we began to sneak out, one by one and went to the officers' club to sleep there till one night an officer came while we were sleeping on the floor, of course we couldn't shower, we didn't have money and we didn't have aa and he said, “what are you? You are officers how is this happening?” We told him the story. Anyway... in the mornings we attented lectures and after the lectures we continued the punishment and the... when I went I went back to the camp where I was supposed to serve for a short while and that'd be it. The report came and what did the battalion commander do? He deducted a month from our salaries, I mean a little less than a month, the same period we spent in prison or detention and a detention, for the same period, in the same camp although I ranked second in the batch of tanks, among which we trained. During all that the Iran-Iraq war broke out and a decision was made by the Minister of Defense to extend our service for three months, for three more months so we spent a long time. I felt desperate and thought, “that's it, I am I am a military man now and this is war.” So psychologically I turned into an officer and not someone waiting for the release, no, aa it was over and no one knew when that war would end and when that situation would end so the aaa what was the main question?

Aaa other than the the punishment, will you describe for me the conscription period as a whole?

Yes, the conscription was an experience aa nice one, except that the the trainers and officers didn’t have general awareness, you know, so… and they were that vindictive, I don't know why, just because the… those were educated people who had PhDs or something aa but it was a very good period, the military training was good, because we wanted it. I personally love shooting and the military discipline and such stuff, I love it. And that helped me during the invasion, by the way. And aa the training too, the sports training and stuff, were excellent, there was a lot of suffering, a lot of suffering and many details but in general it was an experience that passed, I mean aa because of the the punishment and because of the aa deduction and I don't know aa its effect wasn't that nice on me personally, it was fine and we got to know some of those who were with us and stuff, so the situation was aa good.

After that you went to America?

Aaa until that... that period I wasn't married aa I got married before the end of the draft, without telling the military authorities.

I married, that was in 80 too, in April... 80. Aaa I had to rent a place, a flat, and luckily my wife was aa understanding, what mattered was for us to live together and so on and mm till I... till I finished the military service. Aaa they sent me first to the school then the transfer to the university. But there was aa something, when that officer decided to detain and punish us I said to him, “may I take a leave for just today and come back because my wife is traveling in the evening?” He said, “no, not a chance.” I said, “send a soldier with me to guarantee that I would come back.” He said, “no.” I said to him, “I must go to the bank to withdraw some money for her because she's traveling.” No. Anyway, during that prison, detention period, in the middle of it, we decided to escape. We asked our aa colleagues, who were not punished and who came by their cars and left in the afternoon, to leave a car for us. And aa at night, at about three or three thirty, just before dawn, we took the car, we had the keys, we took the car and left. They left two cars or something, perhaps, because we were a group. At the gate they saluted us because we were officers and we left. Now, I went to my flat. At the time the Shu'aiba plant was out of order and total darkness covered all of Kuwait, the fridges of course the food went bad and the small babies were put in water basins, because of the heat. I arrived and the flat was in total darkness. I found a small candle and I lit it. Why did I come? My wife had already left. Every now and then, every ten or fifteen minutes I went under the shower because of the... I didn't even dry myself because of the heat, that was in summer. Then before day broke one of my colleagues passed by me, we had agreed on that, he came by and we went back to the camp and they didn't know about us. That was it.

Then you went to America and returned to Kuwait.

Then yes, mm I told you, after the military service I went back to work, in the school, and from the school I went to America.

You finished the master's and PhD degrees there and came back?

The PhD I couldn't finish, as I told you.

Yes, the master's degree and came back to Kuwait University.

Yes, because they said, “if you don't come back, we'll cut your...”

How long did you teach at Kuwait University?

From 1986 till the invasion then from 91 to 93 [long Pause] Sounds? The discussion began perhaps.

So till... till the invasion you were teaching at Kuwait University

Till after the invasion, till 93.

Mm now that we mentioned the... the invasion, let's talk a bit about it, when the invasion took place, were you in Kuwait?

Yes.

Mm do you remember, before the... before the invasion, prior to August 2nd, what was the general atmosphere, in Kuwait, like?

First Kuwait was aa full of some sort of civil unrest, which was called the Monday Diwaniyyas, that was in 1989 and 1990. Every Monday aa the national and democratic forces and others gathered bec... because they dissolved the National Assembly unconstitutionally and and established something called the National Council, an appointed one, and every time we faced the riot control forces, water hoses, clubs and those things and among us were prominent figures…

Like who?

Al Sa'doon, aa Ahmed Al Khateeb, Sami Al Menais, aa Ahmed Al Nefeesi and former members of the National Assembly, mm there was a mm significant number at the time.

Where were the Monday Diwaniyyas?

Aaa everyone had a diwaniyya, for example there was Al Qatami's diwaniyya, Jasim Al Qatami, the second was Al Anjari's and Al Anjari was a former member of the National Assembly and that was it. It took place once in Ahmed Al Khateeb's diwaniyya, in Farwaniya, Menawer... Abbas Menawer was also a former member of the National Assembly and it happened once in Jahra [he clears his throat].

What subjects were discussed at the...?

To restore the National Assembly, democracy and acting according to the constitution.

And and the general opinion in Kuwait, was it against the diwaniyyas… the Monday Diwaniyyas or…?

No, of course there was a group for sure against them but in general there was a general indignation, in Kuwait, because the constitution was suspended and the National Assembly was dissolved, the constitution was suspended already. A prior censorship was imposed on newspapers and all published materials. During that period, by the way, I published Badriah. Aaa for example, every newspaper had a censor, who read the articles, should he see the word democracy, he'd remove it, should he see the word constitution, he'd remove it. It was such a miserable period, really miserable with toughness in the... aa restraining of freedom, with many things so aa people, in general, were not… even my mother took part in the Monday Diwaniyyas, mm that meant that different segments of people aa wanted to defend their country, their democracy and their constitution, you know. Of course there was no violence or anything, on the contrary, the violence was from the other side.

There were men and women in the...?

Yes, yes of course.

Aaa you mentioned the names of some men, do you remember who, among the women, were there?

I don't remember exactly but they were well known figures, I mean mm Lulwa Al Mulla, or I mean they were well known, of course my wife and the wives of my friends aa so many women [he clears his throat].

That was in the period before the invasion?

The invasion, yes.

Aaa and you said that during the invasion you were in Kuwait aa do you remember mm when you heard that the invasion happened, where you were and...?

I didn't sleep on the night of the invasion, I remember at pm a friend came by, at the time there were the Jeddah talks and they failed, I mean they were aa expected to fail, and he came by and said, “how do you see the situation?” I said to him, “a total collapse.” Okay? After that I kept searching, on the radio and TV, something. I stayed awake and I heard the first announcement when the invasion happened.

When did you hear it?

I think... I think between 2:00 and 3:00 am, approximately. Then many announcements followed, you know, so I kept... I woke my wife up and told her that such and such happened, an invasion took place and that Iraq occupied us and she said, “you want me to spend time with you, you want me...” She thought I wanted her to keep me company. But... she didn't believe it until she got up and I told her about the announcement and gave her the details of what happened, what happened... Fahed Al Ahmed died... fire shot at the Dasman Palace and all that. At about noon tanks arrived at Gulf Street, I was living in a flat overlooking the sea, in Al Shaa'b Al Bahari area, they passed by us, a line of tanks and all of a sudden they turned towards us. Right in front of us was Al Shaa'b Palace, with a sandy area between us. They lined up and kept shooting at Al Shaa'b Palace. The smell of gunpowder reached us, we even opened the windows a little so that they wouldn't get smashed and I left the children, they were so young, in the cor... in the corridor.

How many children did you have at the time?

I had three, at the time, and my wife was pregnant too. When the... that situation happened aa we needed a telephone, the... the janitor came to us and said, “go down to the basement, all the residents went there,” and I did that and I tried, I wanted to check on my mother, family and so on and I found someone who had a cell phone, the the old model, Intaleq 1, and I said to him, “may I use the phone?” And he said, “no.” He was with the invasion [he laughs]. At night, before the... I left with my kids to my family's house, of course they were in a state of panic and... the military machinery and troops began to increase and spread quickly, they were so quick.

That was on the first day of the invasion?

That was on the first day.

You left Al Shaa'b to where... you went to your family's house?

I went to my mother's house, it was in Rumaithiya at the time.

Can you describe to me the streets, what were they like at the time?

There were ca…. there were regular cars but there were tanks and military vehicles which didn't move in a pattern or quietly; they drove on the sidewalks, on plants and I don't know what, mm it was an invasion. Of course I didn't see the other areas, I only saw what was around me. The number of tanks, military vehicles, troops and personnel carriers increased. The all the the uniforms were strange, I mean not of the... I recall, by the way, when the tanks passed by my house, I went out and found a group of people, standing there watching. I saw... now I was in the military service, I still had my uniform and I had to go for a month every year and came back. I saw the tanks and the colors and shapes of the uniforms, I saw the flags on the tanks, not the Iraqi flags but those of the battalions themselves and I said, “these are Iraqis.” Someone said, “what do the Iraqis want by coming here?” That person turned out to be an Iraqi too, perhaps with the intelligence or something like that. I kept silent; there was an inner thing, which I had learned and it was related to being cautious, that's what they call revolutionary cautiousness [he laughs]. No, that was it, I knew it when he said that he knew that there was no argument or talking or anything. With time it turned out to be true and the scattered information was confirmed, that no, it was a full-scale invasion, sure. At the dawn of the first day of the invasion I called two of my friends and said, “let's go out in our uniforms because we were trained to do that we'll go out.” One of them was my brother, my brother said, “where would I go now? My wife is afraid and... shaking.” The other was living in Al Riqai and when I called him he said, “where would I go? It’s a mess and they are firing at Al Jewan camp, in front of Al Riqai, close to… opposite the Ministry of Electricity.” Then of course they occupied the Ministry of Electricity and kept shooting at the Kuwaitis in the camp. I tried, you know, but no one helped me. Then I thought, “perhaps I'm romantic and not realistic, I don't realize the great danger.” I knew it was dangerous and knew that death was possible and perhaps... It was a war but I was determined to go out, okay, let me die as a martyr, what was the problem, what mattered was that I did something, all that was on the, the first day.

How did you feel at the exact moment you realized that there was an invasion?

The very first feeling was immense anger, it was an immense anger, perhaps I didn't feel the shock, it was natural not to feel it at once, but anger was eating at me, on the inside; it was the first time ever I felt such anger. That was about the feeling I had then the… the post trauma began; I began to feel aaa, I slept I remember... I hadn't slept all night so I slept on the floor, I remember, till my wife came and woke me up, I got startled, which never happened to me, I got startled because something was building up deep within and there was... you know that after a day or hours or something that happens, the shock persisted but it grew lighter, I was trying to pull myself together, tried to keep self-composed for my wife aa brothers, mother and so on. Aa… I remember that was for a few days and when I got back to Al Shaa'b, to my flat, because we hadn't taken anything, you know, aaa I discovered that the one who said, “no, you can't use the phone” had Iraqi intelligence agents with him. No, now the situation was not so safe so I left aaa and stayed away, later on I think I came back again then I decided, during the first few days, I don't know when exactly, to do something.

I began to issue a leaflet titled The Free Patriots of which I published as I recall seven issues [he clears his throat] then, on the following day, I think, I went to a friend and a distant relative, first to check on him and secondly to say to him , “let's do something.” When I went to him I saw that he was sick, he was in one of the camps and he tried to resist, the first waves, you know. I saw him holding a paper and writing names, the... captain so and so, corporal so and so, and a list of names. I said to him, “what are you doing?” He said, “I'm checking who would...” I said, “are you crazy? Give me this.” And I tore the paper up and said to him, “look, this way it’d be easy for them to arrest you, don’t think about the situation now, think about it when they settle…” [he coughs]. You know what? I taught him the pyramid organization; an organization with cells, each of which doesn't know the others, and consisting of small groups and so on, with a link among them, a central connection from above, but at the the base, the base of the pyramid, they don't know each other. Of course I benefited from aa my left revolutionary sense [he laughs]. And indeed a group was formed, it was formed and I was with them but I kept publishing aa the Free Patriots.

What was the content of that leaflet?

