Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Saudi Arabia. The Red Fort at Al-Jahra, was the site of a famous battle in which the
Kuwaitis put up a spirited defence. They also hurriedly constructed a new city wall, the
gates of which can be seen today along Al-Soor St in Kuwait City. In 1923 the fighting
ended with a British-brokered treaty under which Abdul Aziz recognised Kuwait's inde-
pendence, but at the price of two-thirds of the emirate's territory.
The Great Depression that sunk the world into poverty coincided with the demise of
Kuwait's pearling industry as the market became flooded with Japanese cultured pearls.
At the point when the future looked most dire for Kuwait, however, an oil concession was
granted in 1934 to a US-British joint venture known as the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC).
The first wells were sunk in 1936 and by 1938 it was obvious that Kuwait was virtually
floating on oil. WWII forced KOC to suspend its operations, but when oil exports took off
after the war, Kuwait's economy was launched on an unimaginable trajectory of wealth.
In 1950, Sheikh Abdullah al-Salem al-Sabah (r 1950-65) became the first 'oil sheikh'.
His reign was not, however, marked by the kind of profligacy with which that term later
came to be associated. As the country became wealthy, health care, education and the gen-
eral standard of living improved dramatically. In 1949 Kuwait had only four doctors; by
1967 it had 400.
Independence
On 19 June 1961, Kuwait became an independent state and the obsolete agreement with
Britain was dissolved by mutual consent. In an act of foreboding, the President of Iraq,
Abdulkarim Qasim, immediately claimed Kuwait as Iraqi territory. British forces, later re-
placed by those of the Arab League (which Kuwait joined in 1963), faced down the chal-
lenge, but the precedent was not so easily overcome.
Elections for Kuwait's first National Assembly were held in 1962. Although represent-
atives of the country's leading merchant families won the bulk of the seats, radicals had a
toehold in the parliament from its inception. Despite the democratic nature of the constitu-
tion and the broad guarantees of freedoms and rights - including freedom of conscience,
religion and press, and equality before the law - the radicals immediately began pressing
for faster social change, and the country changed cabinets three times between 1963 and
1965. In August 1976 the cabinet resigned, claiming that the assembly had made day-to-
day governance impossible, and the emir suspended the constitution and dissolved the as-
sembly. It wasn't until 1981 that the next elections were held, but then parliament was dis-
solved again in 1986. In December 1989 and January 1990 an extraordinary series of
demonstrations took place calling for the restoration of the 1962 constitution and the re-
convening of parliament.
