Uncensored

Recently, Ibtehal Al-Khateeb, PhD, has made more than headlines by things said (and misunderstood) in an interview with Wafa Al-Keilani on the bold LBC program Uncensored. The interview caused an uproarious reaction particularily on the Internet where she was mainly bashed on forums and blogs across the Arab world for her progressive ideas and frank answers. To summarize, Uncensored is a program geared towards raising controversy and Ibtehal Al-Khateeb fit the bill of the perfect person to interview through which to exact such a reaction from viewers. Ibtehal Al-Khateeb is a secularist Kuwaiti woman who lectures at Kuwait University. In addition to her teaching job, she is a human rights activist and a newspaper columnist (where she also expresses her secularist views).

I took a cursory look at comments on the web and after watching the program on YouTube, found that listeners had misunderstood what she said on some matters. On other matters, the subject was simply too bold for the average listener or reader to understand.

She prefers to be introduced as a Kuwaiti, not as a Muslim, or as a Shiite. She upholds the right of people to practice any religion with freedom they desire without guardianship or interference by any one sect. Secularism in the long run secures the stability of a country where the rights of all people, the majority and the minorities, are guaranteed by civil law. Being a secularist, and calling for the complete separation of state and religion is itself a brave thing to pursue in a conservative society like Kuwait.

Ibtehal Al-Khateeb expressed her support for the civil rights of homosexuals and while she did not expressly say she aided gay marriages, she did say that these were subject to the laws of the country and whether or not such alliances were acceptable in the society.

She was asked about the concept of polyandry and she replied that although her personal beliefs were strongly towards the nuclear family consisting of one wife and one husband, she could not declare that such ideas were wrong just because she did not believe in them.

She was asked about some subjects she had previously discussed in her articles concerning breastfeeding non-related adult men and also men seeking pleasure with young girls that did not involve direct sexual intercourse. Here she was quite misunderstood by people who thought she was supporting those two issues when she was actually calling for a revision of such fatwas and religious ideas to be more suited to modern day life.

The interview was quite long even though the nature of the program is based on short questions and short answers, sometimes with no room for clarification. It is this factor and also the boldness of Ibtehal Al-Khateeb’s ideas that caused conservative listeners to misunderstand.

I was glad when she came on Al-Rai* Kuwaiti television in an interview with Abdullah Buftain tonight to talk at length about her ideas and to clarify some points that may have been misunderstood. Nonetheless, her ideas remain too progressive for the mainstream of Kuwaiti society and I think that someone of her calibre has to fight to remain steadfast and true to her ideals. If people let down their guard and listen to what she is saying with regards to civil rights, they will understand that she is a champion of the people and of the Kuwait, a country of diverse nationalities, personalities and characteristics and not as they wrongly assume, against them or their religious beliefs.