Aaa many things, you know, I remember one of the earliest issues, there aa was a heading for the main article that read “Beware of Generalization” because it was widely said that all the Palestinians had been cooperating with the aa ... so I wrote warn... Beware of Generalization. Those, the people, who read it said to me, “you didn't... didn't try the...” I said to them, “I'll tell you a story. A few days before the invasion I gave a lecture about the memory of Ghassan Kanafani, at the embassy of Palestine, at the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization, in Hawalli [he clears his throat]. All the groups were there and a crowd of people, of course, including Kuwaitis and others. Two or three days after the invasion, the third or fourth check point, I'm not sure, which stopped me, were of armed Palestinians, nevertheless I'm telling you to beware of generalization.” Of course the... the idea about the the Palestinians and the... treason and so on, I can't blame people for, it is there till today, and and the Palestinians took part in that matter, whether those inside Kuwait or outside Kuwait but aa I knew a Palestinian, he's dead, may God rest his soul, who was one of the most amazing people, he worked with the resistance and worked in distributing stuff, even aat the co-op. Another one was running a cooperative society, a group of young people did and he was with them. I know those young people, you know. So mm that one was an example, you know, while there were revolutionary people and so on a lot of elements and stuff nevertheless they were willing to turn me on, to that degree, so that was a matter I remember now because it is currently stirred up, but there were a lot of things, for instance…

I contributed to what's called the biggest civil disobedience in the history of Kuwait; dealing with them, dealing with the currency, aaa changing cars and license plates mmm a whole lot of things. Of course there were things that happened later on, against our will, because there was no money, there was only the Iraqi currency. We spent a long time using the Kuwaiti currency of course until we ran out of it and all the banks were occupied so we had to use it, later on, to buy food, okay? There were foods that came from Jordan and Iraq then Kuwait turned into something else, into vendors, vendors everywhere, people displayed and sold everything.

Kuwaitis aa?

No, no, no, not Kuwaitis, Iraqis and mm Arabs, Palestinians or Jordanians or others, but they were mostly Iraqi men and women, coming from rural areas or something. It was so ugly that the most horrible nightmare I had at night was to go to a vendor and find my books on display for sale. That was my nightmare and I still remember it, imagine that, until now. A vendor with my books, the ones I had… so those leaflets were my contribution, they contributed to the civil disobedience, they informed people, guided them to what to do or what not to do, they encouraged them and kept their spirit up, all of those aa I wrote, you know.

How did you make those leaflets and how did you distribute them?

Oh, first of all I had a Macintosh computer, that Macintosh, at the time, was very expensive, I think it cost 1700 dinars or something, its screen was this big but its body was so big, huge. Anyway, there was a printer but the the printer was awful; the type that... not the laser type that aaa the first or two issues I wrote on that and took them, I distributed... I gave the leaflet to someone to distribute too, because I didn't have a photocopier so one of those who distributed, the daughter of Ismail Fahad Ismail, the novelist may God rest his soul, he was a friend of mine, you know. Then it broke, it broke so I took it, I as I recall, to my uncle's house, to the basement. I used it there then it broke down. Then I was away once and the Iraqis came to comb the area, where my uncle lived, in Nuzha. My uncle, out of fear for his kids and stuff, he disassembled the computer and threw the pieces with the junk, in the same place, he didn’t have the time to throw it away. Now I didn't have a machine for writing so I said to a a friend, who worked in an institution, and of course they had administrative offices and stuff, I said to him, “I want a typewriter.” He was so frightened and he took it and brought... talked to him and encouraged him and guilted him... those were exceptional times. He brought me a machine, a big electric one, a big one I remember, the type used in offices and so on and I used it. I think that was the one on which I completed the aa all the leaflets after that. Where are the leaflets now? They are not available, how? I told you one of those who distributed them was the daughter of Ismail Fahad Ismail, Sumaya, she distributed them and she was very active, she was young and she even did some things aa… a sponge dipped in gasoline which she pushed under a car and set fire to, she pushed... she did things like that and they arrested her and beat her; they didn't see the leaflet and beat her for that, it was because of her conduct, and because she was young, I don't know how but the soldier released her. Now Ismail... yes some of the leaflets, his wife's sister was familiar with secretarial work so she had a typewriter too, at Ismail's house, so she typed the rest of... the rest of the... and Ismail said, “collect all those leaflets,” and he destroyed them so I have no drafts or copies of them but some people saw them and know that I published the... that leaflet you know.

Did anyone get caught with a leaflet or...?

So many have been caught with leaflets, so many, but for me... my leaflet, she was the only one caught as I told you and they let her go, I mean there was nothing against her but the others were executed and tortured, you know, like for example the Popular Steadfastness, by the group of Ghanim Al Najjar.

And Thurayya Al Baqsami I think.

Aaa Thurayya had an indirect role, I think I think her husband, Muhammed and mm the daughter of Bedah, the daughter of Ali Bedah, her name was... not Amani, Amani is another one, and a group which I didn't know, those had more capabilities; they had a photocopier and made copies and so on, you know, so there was a number of leaflets, issued with individual initiatives as well, and so on that happened.

You mentioned checkpoints aa will you tell me about... you went through situations with... because you told me, for example, that a group of Palestinians were at checkpoints, were there any incidents that you went through at these checkpoints?

I must give you an introduction to tell you about the… those were so many [he laughs] if we can stop in a while? But remind me later so as to tell you because there are many details, have you stopped it? Don't stop it, okay? Aaa for example, with that military individual, who was a colonel, at the time, with the resistance group. We worked so well, till aa, I don't know, November or December, something like that, then we heard that they found out about us but didn't know our names. The descriptions were a white one and a dark one and they rode a Jeep in such color, they didn't even know the car type. Here we thought, no, easy. The day we decided to get rid of… that day or the following day, I was going to Rumaithiya, to my mother, and he was with her… with me, he was with me. We went and had lunch with her. Upon leaving we found the intelligence agents stopping the ca... cars, particularly if driven by young people and so on.

In which area was that?

On the Rumaithiya bridge, the one leading to Bayan. The officer, who was clearly with the intelligence because of a sign here that showed he was with the intelligence, he said, “go ahead pass, pass, pass, you stop over there.” We thought it was over and what happened to others will happen to us. He said to the soldier, “search the car.” The soldier came and searched, he looked under this and that, opened things and found nothing of course so he said to the officer, “sir, there's nothing.” Now the guy who was with me, the military individual, was a little bit reckless so he said, “you are really shameless, you think we're smuggling weapons? You think we are this and that?” I said, “please, Abu Khaleefa, please.” By the way the dedication of A Bullet to the Chest of the North was “for Abi Khaleefa,” that Abu Khaleefa. It was an intense situation, then the officer saw that there was an argument or something and said, “what's going on?” I dragged him by force and said, “please.” We rode the car, I was driving and I said to him, “I'd leave you, you know.” We left, I felt like... other incidents happened too and my wife took part in the resistance too.

What did she do?

Ammm I'll tell you about the demonstrations which... but you asked me about the checkpoints, for instance, aaa she was pregnant, during the invasion, sixth months pregnant, and her belly was big so I wrapped the leaflets on her belly and we passed. Amazingly they searched people personally but some of them were shy particularly with a pregnant woman and they didn't see a thing. We once went too bold and I hid a handgun here, under her sleeve, the... although it was short, one of those gums tied up to the foot, it had a strap which was tied to the... I tied it here and on her belly there were leaflets. They searched and searched but found nothing. Those were the soldiers then came an officer and said, “okay, leave him, let him go. Go ahead, cousin, go ahead, cousin.” He saw a family and children with me so he let me go. And aa of course there were so many things. It was a case, I don't know if I can call it a humanitarian case or what, I don't know, anger was still deep within but it grew lighter, it calmed down, I mean it didn't control me, you know. There was a soldier, who stood at the traffic light, at the U-turn, he stood there and when I reached the U-turn I had to slow down, while turning and I decided to kill the... that soldier. I began to greet him, whenever I passed by him, and pretended to… he greeted me back and so on. I thought “until when?” There must be a zero hour in which I must execute the... and indeed at that hour mm my children were not with me, my wife was with me, but I had already told her what my plan was and so on, and I had already told her about the matter itself. When I got there I greeted him and he greeted me back. I looked into his eyes and couldn't do anything, I drove away, I went on. His face was that of a human being and his eyes were innocent eyes, you know, and it was easy for me to recall the life of that human being; he had left his children and left his wife, what his condition was, what... how he was treated here, so… that was one of the.. but that doesn't mean that the resistance didn't kill, they killed, you know [he laughs] but I'm telling you about myself personally when dealing with matters of that kind many things, many things. During the first few days my second son, he was two years old perhaps, he woke up at night, he was asleep but he got up shivering and went back to sleep. Aaa I felt, of course, that he was afraid, particularly that one time they were with me and aaa a soldier stopped me at a checkpoint. He asked for my ID and I gave it to him. I hadn't falsified my ID. He saw it then he looked and saw the children, he saw that that son was so young and standing behind me in the... he pointed the automatic gun at his head and said, “your ID.” I said to him, “shame on you, this is a child, how could you do this to him?” After that he began to have that... Okay, now look for someone in a hospital…

There wasn't, at the time, and they said to us, “Ibn Sina hospital.” I don't know, it was so far but we went there. The doctor was an Iraqi. There was a group of Kuwaiti young people working, in the uniforms of nurses and aa simple things, in spite of being university graduates perhaps. The the doctor checked him and the boy had chronic constipation and I don't know what, you know, the doctor said, “he must stay here, we need to do so and so, but he must stay.” Now what shall I do? My wife said, “I'm not going home, I'll stay with him.” What can I do? I went to those Kuwaiti guys and sat with them in the aa room and said to them, “the matter is this.” They said, “just go and don't worry.” I said to them, “but my wife and son are here.” They said, “no problem, we will look after them.” Anyway, before I even left the hospital a high rank officer came and took control of the hospital administration, while I was standing there and they said, “go.” Now that was the main reason why they said, “go now and leave your wife, we'll be looking after her” and that was it, I mean you know they occupied the hospitals and an officer became the manager of the hospital and so on. Sometimes they brought with them offi... doctors, from abroad or something so okay, I told my wife that and was leaving without knowing what might happen, to me or to them, you know. On my way home, I was distracted, as you could say, I was thinking about them, it was dark and I couldn't see anything all of a sudden I found a checkpoint and Iraqi soldier pointing his gun at me. I stopped at once and he came, gave me a hostile look and said, “am I a donkey standing here?” I said, “by God I didn't see you, it's dark.” We kept exchanging words and he said, “go, next time this and that.” I thought to myself, let him say whatever he wants, he's cursing now or something but it didn’t matter, what mattered was to leave because I wanted to go back. In the morning I came back and there was nothing, there, in the hospital. I remember that all what they gave him, what they found aa was Sunkist juice, which is water and sugar, I mean it wasn't... the poor child didn't eat anything for... my poor wife didn't eat either, then one of the young people brought her the same juice. There was no food or nothing... Can we stop for a little while? Just keep this point in mind.

Okay.

Okay, aa today’s date is July 15, 2019, we are in Kuwait, in Adan, the time is aa Aaa Mr. Waleed, in the aa previous interview we talked about the invasion and mm you said you'd tell us about the demonstrations that happened during the invasion.

Yes, aa most of the demonstrations, as I recall and know, had both women and men participating in them and the aa [he clears his throat] men participated in them and sometimes they were organized by men or men took part in organizing them, but there were female activists and patriots, I mean who were interested in going out for demonstrations and there were martyrs among those who went out. My aa wife was six months pregnant and I've already told you that we decided to aa take part in the resistance, in different ways, so [he clears his throat] we agreed that if I went out, she'd stay with the kids because they were young and vice versa.

That day there was a women’s demonstration going out from Qadsiya… going out from Mansouriya towards Qadsiya and she was there with her friends and a group of acquaintances…

You remember aa…

Names?

Names.

No, I don't remember any names.

And in what period of the invasion was that demonstration?

