KUWAIT CITY, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- Granting full political rights to women has given a strong political boost to Islamist forces in Kuwait, the first woman to serve as a cabinet minister there said.
The Kuwaiti government and parliament recently pushed through full voting rights for women. Now, Dr. Masouma Al-Mubarak sits in the Kuwaiti parliament as its first woman member as well as serving as the tiny, oil-rich emirate's Minister of Planning and Minister of State for Administrative Development Affairs
"I am the first woman minister in Kuwait and being the first is a burden. But I'm doing OK," Al-Mubarak wryly told a group of visiting American journalists.
The Bush administration is energetically pushing Arab nations throughout the Middle East to follow Kuwait's example by empowering their female populations to take a far more active role in democratic political processes.
But Al-Mubarak warned that in the short term at least, extreme Islamist movements were far better organized and in far better position to mobilize support among women in the region than secular, liberal and pro-Western political organizations.
"Facts and experience make me pessimistic" about political trends among women voters in the region, she said.
In Kuwait, "Islamist groups who opposed women's right to vote are now in the forefront of registering women voters as they expect them to overwhelmingly vote for them," she said.
The Islamist groups were much more energetic and organized in developing their grassroots political organization to reach the new women voters than pro-Western secular reform groups were, she said.
Al-Mubarak said that she and fellow reformers in the progressive government of Prime Minister Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah remained committed to democratic progress and did not welcome this development. "We are praying not for more (religious) conservatism for we need change in society," she said. "We need to convince Kuwaiti women that more conservative laws are not in their favor."
Women in Kuwait tended to be more conservative in their political views than men, Al-Mubarak said.
Her comments came after the Muslim Brotherhood shocked Bush administration policymakers by showing surprising strength in Egypt's parliamentary elections last week.
Although the U.S. government is pushing hard for the improvement of women's rights throughout the Middle East, the drive for full political emancipation for women in what had always been a tolerant and cosmopolitan, but also very socially conservative society, was a direct result of the role women played in Kuwait's great defining crisis of modern times -- its conquest and occupation by Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi army in 1990 and its liberation by U.S. forces and a huge Arab and international coalition in the first Gulf War in early 1991.
"This is something that happened from within," Al-Mubarak said. "We demanded it from within. It did not happen as a result of external pressure from outside the country. We demanded it from within for many years. And we deserve to have the credit for it."
The example of Margaret Thatcher, Britain's prime minister from 1979 to 1990, who pushed for the liberation of Kuwait after the Iraqi invasion, was also a powerful and inspiring example to Kuwaiti women in their drive to win full political rights, Al-Mubarak said.
"Mrs. Thatcher is Mother Thatcher to us," she said. "For us, she and the first President (George Herbert Walker) Bush were our rescuers. They are our heroes."
Kuwaiti Prime Minister Al-Sabah had championed political reform for women, Al-Mubarak said. But ironically, precisely because of the existing democratic and consultative nature of Kuwaiti society, he had been forced to move much more slowly than he would have preferred because of opposition and concern over the reforms among Kuwaiti men.
Even now, "When I get up to speak in parliament, I know there are people sitting behind me who are waiting for me to make some slip and make a fool of myself," Al-Mubarak said.
Al-Mubarak said she was optimistic about prospects for peaceful and constructive reform in neighboring Saudi Arabia.
"King Abdullah (bin Abdelaziz) is leading Saudi Arabia in a far more progressive direction. There are lots of indications there," she said. "Now, Saudi Arabia is a far more open society. That is good. And you do not want them to move too fast either. That would risk causing an explosion."
Intelligent, articulate, witty and well-briefed about her portfolios, Al-Mubarak said she was typical of Kuwaiti women in her education, confidence and outspokenness
"Here in Kuwait we are really proud of our democratic activities," Al-Mubarak said. "Nobody in parliament plays it quietly. Everyone speaks loudly, firmly, forcefully and frankly. We speak our minds."
