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With the prime minister refusing to acknowledge the protestors’ demands, more extensive rallies were held in September 2011 following what was dubbed ‘People’s Day’ when banners were unfurled calling for an elected prime minister with no connection to the ruling family. Chanting ‘the people want to topple the prime minister’, and claiming that more than $350 million of public funds had been used to buy off MPs, protestors argued that Kuwait needed to be transferred urgently from being ‘a family state into a state of the people’. In particular they proposed that Kuwait became a constitutional monarchy, with the ruling family stepping out of government and only retaining the ceremonial posts of emir and crown prince.[922] Most dramatically, in mid-November dozens of activists broke into the parliamentary building where they began singing the national anthem, while thousands reportedly marched on the prime minister’s house.[923] With a government spokesmen having describing the protestors as ‘traitors who aim at toppling the regime’[924] and with the ruler having publicly stated that he would not dismiss the prime minister or dissolve the parliament, it appeared that the emirate had reached an impasse. Indeed, amid a crackdown on those who took part in the marches and the arrests of dozens of activists, the ruler told the opposition that ‘you held demonstrations and insulted people, using expressions that are alien to the Kuwaiti society’ and stated that ‘what happened was a crime against Kuwait and the law will be fully applied against those who stormed the parliament. We will not forgive’.[925]

Yet by the end of November and just days after the ruler’s condemnation the prime minister finally resigned, following the largest protests ever seen in a Gulf monarchy — since dubbed the ‘Kuwaiti Spring’. Claiming that he wanted ‘to comply with the national interest’ and was responding to ‘the danger the situation had reached’,[926] the prime minister had clearly become an unacceptable liability for the ruling family and the wider power elite in Kuwait. Given the public humiliation incurred by the ruler in having so speedily to make a u-turn, the episode has greatly tarnished the legitimacy of the ruling family. Moreover, even though the new prime minister[927] is also a member of the ruling family and is similarly unelected, having been the former minister for defence, a fresh parliamentary election held in February 2012 saw opposition blocs making significant gains and winning the majority of seats.[928] This led to renewed investigations of corruption and further calls for an elected prime minister and a constitutional monarchy. An attempt was also made to block the government’s proposed $111 billion four year spending plan, on the grounds that it was ‘unrealistic’.[929]

United Arab Emirates: opposition emerges

As another small, wealthy state the UAE has yet to face street protests, however its seven ruling families are now finally being challenged directly by citizens, some of whom are publicly calling for regime change. This is because the UAE currently suffers from some of the heaviest restrictions on free speech and the media in the region, and there has been mounting frustration among the more educated sections of the population, especially with regards to corruption, lack of transparency, human rights abuses, and some of the government’s more questionable policies. Moreover, as discussed, there is a widening wealth gap in the UAE and not all of its national population are being provided with adequate economic opportunities. This is leading to many of its less educated citizens — especially in the northern emirates — also beginning to voice their discontent. Thus, even though the UAE embarked on a massive Saudi-style spending splurge in the wake of the Arab Spring in order to appease the national population, this has not always been enough, with 2011 and 2012 witnessing the unprecedented detaining of dozens political prisoners along with a marked tightening of civil society.

The roots of the UAE’s most serious Arab Spring challenges and the current opposition movement date back to summer 2009 when a number of activists, including university students and bloggers, launched a discussion website entitled www.uaehewar.net. Soon visited by thousands of UAE-based internet users, and featuring hundreds of posts — almost all in Arabic, and almost all by bona fide UAE nationals — the site quickly gained a reputation as being the best place to put forward grievances, challenge the authorities, and discuss the country’s future. Within weeks, very lively debates were taking place on many issues including the growing personal wealth of the ruling families and the sustainability of some of the UAE’s overseas investments and prestige projects. By January 2010 the website’s most controversial debate was gathering pace, with thousands of users reading posts about the acquittal of an Abu Dhabi ruling family member who had been accused of torture and sodomy.[930] Most of the posts stated the concerns of UAE nationals over the application of the rule of law to the ruling families and the broader impact of the verdict on the UAE’s international reputation. Within days UAE-based visitors to the site were no longer able to gain access it, being greeted with a peculiar ‘server problem’ message appearing when they tried. Moreover, one of the state-backed telecommunications companies[931] asked website owners to identify themselves to help solve ‘technical issues’.

Unable to block the website outside the UAE, www.uaehewar.net survived well into 2011, with mirror sites being used to allow UAE-based users to keep accessing its contents. Discussions included the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, the lack of a proper UAE parliament, and the shortcomings of the UAE’s rulers. The website’s most accessed thread was entitled ‘The Paradoxes of Muhammad bin Zayed’s Policies’, referring to the Abu Dhabi crown prince.[932] Emboldened by Mubarak’s fall and the Bahrain demonstrations, in March 2011 the website’s founders along with many other activists began circulating petitions which were eventually forwarded to the ruler of Abu Dhabi.[933] One of these, signed by 130 intellectuals, demanded a fully elected parliament and universal suffrage, and asked that the UAE worked towards becoming a constitutional monarchy that was committed to human rights and other basic principles. One signatory, Nasser bin Ghayth — a prominent UAE academic and an adjunct lecturer at the Sorbonne’s Abu Dhabi campus — had also blogged about the Gulf monarchies’ stance on the Arab Spring, and the strategy of distributing wealth in order to achieve political acquiescence. He stated that ‘they [the Gulf monarchies] have announced benefits and handouts assuming their citizens are not like other Arabs or other human beings, who see freedom as a need no less significant than other physical needs’, before moving on to explain ‘…they use the carrot, offering abundance. But this only delays change and reform, which will still come sooner or later…. No amount of security — or rather intimidation by security forces — or wealth, handouts, or foreign support is capable of ensuring the stability of an unjust ruler’.[934]

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922

126. Agence France Presse, 17 September 2011.

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923

127. BBC News, 16 November 2011.

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924

128. Agence France Presse, 17 September 2011.

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925

129. Gulf News, 21 November 2011.

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926

130. BBC News, 28 November 2011.

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927

131. Jabar Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah.

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928

132. BBC News, 3 February 2011.

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929

133. Bloomberg, 26 April 2012.

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930

134. The Guardian, 10 January 2010.

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931

135. Referring to Etisalat.

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932

136. See Davidson, Christopher M., ‘The Strange Case of the UAE’s WWW.UAEHEWAR.NET’, Current Intelligence blog, 15 November 2010.

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933

137. Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan.

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934

138. Foreign Policy, 14 April 2011.