You know, aa for sure in the first few weeks, aa they were marching, raising slogans, of course aa group of the Iraqi soldiers came and took their positions to open fire and started shooting. They fired but the aa was under their legs, I mean they didn't aim directly for the chests and so on. They dispersed so much so that my wife jumped over a very high wall; the Qadsiya area is known for its high walls. She was six months pregnant. She couldn't even climb over a low wall, but that was a very high wall and she jumped over. She said, “I don't know how,” and she added, “I just found myself sitting in the house and there was an old woman,” and her friend went in with her and she said that the woman had opened the door for them to get in and two young men came in, among the group, and they stayed there. [He clears his throat] the soldiers got into the house and pointed the guns at them. She said, “it's over.” Of course she called me and said she... I was sitting by the phone, she said, “this and that happened, God willing I will be back.” I was a nervous wreck. The the soldiers went in and said, “get the young men out.” In the beginning they were not interested in taking women; young men were more important considering they were with the resistance, you know. One of the young men hid in a closet and the other aa kneeled down and they spread a cover on him, as if he were a chair, and sat on him so that the aa soldiers wouldn't see him. The soldiers, the soldiers found the other young man and took him away but didn't discover the one pretending to be a chair, you know. Of course the women stayed seated aaa for a while till things settled and the soldiers left. Aaa she called me and said, “I'm ready, just come and pick me up.” And I went and picked her up and went home. For her it was such a huge shock and she was scared, I mean she was afraid she'd miscarry due to that aa I mean that horror of that period, so the demonstrations were in the beginnings in particular but later on, you know, when the intelligence aaa of the Iraqi army seized control over the vital institutions; I mean the police stations and the facilities they could control. The intelligence officers and intelligence personnel spread everywhere so as to control the... so they were not only soldiers but also the intelligence agents had to be present and they had an atrocious role, the intelligence, with torture, the arrests and torture and aa, I mean they were the ones who did all the brutal acts; the soldiers were just executants, I mean in shootings or something, the intelligence were not like that, even the executions were by the hands of intelligence officers, not the hands of regular soldiers, many of the regular soldiers were poor people, many of them were forced to come and some of them were not supportive of the invasion, I mean they said it, particularly the Kurds, they said, “we suffered just like you are suffering and we understand.” Aa the communists among them, members of the Iraqi Communist Party, were aa totally against the invasion but they were forced to come. They said to the Kuwaitis, “don't be afraid, we are shiyoees (communists).” But the Kuwaitis didn't know the meaning of shiyoees, you know, and thought they said they were shias and they didn't care a lot. I was told that story by Kurds once, a long time ago, more than 27 years ago and I also heard it when I went to Erbil, a few years ago. When the Kurds sat with me told me that and they were so upset about Saddam's actions in Kuwait, in particular, which was peaceful and offered a lot of aid to Iraq, sometimes with blackmail and pressure by Iraq. I mean Kuwait, which didn't want to interfere in the affairs of other countries or military conflicts, aa had to give aid, under pressure from America, Iraq and perhaps other Arab countries, to Iraq, particularly financially. That made Kuwait liable to many aa dangers; bombings took place in Kuwait and many people died and some of those bombings, as some specialists think, were not by Iran but rather by Iraq, so as to increase the pressure on Kuwait. I believe, I believe that aspect, of course I don't acquit some elements in Iran or other countries but I believe that it's a conduct followed by the Iraqi intelligence and others. In almost the middle, perhaps, of the invasion period the demonstrations stopped completely because restrictions grew harder, as I told you, by the intelligence, regarding those aa any any movement or anything thing else, everything was done in secret, you know.

Aaa you mentioned the slogans, aa what slogans, for instance, did they raise or were wr... written on the aa walls?

Those were familiar ones, mmm “we're ready to die for Kuwait to live,” “Kuwait is free,” mm “down with the tyrant” and so many many slogans. Whether school girls wrote on the walls, with spray or young men did, at night, you could see the... many buildings; schools, sporting clubs or others, covered with many slogans, written all over them. They tried to erase those but they always rewrote them and that was determination by the Kuwaiti people and bravery, although they hadn't… hadn't gone through such a type of that… you know aa…

Other than the slogans all the… all the activities went underground, they became too secretive, you know. So you could hear about an act of resistance here and an act of resistance there an act of this and that. Many of the resistance groups didn't know all the other groups. The resistance group I was with was aa headed by a military individual, Nasser Buarki, aa as I told you told you, in the beginning I taught them the pyramid organization and so… aa some of them had been arrested then no, they kept, I mean they slowed down, as they say, a little bit and began to do things cautiously, carefully and the situation turned into a huge terrorization for the Kuwaitis, and every Kuwaiti, every family expected an arrest on any given day, for any reason; either because they had a young man and… and there was an arrest campaign so they took him or for being doubted for doing something somewhere or in a certain area or something. Aaa so every... and every family had those fears and later on, with the apprehension of female elements, like Israa Al Ameri… Al Qabandi, who was killed at a the demonstrations of Jabriya, and others, the... the Iraqi occupation authorities didn't concentrate only on young men; they understood that all the Kuwaiti people, old people, women, men and children, may be everyone, were suspected and all of them were to be feared. Of course that caused terror and anxiety for the Iraqi soldiers; resistance could hit anytime and anywhere. Mm the matter wasn't a military confrontation or a battle, I mean no, it was a war and battles, mmm it was a hit and run tactic, as they say, I mean they hit and left quickly and they gained the experience, they gained the experience of fighting and had the invasion continued, God forbade, the experience would've grown bigger, a lot bigger. Nevertheless the Kuwaiti people created a legend; first it was the first in their history and there were no recent people who did the same, the civil resistance, the largest civil resistance Kuwait has ever witnessed; every one took part in it, and civil resistance for the strategists and those experienced in the aa affairs of war and occupation and such things know how deeply effective they are, that is not cooperating with the occupier, in any way. Of course certain things were more realistic later on, I mean we needed to feed our children so we needed to buy Iraqi and Jordanian food produce and we knew that such a product was Jordanian or Iraqi, so there were dealings bit within limits, within limits.

Aaa and you mentioned the schools, were there schools in the aa during the Iraqi invasion?

Working schools you mean? No, in fact there were neither schools nor work; that was a part of the civil resistance, except for the Palestinians aa they opened [he clears his throat] some schools and even Kuwait University, I mean not all of it, a part of it. And they incited the Kuwaitis, among those who were present and lacked loyalty, to go back to work, I personally went through such an issue here…

While my wife was giving birth, in Al Hadi hospital, there was a Palestinian nurse who knew us and her husband knew us. Her husband was aa with the occupation and she said to my wife, “where are you? Where is Abu Salam, my husband is looking for him. Why didn't you go back to work?” Of course there were so many stories like this, so many concerning the pressure because aa that was an evidence showing that the civil resistance had paid off, that pressure, aa the matter was not normal and for the aa international public opinion if the Kuwaiti people were refusing to cooperate, refusing to work, refusing to study and refusing... that meant that the occupation wasn't right. They tried to show that “there was a revolution and we answered the call” so aa many people at the university and here and there... the biggest proof of the Kuwaitis' awareness and aa their sense of responsibility was that those at hospitals kept working, some of them of course.

Kuwaitis?

Kuwaitis, many of them were Kuwaitis and perhaps some Arabs, I don't know. And those working at the electricity plants and water distillation plants, those kept working because they had to supply the Kuwaiti people with aa electricity and water, that was vital and aa even the phone lines kept working for a while but they began to go out of order, either because of the bombings or because of cutting aa the lines in certain areas or something. So those people did heroic deeds indeed, and those... those who worked in the refineries, I think even the oil refineries, some of them were working but not like electricity, I mean electricity and water, those were working, the technicians worked there and many Kuwaitis were technicians in the electricity and oil sectors, at the time; things are different now, there are... there are contractors and with the contractors have Kuwaitis and non-Kuwaitis, you know.

You mentioned your wife giving birth at Al Hadi hospital, aa what was the situation at the hospitals like? Was that in the middle of the invasion period or in the beginning?

The, I mean the story of giving birth, aa was during the invasion and before my wife gave birth our friends came and brought us diapers and came baby formula.

From where?

Fr… aa from the co-ops, they brought them from Jahra and I don't know where from, they brought those from wherever they were available and we kept all those as a reserve, that was before the delivery, so much so that after the liberation we had diapers in all sizes [he laughs] a lot, and we had some kinds of aa milk, which turned out to be expired but aa were there, as a reserve, had the occupation continued, we would’ve used them, there was no problem with them. Now delivery and during the invasion that needed money and there was no maternity hospital functioning and aa a donation campaign was launched; they collected money for me and aaa Iraqi money, at the time, they kept it with me and we saved it for the delivery, of course after we had known that it would cost that much and so on. At the hosp... they were private hospitals, I mean Al Hadi, you know…

How much did it cost?

I think about 800 Iraqi dinars, as I remember, not for sure, you know, or 1800, I think 800, so mm in the night my wife gave birth it was... they began to impose a curfew…

What was the date?

20, December 20, aa at the time, you know, things became tense and tension gre… became global and the armies of the allied forces gathered in Saudi Arabia, I mean the situation became so bad and the aa Iraqi forces were on full alert so they imposed a curfew and mmm they reduced even the lights; they turned them off in certain places and they spread more extensive check points and in the check points, in that period, they didn't just check the IDs, they aimed their guns at any movement and were ready to open fire, it was so dangerous, during that period, no one went out at night. My wife was in labor and we had to go, you know. I told you, in the previous session, that the Iraqis found out about my car, its type, so I hid it at my family's house and aa I had another car so I took my wife and went out, it was almost dawn and aa there were so many dangers on the road, all over the road they had piled junk and had dug some parts so the road was like a zigzag, you know, till we reached the hospital. She went into the hospital and took a long time in labor, I don't know for how long but it was a long time. Anyway, the doctor, who was Jordanian or Palest... a Jordanian from Palestinian origins or something, he was a good man, he was an excellent man. His name was Salam, the name of my elder son, and the man who names his son Salam, is someone with an awareness [he laughs] a progressive awareness, a human awareness, and a... By chance I met Laila Al Othman there, with her daughter Ola; her daughter was having a minor surgery, I don't know what, perhaps an appendectomy or something like that [he laughs] I even remember I was going to call my daughter Ghazal, my only daughter and the youngest child, Ghazal. There is an Indian art called Ghazal, it's beautiful, it's... the words are in poetry, deep poetry, and the melody aa it has an effect on the inner feelings and the sadness deep within, so I don't know why I liked the aa Ghazal. Anyway, I hadn't slept all night long and aa my wife, despite being sick and stuff; when she went out she was hardly able to say a few words and she... because of the sedative or because of being tired because she took too long in labor, she said, “go back to the kids” and such things and here I said to her, “okay, I'll go for a while and come back to you later.” I went home, it was by day of course so there was no curfew, I mean there were the se... searching and all those things, but it wasn't dark and there wasn't that readiness to shoot, you know. Anyway, I went home, checked on the kids and so on. I changed, washed up, had something to eat then went back. When I got there I found her awake but weak, you know, she broke my heart a lot, she'd suffered. I said to her, “that's the girl we wished for.” We had three boys and we wanted a girl. “What would you like to name her?” Suddenly she said to me, “we'll name her Fay.” I said “Fay, okay.” And we named her Fay [he laughs]. When Laila Al Othman came down my wife was asleep and I went down. I saw Laila and she said... I said to her, “we had a baby girl,” and she said, “what are you going to name her?” I said, “Ghazal – courtship,” and she said, “forget about courtship now, this is not the time for courtship, it's the time for fighting and stuff .” [He laughs] I liked that despite being simple and naive and I said to her, “Fay, in the atmosphere of heat and fire she'd be the shade and the light shade, I mean the beautiful one.” Al Hadi hospital had more bustle and activity than the state hospitals but I went to the Mubarak hospital, my wife has studied medical sciences, I mean she was supposed to work too. Amm I saw many Kuwaitis working as many expats, Indians and other than Indians, had left, maids, nurses and so on. So there were... but the capabilities were not available of course. Aaa that's about giving birth and the the hospitals.

You mentioned the Iraqi intelligence... when they came, where were they? Their headquarters let's say.

There were no headquarters, aa perhaps they had a center somewhere in Kuwait, because there was a military governor, that was Hasan Majeed, he had... he took one of the palaces by the sea it belonged to I don't know who, aa but they aa for instance occupied the police stations, more than anything, and there were the aa officers in military and intelligence officers in military not civilian uniforms in the aa check points and with the troops, I mean there were not only the regular military officers but there were also intelligence officers. Of course there was the legion of the aa the Republican Guard, those were savages, they were highly trained; their tr... tough, their training is tough there. They were trained on the immoralities; they were capable of doing anything, they could rape and stuff, they raped women and children, whatever because they taught them that in their camps as I knew from an Iraqi man who was... so those intelligence personnel were here, when they came they changed the reality a little bit; everything became stricter and more terrorizing and people became more afraid.

And the torture, where did it take place?

