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Perhaps I'll go about this year in review backwards. I ran the Kuwait Human Rights Mapup for 7 months until a couple of weeks ago when I was told to stop. We produced 3 maps and did a number of field trips. The last map I made was this, about the issue of countries banning citizens working in the Gulf States as maids. It was great whilst it lasted, we did a number of field trips to maid agency malls, had 10+ meetups involving people from Kuwait and many other nationalities. A princess even came!
We did a hospital visit to a woman who we were told was bashed and dumped there by her owner. When we visited her though the story changed dramatically. She said her passport was destroyed by another maid in the house so this woman's daughter could come to Kuwait in her place. Long story short, after she went to the police they took her to the hospital as she had cancer. Confusing, but showed that not all people, including the police, treat domestic workers badly here. Now that I've stopped doing that I'm feeling at a loose end since we were meeting weekly and I made many friends through the group.
It's interesting how it progressed, things began with another web map, of individual abuse cases across the Gulf. I found out about this randomly but its creator agreed to make a presentation at a Kuwait Mapup event on 16th May. This was a great success, we had about 12 people attend and combined it with a Pluma Literary Migrant Writers Guild happening too, a club I'm a member of. A maid from this writing club is a member and she was allowed by her owner to come to our event and read a poem! This is another example of positive treatment of maids in Kuwait. Anyway, it's empowering to go from a map of individual reports to one about whole countries banning their citizens coming to this region. The latter map implies there have been scores of serious abuses, and the fact that these are poor, corrupt countries banning their citizens coming here makes the message even stronger that there is something wrong about how maids are treated in the Gulf.
The latest map also shows that two of the largest sources of workers, India and the Philippines, may no longer be sending their citizens here. I kept the map general, simply saying it's to 'a gulf country', but in this case it's about Kuwait as you can see by reading the source article. It seems like half the population of Kuwait is Indian and Filipino so this would be a drastic change and would send an even clearer message that something needs to happen.
All right now I've got that out of my system the other main events were travel related, including ticking off another country in my Axis of Evil Ski Tour, North Korea. This was an eye opening experience and I can say, unlike Iran, that it deserves to be a member of the axis... they treat the people like children, increasingly ineffective for controlling them given they're better educated now and have learnt to think critically. This means heralding each new Kim leader as a godlike figure would appear more and more silly to citizens. I wonder how many of them shuffling through the disgustingly palatial mausoleum look at the room full of his awards from round the world and wonder how many are fake or worthless.
The biggest experience of contrast between worlds there was our visit to the demilitarised zone. We went to the building straddling the border where they've had 1000s of UN mediated meetings with South Korea. There were many NK soldiers making sure we knew our place and didn't run for freedom. They were so serious. So obviously of the belief NK was better than SK. They had the genuine look of someone who would die to protect their leader whom they believed was great, and who had created/maintained a great nation which looked after its people. Knowing that the real state of affairs was otherwise, yet seeing them standing to attention so straight with the hugely more modern, South Korean border observation post towering behind them made me realize the impact a state can have influencing people's ideas.
Another thing making me feel sorry for them was seeing all the NK soldiers bustling about diligently herding us tourists, making sure we understood the 'real' version of events, whilst there were no SK soldiers in sight. Only the SK observation tower, obviously recently built (as opposed to the old, cold, marble, poorly lit NK one), bristling with about 10 video cameras, so imposing due to their seeming total disinterest about the puny seeming NK soldiers standing right on the border. I was just a tourist, this was not a regular experience for me, but I had the impression the NK soldiers would make their presence known for the tourist groups approaching from the SK side.
Basically, pitiful is the word. We understood the whole conflict to have been a proxy war between the US and the communists but this was never mentioned by our guides. The poor North Koreans have been used and discarded but continue the cult even though the world has moved on from this conflict. The saddest thing of all is the sadness they expressed about the plight of their SK kin, whom they wished could be rescued and welcomed into the arms of the more advanced North.
I was secretly hoping George Bush was wrong labeling all these countries as the axis of evil but he seems to have been right with the DPRK. Of course the people themselves are lovely, the skiing amazing. Someone should do what's right and tell them their leaders are Orwell's pigs.
Other trips were on motorbikes, 1800km through eastern Turkey and about the same in a loop through the Indian Himalayan ranges in Jamu, Kashmir and Ladakh including the world's highest motorable pass, Kardung. I hallucinated due to altitude once but otherwise it was the most epic ride I've ever done and I'll need to go back. I should also mention the much shorter 6hr offroad trip across the whole of Kuwait mentioned in the last entry. This was a fun adventure and we have quite a list of destinations now across the Kuwait outback to return to, including finding a 100 square mile area used by the army for 4x4 training!
Work wise things are ok, I have the experience and skill now to handle the role comfortably. I'm done here though unless I can find another role volunteering. I think I need to do what one of the locals who was a member asked a few times, teach them how to make maps. Perhaps a local NGO here will support me in running a bunch of workshops.
- comments
Ravi Hi Wil. I never knew there were demographic maps of such sorts. Mapping sounds a lot more cooler and relevant when you relate it to common occurrences in our lives. It is no more a map on the atlas. It becomes one of our hearts. Thanks you for opening up my horizons. The trip to North Korea was an intriguing. This is the closest I have ever come to going to NK. thank you again. I noted the part about going back to Himalayas. ;-)