Message to the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters

The Abdali Road is not merely a thoroughfare in northern Kuwait that we cross and leave behind; it is an integral part of the nation’s memory, a silent witness to years of danger, aggression, sacrifice, and resilience.

Along this road, chapters of Kuwait’s history were written in the fire of missiles, the scars of war, and the blood of martyrs.

In the 1980s, Kuwait was subjected to attacks, with Iranian missiles striking its facilities and oil wells. Then came August 2, 1990, a date that witnessed the most heinous aggression in our nation’s modern history, when the Iraqi army invaded and occupied Kuwaiti soil, destroyed its infrastructure, and terrorized its people.

The Abdali Road bore witness to a chapter of that tragedy, and later to the day of liberation, to the defeat of the occupying army, and to its flight from Kuwaiti land, leaving behind a trail of destruction and ruin.

On this soil, martyrs fell for Kuwait. Men departed, but their blood remains a sacred trust upon our shoulders. The sites where these events unfolded stand as witnesses to their sacrifices and to the price Kuwait paid for its freedom, sovereignty, and dignity.

Today, buildings, sites, and remnants still bear the scars of the Kuwait Liberation War. Some have stood for over three decades as witnesses to what transpired.

These are not ruins, nor old stones, nor buildings whose lifespan has ended. They are Kuwait’s memory. They are pages of our history written upon our land. They are physical evidence that cannot be replaced by words or images alone if they disappear.

It is painful to think of a day when these witnesses are removed, collapse, or vanish, only for us to realize that we have lost a part of Kuwait’s history that could have been saved. What is demolished today cannot be restored tomorrow. What is erased from the earth may leave nothing for future generations but a photograph or a tale.

From this perspective, I appeal to the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters to take the initiative in cataloging these sites, buildings, and historical relics along the Abdali Road and in the surrounding areas. It should work to document and classify them, protect those deserving of protection, prevent their removal or desecration, and study the conversion of the most prominent of these sites into documented national monuments equipped with informational plaques that narrate the truth of what occurred on this land. We want our children and grandchildren, fifty and a hundred years from now, to stand before these monuments, see with their own eyes the effects of aggression, and understand that the freedom they enjoy was not a gift. We want them to know that the Kuwaitis who enjoy security today were paid for by men who gave their lives and blood.

We want these sites to remain as witnesses when the eyewitnesses of that era pass away. We want them to speak when memory falls silent. We want them to endure as proof when some attempt to distort or deny history.

Kuwait has faced various dangers and aggressions throughout its modern history. Today, in an era where missiles and drones still remind us that the security and sovereignty of nations should not be taken for granted, we must remain vigilant.

Therefore, protecting the remnants of the aggression against Kuwait is not an glorification of war, but a commemoration of the peace for which we paid a heavy price, and a preservation of the memory of a nation that resisted, stood firm, and triumphed.

Great nations do not demolish their historical monuments, nor do they allow their memory to be consumed by the sun, sand, and time. Instead, they preserve and document it, transforming pain into memory, memory into a lesson, and the lesson into awareness that protects future generations.

These sites do not belong to us alone, such that we can decide their disappearance. They are the right of those who were martyred on this soil, the right of those who endured the bitterness of occupation, the right of our children and grandchildren, and the right of Kuwait itself.

Preserve what remains of the witnesses of those days before a day comes when we search for them and find only empty space, saying, “Here was a part of Kuwait’s history.”

May God protect Kuwait, its land and its people, have mercy on its martyrs, and preserve its memory from oblivion, for a nation that safeguards its history safeguards its identity.

Kuwait deserves to keep its memory alive as long as Kuwait itself endures.

A Kuwaiti lawyer