At the police stations, in the places they dedicated as detention centers, like the agricultural nurseries aa once as I heard, I didn't see those and even in the Kuwaiti prisons, of course they released the criminals, who were imprisoned in jail, including the terrorists who bombed the motorcade of the... aa Sheikh Jaber, may God rest his soul. So mm they were there or in the stad... in schools or the sports stadiums, like Al Arabi in Mansouriya, I mean there were many places.

Aa have you seen any aa of those things at the police stations or in schools for instance?

No.

Didn't... didn't you go to a police station, for instance, during the Iraqi invasion or...?

In fact I didn't go to a police station but aaa I saw the aa I mean the police stations from the outside, you know, some police stations were shot, were fired at by the resistance; from cars while moving, they used machine guns on the aa police stations... so... I didn't see aa I just heard the details from those who were aa either present inside or someone told them or something like that.

What were the other forms of the... resistance? Mm operations that took place or...?

Of course military operations happened a lot and operations that were called intelligence operations; meaning to send information abroad, to the government in the... abroad, and aa one of the people who delivered it abroad was aa Israa Al Ameeri.

Israa Al… Israa Al Ameri?

Al Ameri, yes, the martyr aa the.

Al Qabandi?

Al Amer.

Al Amer.

Al Amer, aa she went to the Bahraini ambassador, his name was Al Jama’, I forgot his first name, that ambassador was in fact so brave and so loyal, he stayed here for a very long time while other embassies left. We heard about the British embassy, the ambassador and the embassy members stayed at the British embassy and we heard that they had dug a well for water aa the British were amazing in that field. The Bahraini ambassador received people and provided them with Bahraini IDs aa one of them was a famous military man aa and there were ministers too, who stayed steadfast and they gave them those. So aa Al Amer, Wafaa Al Amer was her name, I'm sorry, yes, she went and gave the Bahraini ambassador the information and the Bahraini ambassador delivered it to the Kuwaiti ambassador in Bahrain of course and the… the Kuwaiti ambassador in Bahrain carried it to the government, which was in Jeddah, information about the presence of troops; their positions, machinery and everything and that was very important. She and others; there were other people from the resistance too, I mean men, aa that was very important for the allied forces, in the matter of bombings, so that information, which they delivered, was of extreme importance, there were many things.

The distribution of money, for instance, aa the distribution of money, money came from aa abroad through smuggling.

Iraqi money?

The money was supposed to be Kuwaiti but of course they exchanged it aa because, at the time, it was so difficult to use the the Kuwaiti currency, that was met with severe punishment so, as I told you, we had to become a little bit realistic and out of fear for our families we dealt in Iraqi currency but aa we didn't feel that was important, we just were obliged to; I mean how could we buy food and stuff? So aa through smuggling they smuggled in amounts of money and distributed it among people. There were people charged with that and those were like aa a team, you know; one charged another with something and that charged another and so on that the distribution process could be done astutely and aa aptly not haphazardly. They also didn't give anyone more than another, you know, it was important that aa because towards the end there were no salaries nor money, nothing so people lived on such things, on that aid. Sometimes a friend brought you some money saying, “I was given this money and you need it more” and so on, that way the aid came and aa and it supported us, helped us buy things.

Aaa you used the money to buy food, to what extent was food available, during that period?

There were ups and downs, I mean sometimes there was a deficiency and people had to eat from the stored stuff, canned tuna or beans and so on or whatever was available. As for the bread people baked, they baked at home and the youth, the heroes, worked at the mills, baked the bread and distributed it. Aa young people worked in the popular bakeries, the Iranian as they call them, and they got burned the poor people [he laughs] all of them and the reason was the experience, you know, so bread was available, in the houses, because... and bread, as you know, is the most important food commodity and of course in the beginning there were mistakes, in bread making and stuff, but gradually things got better and with time some became creative and began to make dessert, they made so and so, I mean those who had a storage of flour or something began to be creative… and the flour was available too, as I told you, because the mills were working, what was in the co-ops had been consumed, then what was in the storehouses and what was in the Shuwaikh stores, the shops owned by individuals not by the... and aa that… that was a part of the food and with the meat and chickens we ultimately began to go to the stalls, they didn’t have shops, to buy bags of chickens, they sold the chickens in burlap bags; a burlap bag in which they put the chickens, large chickens but they were edible, they were fine, you know. Aaa as for meat, we bought sheep, slaughtered them and skinned them ourselves. I used to slaughter and my wife skinned the sheep. Then we cut it and never threw away any part of it, all of it was eaten; the head was eaten, the legs were eaten, the stomach was eaten, the aa lungs were... everything, the trachea, everything, I mean you couldn't throw away anything, see the value of a crisis [he laughs] how come while we were too extravagant with food and too extravagant with aa we threw away the leftovers, we threw away this and that, we were so extravagant but during the invasion, no, we were forced to, you know. Of course the the... pasta and spaghetti and stuff, produced by the aa Mills Company were also available, one way or another, eggs were also available in the... in their popular markets, mmm the cigarettes, no there was a huge shortage in those and we began to smoke aa Jordanian cigarettes called aaa called Irbid, I think, or something like that, and Iraqi cigarettes called Sumer, those were awful, I mean aa not pure, you know, and there's nothing pure about cigarettes any way, but the manufacturing wasn't… aa we managed, we didn't refuse anything or dismissed anything or anything. For example I like Nescafe, since when, for about 40 years, more than 40 years, since I was in Cairo, no, even before Cairo, I mean in Cairo I used to take Nescafe with me, because during my time there, there was no economic openness and such products were not available, so I used to take Nescafe with me. Aaa during the invasion there was no Nescafe, mm I drank tea, okay, it was fine [he laughs]. My brother came to me once and with him there was an Iraqi man, whom he knew and as a gift from my mother they brought me Nescafe and brought chocolate, for the kids, things like that and that was a luxury, you know, just that jar. Then, after the liberation, those things began to gradually return, you know.

Mm you mentioned the air strikes, aa when was that? Will you tell me?

The air strikes I think were... aah, I mean the date is there everywhere, aa perhaps on January 27, or something like that, I think so.

What was that period like?

Aaa, you know, it was a horror because of the bombs, shells and so on and the aa airplanes, then there were the artillery bombardments on the borders too, the tanks and others. The kids got terrified from the sounds and I learned to aa sleep in the hall, by the main door, lest someone might break into the house or something and I deliberately always slept uncomfortably, on the floor, with a mm hard cushion, under me, so that... and covered myself with a cloak, because I always wanted to… aa, mm after a while, when the planes didn't strike, I wondered, “what's the matter? They didn't strike today,” and we got upset mm because the strikes meant hitting the enemy, that was their meaning. So we got used to it. You know those who sleep on soft music? We began to sleep on the sounds of aa bombs and str... and of course the sounds of anti-aircraft guns were there all the time, particularly at night, you know.

How did the children feel about all of this?

My children were young, nevertheless they got terrified by unfamiliar things, you know, bombardments, tanks and so on. And they heard the elders talking and that was a mistake we made and sometimes we didn't help it; one had to talk, saying that such and such happened and but the grownups were more frightened than them. They also saw and felt things, I mean if a shell, for instance, fell close by, a turbulence happened in the air so much so that the main door opened, because of aa the air pressure, you know, they didn't see... that was frightening, so aa they were not comfortable in fact, but that was easier for them than for the aa grownups; the grownups I mean they understood that matter and lived it, and here was the... imagine that, I mean I was responsible for the family and aa had a duty with the resistance, a duty to the country, you know, I left in the morning, with Buarki, the military leader, and I went in the morning, by his car, touring the areas of Kuwait, holding meetings with someone in a diwaniyya or with someone else in another diwaniyya that was in all the areas and in the afternoon I passed by him, with my car, and went in other tours, you know. That was something and at the same time, in those same tours, I bought the food and stuff for the house.

What were those meetings about?

So many details, I mean for example the details of... mm we once we wanted… aa we received information, from the Kurds of Erbil, that a tank convoy would arrive on this date and go to that location so we planned to shoot those tanks with RPGs, we needed RPGs to shoot the tanks; not all of them, the first, the second to stop the convoy and during that shooting there would be a group, mm on a bridge, with machine guns to shoot the aa the individuals. We didn't have the RPGs, we needed seven RPGs, so we went and held a meeting in Sabah Al Salem, aa with someone aa representing a Sheikh but we didn't find any. We went here and there then I went to the writer Ismail Fahad Ismail, may God rest his soul; he was with the resistance too, with the sons of Fahad Al Ahmed; Ahmed, Athbi, Talal and others, they were living in a neighboring house, they were renting a house and staying in it, in Bayan. I went to him and said to him that we needed money, I knew he knew some Sheikhs, who had serious capabilities. I told him we needed that sum of money, I don't remember how much now, to buy RPGs from someone who sold weapons, in the black market, I mean secretly.

A Kuwaiti or...?

No, no, no, no, no, a Kurd. Ismail said, “tell us what the operation is and we'll carry it out.” I got angry with him, he was my friend, a dear friend but I got very angry with him indeed. “What? Are you the only ones who take action? Okay, we've planned and prepared and mm we have everything so let's cooperate.” He said, “no, tell us what the operation is and we will do it for you,” so we left. Later on Naser Buarki went to the hero, Muhammed Al Bader, may God rest his soul. Muhammed Al Bader was a high ranking officer in the army and later on the cabinet reached him for help in removing the violations. He was so faithful and removed the violations on the streets, the desert and so on; the additions people put on the outside and the enclosures, whatever, you know. Later on members of the National Assembly protested and put pressure on the government so they removed him. Later on he died. His role was well known; he rode a bicycle and toured the areas, Nuzha, Faiha, Idailiya, Rawda and so on, on a bicycle, he went out under cover, wearing aa... Nasser Buarki went to him and he gave him money, gave him money. Now the purchase was delayed for some time and so on. So those were meetings with those people for the aa the arrangements for... then my wife was due and they gave me some of that money and I got some from some friends for the delivery, you know and we didn't do that operation and as I recall those didn’t come...

Other than aa Buarki, Muhammed Al Bader and Ismail Fahad Ismail, do you remember other names?

Among those I dealt with?

Amm.

Aaa I don't remember, no, I mean those were the main ones, I don't know, there were people I knew, I mean they worked and stuff but mm aa I mean I can't even remember their names because I didn't… I dealt a lot with some of the aa main people, I mean there were some people, whom I dealt directly with, with Ismail, as a leader, I mean in the leadership aa Nasser too, I forgot, in fact I forgot aa...

Aaa you mentioned that during the air strikes you aa slept by the door, had there been many raids on the houses? They increased?

Yes, yes, they could break into a house and so on. On one occasion, when I told you that they'd found out who I was but they didn't know my name, they just had the description and and the car. Aaa I agreed with my wife, I hadn't slept all night and agreed with my wife, “before dawn I will leave the house so as not to cause you any danger.” Okay. My wife understood and I sat, my beard was long and stuff.

At dawn an explosion took place nearby. I went and opened the door to see that some young people destroyed ca... right across the street, cars of a man who was accused of cooperating with the Iraqis, one of those, whom you see now, people aa with no affiliation or anything.

A Kuwaiti?

I don't know but he wore a dishdasha and stuff, they blew up the cars. In a second the intelligence officers came and aa surrounded the area, the nearby area not the whole area.

What area exactly?

Aaa in Riqqa. I went out and stood by the door, wrapped in my cloak; that winter was severely cold, one of the detectives or intelligence officers, in regular clothes and stuff said to me, “salam.” He thought I was an old man, with a beard and stuff, I was 37 at the time, I saw Haitham the Assassin, whom I heard many stories about, and about how brutal he was, he tortured and and raped, his name was Haitham and I just heard about him, as if he were a legend, and I saw him, it turned out that he was at the Riqqa police station. I changed my location five times and the last place I was in was Riqqa.

Where were you before that? In Sha'ab and the…?

I was in Sha'ab, then Nuzha then aa in aa Sha'ab, Rumaithiya then Nuzha aa Yarmouk aa and Riqqa, those, I think, were the places or there might be another place that I’m not remembering now.

What was the moving around for?

The sense of danger, I mean, you remember when I told you that there was something called revolutionary cautiousness? A revolutionary person has that cautiousness, they read aa anything that happens and it wasn't easy because I wasn't alone; I had young children and a pregnant wife, you know.

So you saw Haitham the Assassin?

