Retiring from home?!
We are accustomed to retirement from work marking the beginning of a new journey with the Public Institution for Social Security. But has a new type of retirement emerged today, one we were previously unaware of? Retirement from the home, this time through measures by the Ministry of Housing! Can it really be that a person, after retiring from his job, is then asked to retire from his home—the very place he believed would be where he would spend the remainder of his life?
Imagine a man who devoted his life to work and raised his children, only to believe that the home he settled in would be the final stop on his journey. He did not receive it fully completed; rather, he spent his own money on it, took out loans to make it habitable, and invested years of his life into it before even moving in his furniture. Then, after all those years, he is told to start over. A man in his thirties might manage to change his address, but can a man in his seventies move his address and his peace of mind? Can memories be packed into boxes just like furniture?
In the later stages of life, a home is not measured by the number of rooms, but by the memories it has embraced, the grandchildren who found their way to it, and the tranquility that settled within its walls. Therefore, this issue is greater than a contract or a building; it touches upon a person’s sense of security during a phase of life when he no longer asks the world for anything but calm.
This does not mean that anyone is calling for the suspension of the law or for exemptions from its application. The rule of law is a demand shared by all. These citizens were among the first to comply with municipal instructions and removed violations located outside the boundaries of their residences, believing that the law respects and applies to everyone equally. However, the law was established to achieve justice, and justice does not confine itself to rigid solutions. Thus, hope remains pinned on decision-makers in the Ministry of Housing and the government to consider solutions that preserve the stability of the families of the East Timaa project (“those who sold their homes”) and achieve the law’s objectives, without depriving hundreds of families of the tranquility they have enjoyed for years.
The state that built residential cities and established institutions for the stability of Kuwaiti families is also capable of finding a solution that reconciles the authority and spirit of the law with its application, while preserving human dignity. The question remains: Is justice merely applying the letter of the law as it is, or is true justice found in reading the text alongside the human lifespan and individual circumstances, so that the final chapter of life does not become a new beginning that no one desired?
A final note: If these lines contain anything worth reading again, perhaps it is this reading that reveals a human dimension leading to a solution. The official may read this article once, or twice, but the hope is that he sees beyond the words—seeing behind them the faces of fathers, mothers, and grandchildren who do not seek an exemption from the law, but rather hope to find in it room for mercy, and in the decision a means to preserve the stability they have lived with for years.
Talal Matar Al-Wardan