Haitham, yes, I saw him. I stood still, I kept standing because any move to get inside or close the door or something... I stood still for a while, you know. There were some poor young people, it seemed that they were the ones who did that. To keep suspicions away from them they came and said to the Haitham the Assassin, “we saw them going that way, they ran that way.” He said, “yes, yes,” and he called someone and said to him, “take them, they have statements, they have information to give.” I thought, “how naïve,” because those would be subjected to severe torture and perhaps they would be executed. Later on the intelligence agents left but the conversation, between them and that guy who was cooperating aa showed clearly that he was acting, because he was so bold and he didn't speak Kuwaiti dialect, I don't know what he was. After they left I thought it wasn't worth it to leave; should I leave at once, and here was the revolutionary cautiousness. That period passed and nothing happened because during those periods of curfew, the air strikes and so on mm my movements were few. I went to Hadiya, close by, to Nasser Buarki and there was another friend, whom I passed by sometimes and came back or when Nasser came to me for something and so on but I didn't go too far because the situation had become dangerous already so...

What was the situation like when the liberation aa became close?

There was a great tension, a great tension, particularly among the Iraqis; they were so afraid and so nervous and there were aa things they had heard, like that the Americans had lasers and had so and so, things they imagined, you know. Then the allied forces performed some maneuvers, some fearful ones, the Missouri battleship, when it shot its gigantic bombs, the houses shook and went like this. On the night of liberation I felt the houses aa the place, I was sitting on the rooftop and the house kept shaking by the strength of that, that scared them.

Where was the target?

I think on the coast or something like that, but not inside Kuwait so aa so there was a great tension, the Kuwaitis were afraid of something; the retreat was possible but during that retreat they might break into the houses, either to hide or to take whatever could be taken before they left and that actually happened in some places and they took cars too, they broke into the cars and took the... they drove them, they managed to deliver some and couldn't leave with some, aa on the road particularly with the huge strikes that took place in Mutla, it was a massacre of vehicles, people and so on. After the liberation I went to see the area there; tanks, vehicles and people, they'd already removed the... the dead bodies and the... ruins of the... things, you know a notebook where someone wrote and I don’t know what, many things were left there and I think I took something but I don't know where it is now, as a souvenir, you know.

During that period of retreat you said there had been arrests?

Ooh, those were random arrests, they got orders [he clears his throat] to arrest anyone on the streets, anyone. Peo... some people went to mosques, at the time, while they were going or in particular while leaving the mosque, they went out in big numbers, so each one would say, “I arrested a large number.” Most of the POWs were taken during that... that period, there were so many arrests at the time. But I can say that there was an experience, despite the short period, and knowledge of what might happen, you know, and there were warnings, for people, not to go out because this and that happened and that protected some people while some others, who were assured or had to go to the mosque or needed to go to the mosque, those were arrested, or someone, walking on the street, going to buy something, they captured him.

Aaa when the liberation took place aa where were you when you heard that Kuwait was liberated? [long Pause] mmm.

[Al Rujaib clears his throat]

When you heard that Kuwait was liberated where were…?

No, the night before the liberation the aa the Iraqi army was ordered to retreat, from the inside, by Saddam or someone else. That night… of course it was expected that within days something was going to happen, you know, because the strikes intensified and we heard news that such and such happened aa there were sounds, but strange sounds... the house I lived in was close to a main road.

What time was that?

Aaa late at night and aa you could hear the sound, sounds... the sounds of vehicles, but they sounded as if they had been moving towards the city, not the... I went up to the roof and there were strikes, strikes, strikes, strikes, the atmosphere was all strikes, particularly by the... that naval destroyer, you know, its sound was strong and loud and the cannons, so the bombardments grew intense. I ran up to the roof and looked to see the troops mm it seemed that those in the south were going north, they were esc... the tanks were moving in deep confusion; they collided, drove on the sidewalks then went down, it was a huge chaos, it was a chaotic retreat, so I realized it was a retreat and said to those in the house, “it's a retreat and stuff, no one goes out and take cover because they, for retaliation, might destroy anything or shoot anything.” They had already destroyed the oil wells and we saw the effect, you know.

When did that happen?

I don't know the exact date but the oil wells explosions were so late, you know.

How was that, I mean blowing up the oil wells?

It was... we heard exp... the explosions, I even recall I went out through the back door because the explosion was in that direction, you know, and indeed, in that direction there was black smoke coming up aa and kinds of the... a sound of explosion. While standing there I heard something buzzing by me, zzzzz, then it hit the wall. It was a shrapnel, a serrated shrapnel that flew by me. Imagine that, had I been just10 centimeters north of where I was standing, I would've been dead, you know. So we went inside. The strange thing was that, under the bombardments, things were normal; we sat and ate; aa lunch, aa breakfast or… and suddenly you heard a bomb, while we were sitting, it was normal, we got used to hearing the... the explosions. Let me continue about the retreat, I stayed and I had that gun of... with the phrase “li’ayoonich” (for your eyes or for your sake), I had engraved “li’ayoonich” on it.

Where did you get that gun from?

It was given to me by someone.

And you engraved on it?

Yes, it was an Iraqi gun, aa it was a Tareq, a Beretta 9 mm called Tareq, aa anyway I had one bullet so I kept watching, retreat, retreat and suddenly it rained. I kept standing there looking at the retreat, it didn't end, you know, it was a huge army and they were, for sure, retreating from everywhere. I sat and leaned back on the wall while those aa bombs, that destroyer made the house go like this [he laughs] and it came back…

Rocking?

Rocking, yes, and the rain kept falling lightly on my head, I fell asleep, holding the gun, I slept, I dozed off you know, then I woke up aa something suspicious, a strange quietness prevailed for a moment, I woke up to find no soldiers, no vehicles, nothing. Some of those who didn't know what was going on yet were there, mm some of them were in a trench, not realizing what was going on, they were even asleep, some of those who wanted to resist all by themselves, amm there was almost nothing. I even remember I was about to fire that shot for joy, you know, but I thought, “let me keep it, who knows, leave it for an emergency,” [he laughs]. Here, based on that idea I wrote the aa my collection A Bullet to the Chest of the North.

And and when did you hear that Kuwait was liberated?

It was being liberated before my eyes, and in the aa early morning there were voices of Kuwaitis outside, I went out with them. They targeted the trucks carrying soldiers, or the cars, and shot them, I didn't have a weapon so I asked them for a weapon and they gave it to me; so that I could mm take part in the shootings, the Iraqis were armed too and they could shoot and stuff. And the liberation, it was a liberation. Then gradually the troops began to get in aa from the outside, and the forces of the Gulf and others. The Arab forces, I mean the Egyptian, the Syrian were the last, it wasn't… the Gulf forces, for the morale, were first and the Kuwaiti of course was first and the… the American forces came later and the...

Where did they go? I mean were they in the neighborhoods or...?

The mm the...

The forces?

The foreign forces coming from the…? Yes, they went for... aa they had a specific place to go to, some went towards the desert and went towards Iraq, I mean they arrived there, and their leader was Schwarzkopf, who led them to there, aa I mean to the borders of Iraq, they entered Basra but they had instructions, from America; “stop, these are your limits,” and that was suspicious, it meant that they wanted Saddam to stay, he carried out certain agendas for them, so aa, then I drove the car and went to the police station. At the police station there were many people, women in abas, carrying guns and the flags of Kuwait, which they've been hiding. I thought those disappeared but I found the flags of Kuwait, guns and stuff, women in abas carrying them. Some were at the police station to see or something, and someone went out [he coughs] and said to the people, particularly the women, “don't you get in, it's atrocious in there with blood and women's hair.” All of a sudden Nasser Buarki came, with his car trunk loaded with Iraqi soldiers. Some people wanted to retaliate at them and wanted to kill them but we prevented them, “don't anyone touch them, just detain them and keep them at the police station.” Here I felt that my role was almost over so I went back home, put my children in the car and went to receive the forces getting in, I even recall the convoy stopped, it was the Omani army... I remember that moment and I hugged the aa... sorry.

No, no, no on the contrary, I can stop recording.

I'm not going to say a lot about the the liberation, I mean I went to see my mother, my mother had moved aa to Nuzha, to my uncle's house. I went but didn't find any one; there were leftover breakfast and and people went back to check on their homes. Then, a few days later, aaa of course there was a huge shortage of water and a shortage aa there was no electricity of course, we lived on candles or any form of light; those old lanterns amm there were no heaters of course because there was no electricity so we first used coal in stoves then we began to bring wood; we set fire to it outside then brought it in, for warmth because it was severely cold as I told you and aaa... Days later I went back to Sha'ab, to my flat. It was dark aa we stayed there with the kids and the newly born baby girl. I stayed there and the smoke started, you could even fin... find it on the furniture, on the walls and on the...

Because of the oil wells.

The oil wells.

The oil wells fires.

Yes, yes, at noon it looked like the night, because of the smoke, you walked in darkness.

Till I left Kuwait, in mid aa March, aa I left because my daughter started... the little one, to get sick because of the aa smoke and stuff and I feared for them, in fact, and huh my way out has a story too, in... in March, it was in Ramadan, at the time I mean, that was the liberation. Then you began to hear... and nothing had any meaning any more, there was nothing that had any meaning.

How long did that period, aa without electricity and water, after the liberation, last?

It lasted for a long time indeed, I mean I remember when I left aa Kuwait there was no electricity, you know, but those working, the young people working on the electricity and the employees, in the ministry of electricity, were keen on supplying it as soon as possible, and they did indeed. There was a shortage of water, mm for example, me, my kids and my wife shared a bucket of water, with which we all bathed, you know. After the liberation or when we left Kuwait, we had not bathed for about a month and our clothes were still winter clothes; I mean under the dishdasha there were those woolen underwear. The day we arrived at aa Bahrain, people were amazed at our clothes, I mean it was hot, it was hot in March, in mid-March and aa the road was dark, dark because of the smoke, I mean you used the high beams of the car. The liberation, I don’t know, it lost… nothing was worth it anymore as you could say, you know. Then we began to hear about the chaos and the acts of revenge and the people, who claimed to be with the resistance while they were not among the resistance; those killed Palestinian people and some of them aaa but a few of them, not aa they created chaos.

What was the reason behind those random acts of revenge?

I'm sure it was anger mmm because of the occupation and because of the cooperation of some Palestinians so it was like every Palestinian was a traitor, every so and so was I don't know what. It was like that and I'm sure that some of them were traitors, yes. I mean there was a Palestinian who was raised by a Kuwaiti military man and under the occupation he guided the Iraqis to him and they executed him, in front of his house, so there were some but there were people, I'm telling you, who worked well with the resistance and aa so the acts of revenge were ran... chaotic. You know there was no... and that's why the martial laws were imposed, I mean in Kuwait. Sheikh Sa'ad, may God rest his soul, as I recall, imposed martial law as there was also an assassination attempt on Hamad Al Yu'an; they fired at him, and there were attempts aa to kill some people, I mean some national symbols.

How did that stop?

Gradually, by imposing the aaa the military... the period of the martial law aa they took control, not the police or others. Then some... some units of the American army stayed in the areas, I mean stationed even in the residential areas, you know. What made me leave was the smoke and the chaos, that was taking place, nothing was good, I mean we hardly found gasoline and the so and so. Nevertheless we were willing to tolerate, I mean it wouldn't have been a problem, had everything been normal, I mean under the occupation things were almost stable, there was nothing aa so it was over and my daughter was a baby and aa so aa we decided to leave, of course even leaving was tough because you needed to get a permit and aa the permit was from the Minister of Defense. We needed that permit to show the people at the borders and thousands of cars were waiting to cross into Saudi Arabia, you know. So those were the acts of revenge and that was the chaos, it was a chaos. Then fire arms spread, weapons spread among the hands of irresponsible people, reckless people and people who aa didn't take into consideration national interests or realized the... aa and a total chaos prevailed, you know, and many of the people, who were steadfast here, aa left, I mean tried to leave.

You left Kuwait in March, where to?

We went to Bahrain, I mean many people for instance, went to aa went to Britain, went to Cairo and went... travelled to different destinations. During the occupation I got, from the friend, the great Bahraini activist poet Ahmed Al Shamlan, a hundred dollars. He said they were a donation from some young people but I knew they were from him, the poor man, I was... during the occupation my brother used to go to aa Baghdad to see the prisoners there, many of my family members were detained, my uncle, my cousins, many of my cousins, so many, you know.

And they returned after the aa?

Yes, yes, aa most of them were military personnel, the civilians aa no, it seems that they died as martyrs, I mean, because we heard even aa during the occupation, that they were severely tortured then they died so I asked my brother to send telegrams, he sent one of the telegrams to Ahmed Al Shamlan, because my wife's family were staying in Bahrain, saying, “we are fine, tell my wife's family that, so that they'd rest assured.” Of course in Bahrain they heard a rumor that I died and that was it, considering that... aa and I folded the hundred dollars and hid them in the… the wallet. When I first tried to leave, the first time, we went back because I discovered, while we were getting out, that I'd forgotten the gun, with which I slept tied to my leg, on me and that I had, in aa my pocket, a matchbox full of bullets and so they sent us back and we were sent back the following day, of course I left the gun but I forgot the aa bullets. When we arrived to the borders my wife discovered that she'd forgotten the feeding bottle of the... She saw in a car a woman feeding her baby, I said... she said to her, “will you give it to me, when you finish, to feed the boy? I forgot it,” and she said, “I have a spare one,” so that was good. We crossed and we arrived to Abu Hadria, it was the old Abu Hadria, on the road there were sheds aa groceries so we stopped. There were also fuel pumps, I used the hundred dollars to fill the car with gasoline and with the remaining I thought I'd go check the grocery. I went in and... Now what had we taken on the road? Usually when people travel to Bahrain, they take sandwiches and stuff but we had taken canned food because there was nothing [he laughs] they were cans of beans I remember, for the kids, should they get hungry on the road or something. I entered that primitive supermarket and ahhh bread, cakes, chocolate and I don't know what and the and aa the Kuwaiti cigarettes so I went back and said to my wife, “come.”

[Al Ali laughs]

“Leave the kids,” because, should they step out, it'd be a problem. And the amount of money I had was limited. She stepped in and it was like she found a treasure, taking this and that. I said to her, “don't take much, just take what's enough for the road because aa…” I took one packet. Great. We continued on the road, of course the car became run down because there were no workshops, no maintenance, nothing. When we arrived to the Bahrain bridge the inspector came, I stepped out of course and he and said, “open the trunk.” I opened it saying, “oh God, how beautiful Bahrain is!” As if I arrived to heaven. I have many friends in Bahrain, one of them is Al Shamlan, may God heal him. He said, “do you have any weapons, bullets or something?” I said, “no, no, I don’t.” While the bullets were in my pocket, I forgot about them. Then when I arrived I went to a friend's house, called my friends and they came. Some of them cried, for instance Salman Zeeman, the singer, cried when he saw me with a long beard and dirt, it's true that I was in a ghetra and iqal but you know. Moreover I was in heavy clothes while they were in T-shirts, I was... yes. I kept talking and talking and talking, the the stories didn't end, about the invasion of course, till the morning. Some of them slept on the floor and some of them left and some... Ahmed Al Shamlan, may God heal him, stayed, that great friend, and he said, “come.” He took me to his house and we went on talking, and I dr... drank coffee and Nescafe. Then he took me to his room and said, “get some rest now.” It was morning already so I slept. While I was asleep, not aware of anything, he took my measurements [he laughs] to make me a dishdasha or something; I had... I didn’t have any clothes, yes. When I got up, maybe in the afternoon, I showered and amazingly black water ran down my body, because of the... and he gave me the dish...the dishdasha, a ghetra and so on. Then his wife said to him, “put the clothes in a bag and we'll get rid of them, we don't know what’s in those clothes... germs or something.” And I had an infection, by the way, because of the aaa the weather and the dust.

Because of the oil wells?

The oil wells and I don't know what else. When they took me to a doctor he said, “you have an infection aa.”

In your lungs?

No, in the… the stomach, because of the food and drinks; the water was not clean and the food was polluted for sure and I spent about a month or two there, then the embassy began to distribute money among us. Things got better and they took me to make some dishdashas, and took me places. I began to get the car fixed and began to buy stuff for the kids and my wife stayed with her mother, because her mother was there. That was it, I preferred to go to Bahrain because I had friends there, although I could go to any place in the world, you know.

How long did you stay in Bahrain?

Two months, perhaps.

Then you came back to Kuwait?

Yes.

Aaa what was the situation like when you came back, in May?

There were aa ruins, I mean debris and so on of course. Aaa the buildings and I don't know what, parts of which were hit were still hit. The... mm the road, Al Nuwaiseeb Road, was dug by the Iraqi soldiers and so you couldn't go in a straight line but like this. On the way back it seemed that they refilled the holes but in a random way. But on the streets you could see the tank tracks, aa for instance aa the the round of a tank shot at the Sha'ab Palace... until now when you pass by the corniche you can see its traces are still there. Aa, the house, it was in Sha'ab, I mean everything was black and everything was… and we tried to wash, we tried so and so, the electric current was back, for a while and everything; there were lights and gas stations working. Those abroad began to return and and there was an internal feeling that we ran everything, I mean in the... Then people came, in white clothes and they were clean and stuff. They came from abroad, you know, and began to give us instructions, they wanted to run things, “don't touch this, don't do such and such.” That made us angry, I mean made those steadfast upset with those aa who were abroad particularly those who considered us [he clears his throat] backward. A lot of things were said about those, who were inside, being psychologically damaged, cooperating and so on, they were traitors and stuff. All things were said by some aa some people of course. Some appreciated the steadfastness and the willingness to sacrifice the lives for the aa the country, you know, but you could find types of people, of course.

Aaa you mentioned the psychological aspect, was there an attempt, by the state, to handle that matter?

You know, Sheikh Jaber ordered the establishment of the... Social Development Office, under the… its job was to treat such post traumatic situations and those who lost aa a son, a father and so on. But it turned, later on, into a place for personal benefits and those in charge of it began to steal and began to appoint their wives and began to… it has no role; it's still there but has no role. Even the therapists, who are there, are not competent enough, you know. It was an initiative by Sheikh Jaber to care for the psychological aspect but there should've been more, had there been awareness of the meaning of psychotherapy and the effects of such... even if they sought the help of people from abroad because the effect persisted, I mean you notice the effect, until now, on me and on many others too. The the matter wasn't easy, it wasn't easy and it wasn't aa… those who endured it were amazing and amazing were those who stayed steadfast; men, women aa old people, they were great, those people, because the matter wasn't easy at all. I mean we saw things were going; we ate, cooked aa baked, did things and invented things aa from nothing. Amm but something, deep within, accumulated, present in the subconscious, which surfaced, one way or another. Some people might've matured more than others, might've become more reckless perhaps, but the psychological effects are contradictory and different, you know, from one person to another and from one mind to another.

Aaa the period of re... rebuilding Kuwait, or let's say aa mm for the situation to become normal again, how was that period?

I can tell you that the aa reconstruction was very fast, fast and that is something aa one is proud of, Kuwait had to be back as it was before, you know. You couldn't say it was one hundred percent fine, I mean when was the last burning oil well extinguished? They spent a long time to extinguish it. The aa the aa distribution of food, even in the distribution of food there were thefts and stuff. To that extent there were different psyches. Amm but… but gradually things began to go back to normal. For example I spent the whole summer without going to work at Kuwait University, I stayed idle but later on my colleagues, who were with me in the… or at least one of them went, with the cleaners and so on, to help clean the place. The Iraqis destroyed the place, you know, so with the beginning of the yea... work, in general, in September, I went and things were a lot better although some remains stayed for years, aa some trenches, for instance, by the chalets and so on, some traces of trenches at schools and some other places but of course they tried, as much as possible, to remove the things and debris so quickly, even the remains of military vehicles and stuff were being removed. Weapons just spread in an unprecedented way, in the history of Kuwait and they are still out there and pose a danger. Some people died; either because of childish acts “why are you staring at me?” “Why am I staring at you?” Or because of stray bullets, at weddings and all that stuff, they were supposed to collect the weapons but they didn't.

So aa you said you had returned to work in September, what was the return to work and schools like?

Of course at aa schools two years were merged in one I mean to compensate for the lost year. Of course it wasn’t teaching in the right sense of the word; it was difficult to merge two years in one. They did their best. Aaa I don't know when the students began to register, I just began to see them, but in that year and the following year things began to become a little bit better. Then even the used cars shops opened and so on, so if someone's car was aa… my car, for instance, was a mess so I went and bought myself aa two new cars [he laughs] not brand new but used ones, you know. And our salaries returned, they sta... started to pay for the period starting from the liberation, I think, or something so one could pay for the installments and stuff. Anyway, we cleaned our house in Sha'ab, all over, so as to be able to live there and of course the old mattresses, pillows and all those we replaced and gradually we began to resume life once again, you know.

At the aa university or in schools aa many of the aa teachers had left, during the period of the...?

Yes.

Invasion, how was that compensated for?

There was a shortage but aa the Kuwaitis tried their best to cover the shortage and they also, I mean every ministry worked aa according to its duties, mm in a way and of course they opened their budgets so they could act, you know. I think they also brought teachers and... but everything happened gradually. In the university, many of the professors, some professors, heads of departments and deans, according to my colleagues in the university, cooperated (with the Iraqis) so they didn't come back. For example, let me give you an example, the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters was completely free of the aa the expats, whether big employees, consultants, or... there was still a few, and some Kuwaiti employees, so much so that we took a semi wing in the cabinet building, which was in Sulaibikhat, till they restored the cabinet building which was aa [he clears his throat] I mean there were partitions and a few employees, you know, I did some things then the council began to come back gradually.

The National Council?

Yes, it began to have the… so that the... even the political life had to come back and elections were held, for the first time again, in 1992. So Kuwait tried, as hard as possible, to restore its wellness. Kuwait airport aa the airplanes, mm what remained of them, and some were rented.

When did life return back to normal or let's say semi normal?

I think in 1992, I mean, significantly return, aa elections were back and so on, if I remember the picture before, in 92, I see how one moved normally and went around normally, just like before the aa invasion. But, there were things, certainly there were things, even some of the writings stayed for a long time aa on the walls, you know, aah, I think in 1992, I can say yes, it was...

I even remember aa that I, my wife, and Amani Bedah, Sanaa Al Qimlas and her younger sister, what was her name? Amal? Aaa we worked aa we established the communication and coordination committee, because the Democratic Forum was established and aa I was one of those who participated in the beginnings, I mean on the second or third day, after the liberation, we met as a group in Al Khateeb's diwaniyya and aa established that and established the circular which I think was called the “Voice of the People” or something. I wrote it and I also contributed to the documents of establishing the Forum. When the elections were held, in 92, some figures, from the Forum, ran in the elections under the name of the Forum. Among those were aa Sami Al Munais, [he clears his throat], Al Naibari, I think Ahmed Al Rubi and Ahmed Al Deen, were supposed to be with them, with them was Ahmed Al Rubi but Ahmed Al Rubi preferred... his representative was present but he worked all by himself, that was Ahmed's nature. I was the head of the cultural committee, at the time, then the head of the… Communication and Monitoring Committee, that was its name. The girls were with me in the flat and we received the calls and called aa our committees, to see the news of the elections, what happened, the votes and such things, so that was in 1992, I think…

And in 1992 you were working at Kuwait University?

Yes.

And when did you move to the National Council?

In 1993 aa I was nominated for the membership of the board of directors of the Kuwaiti Writers Association. In the Writers Association they were hesitant to run for the post; because some of them believed in the Ba'ath and Saddam Hussain and stuff, intellectually of course, but when the invasion took place, everyone stood against the... so they were embarrassed and I ran for the post. The headquarters were even taken by the Minister of Interior, it was destroyed and stuff, it was in Idailiya and in the Artists Association, in Kaifan, they had a hall, where they gathered, they were few in number and the number of members was about 50. I stood as a candidate and they welcomed me. Laila Al Othman joined me and I became in charge of the Cultural Committee and held the aa activities and Laila was with me, Laila insisted on being with me in the committee.

What kinds of activities, for example?

Aaa on Wednesdays, until this day, every Wednesday they have a seminar, we did that, we established many things aaa, any details you might think of, you know. One of the things, in Ramadan I recall, I suggested something called the First Culture Festival for Civil Society I went to the Graduate Society and to some societies and said we wanted to hold a cultural week, two weeks in fact, under the heading (The Culture Festival for Civil Society. Civil society organizations didn't have so and so and Kuwait was in a dire need for a cultural festival; culture was a vital element in restoring Kuwait. We must... we must know that what matters is not the economy and not politics but the culture indeed. I once heard, on the radio, during the occupation an interview with someone, perhaps from Brazil, I don't know where exactly he was from aa, perhaps from Arabic origins or... about the invasion and the occupation or the problem between Kuwait and Iraq and he said, “I don't know what the problem between them is or the reason of dispute but a country that produces all that amount of published materials - referring to Kuwait - is sure not aggressive.” I said, “look how culture gathered the people around Kuwait, it gave it a status.” So I believe in culture and its role. The societies agreed and the activities went on for two weeks with the participation of the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts, the Higher Institute of Musical Arts, the Arts Association, a book fair and so on, you know how the Qurain Festival is? That was a miniature version and it was a huge success with large crowds and it flourished. Someone attended the events and went and told...

Dr. Sulaiman Al Askari, he was the secretary general of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters. He sent for me and said, “mmm I'm going to hire you as a consultant, aa on a secondment from the university and I want you to arrange - aa of course the book fairs were poor aa they had nothing- activities parallel to the book fairs, like the ones you've held.” So I organized, over two weeks, the period of the book fair, the same events amm the Institute of Musical Arts, the Institute of Musical Arts aa lectures, seminars, aa paintings aa and many things, it was varied and rich, you know.

What were the topics of the seminars?

I don't remember now exactly but they…

They were related to…

They are recorded for sure.

The invasion or?

Maybe and maybe not. Maybe not, you know. I even remember, I think, Al Baghdadi, was one of them, I think Khaldoon Al Naqeeb, in fact I don't remember now; that was in 1993. Aaa Sulaiman Al Askari was pleased with that and said to me, “I need you to be the cultural director here.” I said to him, “no, let me stay at the university, it's far more comfortable for me and dealing with the students is so nice. I don't like to be an employee; with orders and I don't know what, with administrative matters, I don't like that.” He said, “no.” He insisted and put pressure on the department, at the university. He said, “okay, just this year.” I said to him, “okay.” He said, “I'm thinking about holding a cultural festival here.” I said, “oh, that'd be great.” He said, “it'd be a long one, for a month.” I said, “that'd be even better.” We were still in Sulaibikhat at the...

That was in 92, 93?

93, 94. He said to me, “aa, okay.” I began to work, all by myself, I didn't know, like the officials and employees, when this or that was, I didn't know so I kept working, by myself, making a schedule and planning for that... I spent a long time working then I showed him the aa plan and he said, “perfect.” We began to form committees aa and I said to him, “I got tired, I'm mm working day and night, I need someone to help me.” He assigned one female employee, to help me, and huh a very small office, even smaller than this room. We began, I mean it became something clear now. We held a meeting, Dr. Sulaiman Al Askari, Dr. Khaleefa Al Wuqqaiyan and I. He said, “aa we need to choose a name for the aa festival.” Aa Sulaiman Al Askari said, “aa let's call it Al Kuwait Festival.” I said, “no, this is a political name.” Khaleefa Al Wuqqaiyan said, “let's call it Al Kathma Festival” I said, “Kathma is fine but usually cultural festivals, in all capitals, are named after old and heritage cities, so I suggest we call it Al Qurain.” Mm I insisted and said “Al Qurain.” Sulaiman Al Askari didn't want to lose me so they agreed to Al Qurain Festival. Then, then we moved to aa the current headquarters of the council but there were no…

In the city?

Yes, but there were no air conditioners aa but I endured that but the poor employees who didn't... ah, they then appointed me as the cultural director.

So you moved from Kuwait University to the...?

Yes.

The National Council as a cultural director.

The director of culture and arts.

What year was that?

94, 95, I designed the logo for Al Qurain Festival; that figure raising a lamp and moving forward, in the colors of Kuwait, the flag of Kuwait [he clears his throat] and amm because I didn't have a big team and so on, Sulaiman Al Askari said to me, “ask some young people from KUNA for help.” I went and met Sumait, at the time he later on became the Minister of aa Information. I said to him, “I need some young people to do this and that.” And he sent me three young people or four, one of them was a girl, I remember. Those young people are now prominent; one of them is a professor at the university, another one has an architectural firm and one... I said to, one of them called Umran Dashti, I said to him, “this is the theme,” and I drew it for him so, excuse me.

Okay, aa my name is Reem Al Ali and and today is September 26. We are in Aladan, Kuwait. It's aa about Mr. Waleed, thank you for the interview.

Thank you.

Aaa, in the previous session aa we stopped at the year 1994, 1995, and you talked about Al Qurain Festival and mm Mr. Sulaiman Al Askari and Khaleefa Al Wuqqaiyan. We stopped at the point when you said you became the director of culture and arts at the National Council, will you tell me more about that period?

[He coughs] of course I gave you an idea about how the council approached me and aa when the matter of Al Qurain Festival emerged. That was the main reason for me being with the council. I worked on that matter very seriously and extensively, day and night, I was alone, without a team, you know. Aaa we established it and it was an amazing success, it was one of the longest festivals, over a whole month, with a variety of seminars, aa events, aa art exhibitions, musical arts, and so many things were there so it was rich. You know, after the invasion Kuwait was dry and needed to restore its sparkle. I personally think and believe, on the contrary, I mean what restored Kuwait, a huge part of what salvaged Kuwait from the invasion, of the liberation and what made people stand by Kuwait was the culture because, I didn't know if I told you or not, during the invasion, I was listening to the radio and I heard an interview with someone from Latin America, may be from Brazil, aa he was from Arabic origins and they asked him, “what do you think about what happened between Kuwait and Iraq?” He said, “I, we don't know what the problem between them is but it's impossible for a country, that produces that huge amount of published materials and that quality of printed materials, to be an aggressor.” Here I came to believe that culture was the core of Kuwait and the essence of Kuwait. Should you review Kuwait, over the last century, you'd find that culture was its foundation; because Kuwait had nothing, even the oil was not discovered, but it was known for culture and it continued as an important center for enlightenment, in the Arab world and renowned, all over the world, for that cultural aspect, which was the civilization aspect in it. Anyway, the first Qurain Festival was a huge success and of course it had to continue so they assigned that to me. I asked for a team and the team started with me but I was working on a one man show, that was the problem, I mean I didn't trust those working or didn't consider what they did important. Between you and me, the Kuwaiti young men and Kuwaiti young women didn't have the experience and they were not used to such an exhausting type of work either. It was unreasonably exhausting, I mean when Al Qurain Festival was concluded, we held it in January, we started in November I think then it continued to be held in January [he coughs] as soon as the month ended I began to prepare for the coming year, imagine that, a whole year of preparations, that was something. The second, third and fourth festivals were held and, on the contrary, the intellectuals and thinkers, from outside Kuwait began to say, “invite us to Al Qurain Festival,” they wanted that. I even remember the singer, Nawal, Nawal Al Kuwaitia, I don't know which, mm which festival, I mean which session, I phoned her to ask her to participate in the festival and she said, “I've been waiting for this call for a long time.” So I always had that faith and certainty that that festival would attract artists, thinkers and intellectuals in general. Visual artists came from all over the world and the Arab world. It was sophisticated indeed and went on that aa... I continued till the seventh season aa and in 2001 an important cultural event took place; Kuwait aa in 2001 became the Capital of Arab Culture and I was charged with preparing for that year. I prepared and organized a program for a whole year, an integrated program for a year, non-stop, I mean instead of one month it became for a whole year aa of heavy activities, or you can call it, or as Ahmed Al Adwani called it, “heavy cultural industry” the aa you know the heavy industry, the industry that manufacturers industry... aa and I really worked. Here one of the obstacles for Al Qurain Festival was that the ministers changed quickly and aa unfortunately the National Council was, and still is, under the Minister of Information and the Minister of Information is not always interested in culture or even does not always understand culture but aaa those changes caused changes in the attitudes of the ministry, I mean there were very respectful ministers who said, “do your job, you know it well and whatever you need I'm here to provide.” Like aa Sheikh Saud Al Naser, may God rest his soul, he was wonderful, I mean at least from my point of view, because when we began to work he said for example, “you understand these things, just tell me what you want,” and we asked for a budget for Al Qurain Festival, he went to the Cabinet and with his special relationships too, with Sheikh Sa'ad, may God rest his soul, he asked for a budget and support and then Sheikh Sa'ad became a sponsor, he was the Prime Minister and Crown Prince, so he provided... he provided us with the suitable atmosphere for that. Even when I activated the State Rewards they were... just decrees in the drawers, mm no one made them effective, you know, I was charged with that too and activated them. He also asked, aa and because he didn't know the matters of aa culture, aa arts and creativity, he said... for instance we had an award for stories and an award for novels, he said, “what's the difference between a story and a novel? They seem the same,” and I explained to him that this had its artistic conditions and that was so and so and he said, “I'm sorry I don't know about such things but that doesn't mean that I object.” While some ministers came objecting and saying, “no, remove this and add that.” Moreover, when the members of the National Assembly interfered, problems started to happen and between you and me their influence, back then, wasn't like it is now; their influence was less before and we didn't fear it, we proposed a project and as long as the minister was supporting us we didn't have a problem.

And have you faced...

[Al Rujaib coughs]

aaa problems with the mm censorship, the topics you tackled or the individuals?

Aaa no in fact, I mean censorship on books was under the Ministry of Information, not the National Council, aa the activities... I don't recall there were any objections to them at all, you know. Before that some orchestras came and presented a symphony and we presented symphonies aa ballet, for example, wasn't there but I remember, in Al Andalus cinema, within tourism promotion, in the 1960s and 1970s, mmm things of that kind, the… they were all sophisticated things, a concert, a piano concert, a Mozart concert and I don't know what aa things like that and they didn't object to those. Even the seminars, they were very serious seminars, from the cultural point of view, with the participation of some of the most important Arab thinkers and minds.

Aa like who or what were the serious topics you mentioned?

The topics I don't remember now of course, you know, but they are available, by the way, in a book, printed by the National Council, which collects the seminars held, the papers published and even the dialogues I think. No, I mean someone like Mahmoud Ameen Al Alem, may God rest his soul, a mm prominent figure and many others like him came too, you know. In addition, one of the things we did, for example at the time, was inviting TV stations to aa cover the events. Aa Kuwait TV was supportive and aa telecast the parties, for instance, live. But among the difficulties we faced was the lack of theaters. The theater, the largest theater we could use, was that of private institutes, I mean unfortunately the Jaber Center wasn't there, nor was there even mm the Abdul Husain Abdul Reda theater, all those were not established yet, you know. We even held some of the activities in small theaters, I mean we had the Dasma Theater and the Kaifan Theater aa those were not mm considered large theaters. But Al Qurain Festival was a chance to promote the aa cultural movement with plays, songs, concertos and many other things, you know, in Kuwait, the Capital of the Arabic Culture, we worked and we did our best.

Do aa you remember some of the people you worked with?

Many, I mean Muhammed Al As'ousi, for example, was one of the main employees I counted on, you know, and many others, in fact I can't remember now. And aa most of the council employees, at the time, and sometimes we used the help of some people from the outside too. Amm I mean the Public Relations did the public relations and we divided them into teams, the team grew, you know, I started all by myself then a huge and specialized team was formed, a team for parties, a team for aa the public relations, a team for information and so on. Okay, I'm a person who cannot do without work, you know, and I'm specialized in social services which is the modern science derived from psychology, okay but now what I did, at the university, and what I studied was something traditional, I mean not the thing which is... and through my research I saw new things happening in the world, you know.

So I decided to work in, I mean to start a clinic and work aa in helping people. And I went to the United States, mm I knew hypnosis, I knew it but I went and got certified in it. I also got the board and professorship degrees in aa the science of hypnosis and wrote a book titled the Art and Science of Hypnosis aah, I also took, aa listened to lectures and stuff and went to conferences to stay up to date that field. I had the background but I acquired a lot of things and when I came back and started the clinic, in 2002, it became aa it was something new for the... for Kuwait, of course not only do people feel embarrassed to go to a psychiatric clinic but also the things discussed were strange too, you know.

Like what?

Like hypnosis, for instance, is hypnosis haram or halal? Aaa the Department for Legal Advice and Legislation, because their people be... began to learn about hypnosis, said, “no, it's halal.” Hypnosis damages “in hypnosis they give you an anesthetic injection.” You know how things in the movies about hypnosis are? The… as if it is magic or hocus pocus, you know and people had misunderstandings. Of course there are still folk concepts about hypnosis, funny things, you know, but I went on, I went on till this moment in the... Of course tens of psychiatric clinics appeared aa and people became... I mean generations came to life, people who know me and are still with me, since those years and some no, they are new and some and bec... because I don't know how to market myself, this is the problem particularly with those aa new means of communication so… but I'm still in the field and still in literature too, I mean, on the contrary, I might... the council took most of my time and I couldn't publish except two, two or three books, perhaps, during the eight years I spent in the council, but when I retired, no, every year I publish a novel or a work aa so as not only to make up for the… [he laughs] I have a lot in memory storage so I want to write, you know. Since that day, till today, I mean from 2008 aa every year a book is published, they are about 20 books now and I think they are few considering my career, nevertheless it's something reasonable, I mean considering the aa discontinuation that took place and that I'm somewhat slow, I mean in my choices and writing and aa as I told you, I'm very unhurried, you know.

Aaa before we move to literature…

Yes.

Aaa let's go back to hypnosis for a moment, aa do you remember any mm stories that happened in the clinic, or something you'd like to mention about this?

The stories are so many, you know, first of all the results were amazing, of course, so the people aa, particularly during the first five years of work, aa the reputation was in the aa not only in the Gulf but also in some of the Arab countries; I even remember clients who came to me from Egypt, clients from Syria, those big capitals, you know. So many things, then there's something, you may know of, which is past life. Past life, I hold past life sessions and those were so popular among people and they came for them [he laughs] from all over, I mean they came from Saudi Arabia, a Salafi, who wanted to know what he was in a past life, you know. Despite being a therapeutic method people came out of curiosity to find out what they were in the aa in the past and… and I didn't find much objection, you know, particularly that I didn't talk much about it or brag about it so no one knew a lot about it. Reiki for example, I studied Reiki mmm within the Usui curriculum, I mean my name is in the lineage of Usui, my name is on the tree, I didn't just take one of those courses which... It became popular among people, particularly among Kuwaiti men and women who knew it, who knew energy healing and went to Switzerland, I think or some other countries, to take the sessions, then they found out that no, it was available here in Kuwait. Those were new things; there are some modern methods [he coughs] which relieved people, I mean within the old aa methods I asked the patient, “how was your relationship with your father and mother like? How were you as a child?” And so on. I’m not like that. Someone might come and say, “I suffer from anxiety,” and I went straight for anxiety to treat it directly. Later on, maybe in the second or third session perhaps, some other issues start to surface. Mmm my session lasts for a full hour and to record I didn't use the over the top fabrication used before and even what we taught at the university where they wrote a lot and used a lot of papers, I never did that, you know, it's just one line or even one sentence, just to know what happened and what was supposed to happen and aa no one could read what I wrote because the principle number one is secrecy, in the profession I mean, so many things happened in the… someone might come to me and go, “I challenge you to hypnotize me,” and I say, “I don't want to challenge you, it's up to you, if you want me to hypnotize you I will. This is not... not magic, to do it against your will.” Someone else might say, “I know what hypnosis is, you planted an injection, in the chair to prick me, I don't know, to sedate me,” many things, “yes, you want to bring out the spiritual double in me, I don't know what.” What’s that? Of course no one talks like that now, people are more aware now. There are many strange stories but I forgot them, you know.

Mmm let's move now, aa if you like, to literature, mm but where exactly shall we start from?

[He sighs] It started with my relationship with Ismail Fahad Ismail, for the first time, in 1973, aa and when I was a child I had some tendencies; I painted sometimes, I played music sometimes and sometimes I don't know what… I didn't know what my tool was, my tool to deliver a message to the recipient. Till I finally settled on writing stories. Of course I attempted to write a novel when I was fourteen mm but I didn't finish it.

What was it?

It was titled The Cheerfulness of Youth. But I was fourteen, you know, there was a very positive thing, that was the imagination and what was stored from reading, coming out on paper. Something else was the lack of experience so I kept... then I wrote the novel Badriah which stirred a very very huge fuss and was banned in Kuwait at first.

In which year was Badriah?

Aaa in 1988 or 1989 perhaps, I don't remember [he coughs] I was questioned, at the Ministry of Information, “what do you mean with that character? What do you mean with these words? What do you mean with this and that?” I have a novel titled Having Said That about the Jews of Kuwait... you know that from about the year 1800 Jewish families began to come to Kuwait, from Iraq, from Iran and from India too. From Pakistan and India, so… Pakistan didn't exist at the time. So those were Arabs and Indians, Arab Jews, and they lived in Kuwait, about 150 families, among those were Saleh Al Kuwaiti and his brother Da'wood. I wrote about a young man, a Jewish boy who had a Muslim friend, of the same age and the and the Sunni Muslim aa his name was Da'wood, I think, or Mousa, his name was Mousa, and the other boy’s name was aa I don't know what. How could you write about the Jews? Jews, this society doesn't acc... tolerate the Jews. Aaa they were here and my grandmother lived arounr them and so and so did too and [he laughs] some people, a little bit older than me, were responsible for destroying the aa Jewish synagogue in Kuwait, breaking the candelabra and tearing the book and the... which were there…

Where were those?

You know where the banks complex in the city now? The building behind, which is a parking building, called the Kuwait Market or something, I think aa there, in that area, I mean close to the Stock Market aa to that area. They gave Sheikh Yousef Ibn Isa the key to the synagogue, when they began to leave Kuwait and said, “we want you to protect it because we're coming back for sure.” Sheikh Yousef Ibn Isa was a wise man, he was a man of religion, a judge and everything, I mean he was renowned in Kuwait. He took the keys and hid them, see how tolerance was before while the aa Kuwaitis now, aa some of them, or one might say now, which is so trivial, “the Jews were frauds, they aa falsified and stuff. They spread prostitution and sold alcohol.” All those things were not true, they are not true, because the real Kuwaitis, who lived at the time, ate with them, went to school with them and dealt with them. Yes they were mmm a closed community, which was natural by all means, there are some Kuwaiti families who are the same.

You tackled this topic in the novel What's After?

The novel Having Said That.

Having Said That?

Yes.

And mm what other topics did you t tackle in your novels? Were they about the same sensitive issues or…?

No, not necessarily, I mean among the sensitive topics I have three novels, currently banned, one of them is the one where I talk about the past life, but it's not banned because of the past life.

What is that novel?

It's titled Love is not Destroyed nor Created Out of Nothing, I'll get you a copy if you want. That was banned because I talk, in it, about diseases which people either don't know of or refuse to admit to; those are sadism and masochism. You know that a sadist is the one who loves to hit in order to enjoy, their pleasure is to torture others while a masochist is the one who enjoys being tortured by others. Those things are related to the sexual pleasure and that's the problem. Aaa people came to me in the clinic, more than once, like that, I mean a woman might come with her face mm full of scratches with blood all over and stuff. When I say to her, “your husband is such and such…” They wouldn't... they wouldn't even admit it or they sometimes don't know about it in the first place. So in order to write about that matter and for it to further reach the public I wrote it in the form of a novel, a study wouldn't be read, so I wrote it in the form of a novel. Of course when you write, in a form of a novel, you have… you must write some details, I mean sexual details; I'm against aaa obscenity in literature and vulgarity in writing about sex aaa but I had to write almost that way aa because I wanted to clarify that subject. Some of the readers, even those who admire me, objected, “how could you write that way?” And the novel was banned, it's one of the banned novels, you know.

Is it still banned?

Yes, aa the... there's a novel, which I like very much, a soaring one, it's titled The Day Following Yesterday. Where I talk about love between two old people, it has sophistication and it talks about culture, music and stuff, aaa there are many novels; I have a novel titled Mystique which talks about an incident that took place, part of which is real and another part, no, is not real. There was aaa a well that burned, an oil well, in the sixties perhaps and I connected it to someone accused of being behind it. The novel covers a time span of three hours, the three hours spent looking for that person, it was something different.

Aaa you mentioned that three novels were banned, you said mm Love is not Destroyed, what other novels were banned?

The novel the Call and Who’s Behind the Wall?

The Call, why was it banned?

It sure had a kiss or something, they all wrote “it’s against public interest.” Badriah, despite being allowed, is still removed every year from the fair, they take it away considering it banned, they are not up to date [he laughs] for the… the information, although it's been allowed since the nineties.

When the Call or Who’s Behind the Wall? was banned, did you get an explanation or...?

No, no.

Or the reason why?

No, unfortunately. They refused, I mean I remember Badriah, in particular, for being perhaps the first Kuwaiti work to be banned [he laughs] I don't know. Aaa I said to them, “why was it ban... banned? Why banned?” They said, “it's against the public interest.” I said, “okay, what is the public interest? So I won't do that again.” They said, “we are more aware of the public interest.” I said, “okay, give me a statement that shows this.” They said, “no, we don't give statements.” It was just like that.

Mm how did you feel, as a writer, when your works were banned?

I didn't care because when they banned Badriah it got so unbelievably popular, not only in Kuwait, but also all over the Arab world. In Kuwait [he clears his throat] they distributed it in photocopy; all the university students, all the university professors, all the people of the Research Institute, it was like that. Of course it got popular in Bahrain very well, in Saudi Arabia, in Cairo, in Lebanon, I mean almost everywhere and all the critics wrote about it, all over the Arab world, from Morocco and Algeria to Bahrain, Oman, aa Qatar and everywhere. So aa now I don't care, I just write, I mean many things have changed for me, you know.

Like what?

Like, for instance, I write for myself now, in the past one was young and cared about the opinions of the critics; what they would say and stuff, it was a problem and I used to get nervous when I read what a critic had written but now it doesn't matter, mm aa I write and I want to enjoy while writing and I care a lot about the opinion of the reader with taste, the average reader with taste, I care a lot about their opinion and I enjoy when I hear their opinion aa but I don't care about the... any more. The other thing is that I used to spend a very long time writing before; I mean I used to spend ten to twelve hours a day writing and I got depleted. The following day, when I wanted to write, I didn't feel like it and that's why, until now, I have half-finished novels, not finished but not now; now I might write a page or a paragraph or something, it doesn't matter so some novels I finish in 45 days. With experience, you know, I gained some experience so aa and as I told you, many things have changed in me, things like those, you know, I just write to enjoy.

Aaa how did the topics change, let's say from the eighties to the period after the invasion?

In the eighties the class concept was evident in my writings; class conflict was there, which reflected my own ideas, the exploited man and exploiting man and the and the workers, those were clear with me but not now; the thought is there but you find it common in public life, even in love relationships, the developed progressive thinking, not the… the conservative thinking, it's not a Kuwaiti soap opera, you know, so those changed, changed. Then with age, experience, readings and stuff, things are not the same any more.

And how did the invasion period affect your writings?

Aa I wrote A Bullet to the Chest of the North, a collection and I was affected while writing it, aa in fact I get affected with every novel I write but A Bullet to the Chest of the North was… I mean I wrote it in 1991, 1992. It was published in 92, almost directly after the... the liberation so the wound was still fresh and still bleeding, you know, and it won the award of the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences, A Bullet to the Chest of the North.

And and in the period of, let's say, the... mm in this period, what are the things you want to concentrate on the most, in your writings?

Aah, I want to concentrate more on love aa that moves my feelings when I write. Mm there... I mean in fact I don't mean to concentrate on it but I just like to write that way, I feel it's so good. Now in my last novel, which I haven't sent to the publishing house, I talk about Funtas, in early periods, when electricity first appeared; how the company started, as a public electricity company and about someone who is fond of learning about electricity and wiring and stuff, his name is Ajeel. It has that too, so I think it's nice, I think. It's short, not so long, mm it's not about love and stuff but it has something from my own past too. In the past we used to go Funtas a lot, there were farms and the farms were enchanting, amazing, I mean you got up at dawn to hear the sounds of birds and stuff. There were trees, greenery, alfalfa, lettuce, radish, and I don't know what and many birds aaa and the buckthorn trees, it was very beautiful and there were tales about such topic, because Funtas was a village and perhaps the most beautiful tales are in the... I don't know [he laughs] the most beautiful tales are in the villages and the city has its tales too.

Aaa is there anything else you'd like to add? At the end of the interview?

The end of the interview? I'd like to thank you, I mean, thank you for your patience and tolerance with me, and I apologize for being too late, aa my intentions were not ill, indeed, I don't know, it just happened like that. Thank you for something very important too, for letting me flow, I let out what I have, there are things that I forgot, a long time ago, and things that were suppressed, I mean I'm like someone who has tales, full of tales and just needs someone to listen [he laugh] so, yes, thank you, that was so nice and I'm sure that there are still things left because it’s like a feeling... not everything was let out, there's still something there but the... interviews have limits of course and relationships have limits too thank you.

Thank you, Sir, thanks.