Shafeeq Al-Ghabra; A Life Devoted to Rejecting Dictatorship and Backing Arab People’s Will

Academic and political analyst from a Palestinian family, Dr. Shafeeq Ghabra, passed away in Kuwait, where he settled years ago after suffering with disease.

The late Ghabra, (68 years-old), has suffered from an advanced stage of cancer since the beginning of this year, 2021, the disease kept him until his death on September 4, 2021.

Throughout his professional and intellectual career, Ghabra gave many lectures in political science, and he wrote articles on a daily basis in several newspapers.

Dr. Al-Ghabra devoted part of his seminars and video lectures to introduce the Palestinian cause, he also carried the concern of the Arab nation until his death.

 

Focus on the Case 

Dr. Al-Ghabra was born in Kuwait in 1953, he is from a Palestinian family belonging the occupied city of Haifa, and he is the son of DR. Nazem Ghabra.

He held a PhD in political science with a specialization in comparative politics, public administration, and organizations, and was a political science teacher at Kuwait University

In 2003, Dr. Shafeeq Ghabra was chosen to find the American University in Kuwait, in the first experience of building an academic institution in his career in addition to his academic duties.

Indeed, Dr. Al-Ghabra oversaw the establishment of the university and the design of its academic programs for students and professors.

It is worth noting that the life of a Kuwaiti researcher and academic of Palestinian origin has witnessed great transformations since his childhood years, what affected his academic career spanning more than 40 years.

Dr. Al-Ghabra lived through the hardships of the diaspora, after his family was forced to leave Palestine for Egypt, following the 1948 Nakba, they later moved to Kuwait.

Although Dr. Al-Ghabra was born and raised in Kuwait, he fought in the ranks of the Palestine Liberation Organization, before working in teaching and scientific research.

His life in exile contributed to pushing him to devote most of his research to the Palestinian cause, and focusing on the diaspora, as well as studying the mechanisms of power and society in Kuwait, in which he was born and lived for most of his life.

Dr. Al-Ghabra seemed as if carrying the weight of the Arab nation, and he followed up on his affairs until his death. He expressed his views on talk shows about the events and changes that the Arab world has experienced in recent years, from the Libyan revolution to the events in Bahrain and the Syrian revolution, then Egypt and Tunisia.

 

Intellectual Legacy

The late held several positions, as he founded (Arab Bridges) for consulting and training in 2006, he was the president and founder of the American University of Kuwait for three years, since 2003. Prior to that, he held the position of Director of the Center for Strategic and Future Studies at Kuwait University for a year.

Dr. Al-Ghabra was the director of the Kuwaiti media office in Washington, DC, between 1998 and 2002. He was also keen to write regularly in the Arab press, especially (Al-Hayat daily).

He was a member of the advisory board at the Fikr 9 Conference, and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Social Sciences at Kuwait University. He also lectured in dozens of universities, research centers and international societies.

Dr. Al-Ghabra left several books to the nation, the most important of which are: “Palestinians in Kuwait (Family and the Politics of Survival),” then “Repercussions of the occupation of Kuwait,” and “Israel and the Arabs: From the Conflict of Issues to the Peace of Interests.”

During his lifetime, the late also published another book entitled “The United States and the Gulf: A reading of international changes and a vision for the future,” then “An Unsafe Life: A Generation of Dreams and Failures,” then “Kuwait: A Study of the Mechanisms of the State, Authority and Society,” and a book entitled “The Nakba and the emergence of the Palestinian diaspora in Kuwait.”

 

Nation's Burdens

The thinker has always praised the Arab Spring, he believed that “it ended succession in the republics and clarified the extent of corruption in the Arab world.”

He also explained how regimes and states manage the relationship with their people and how they manage their wealth.

The political science expert believed that “the regimes could have met and dealt, after the peoples revolted and did not cling to the security solution, they could not have fallen into this quagmire,” in the words of the late in a television interview on the Kuwaiti “Al-Watan” channel in 2015.

In the same interview, the thinker considered Tunisia and Morocco as unique cases in dealing with the wave of the Arab Spring, this is by enabling them to learn how to deal with the internal situation in their countries.

Dr. Al-Ghabra always emphasized that the security solution would never end the revolutions and movements in the region, whether in Syria, Libya, Yemen or even Egypt (which was considered a different case), he stressed that the solution is through negotiation and concessions.

The late thinker identified the problem of the Arabs - in reference to the rulers and regimes - that they do not accept concessions, and that the victor possesses everything.

The last appearance of Dr. Shafiq Ghabra on the channels was in June 2021, on “Al-Jazeera” channel from Washington, where he spoke about the presence of the Egyptian delegation in Gaza, the basis for the establishment of the armistice and the issue of prisoners.

A virulent disease had afflicted the shape of a thinker who seemed tired during his last appearance, but he did not gain his knowledge and his smile, which he was keen to pass on to the viewers while answering the announcer's questions.

Dr. Al-Ghabra saw the Egyptian administration's handling of the recent events in Palestine as “pragmatic, “he attributed this to what it suffers from due to the Renaissance Dam crisis.

On the other hand, the doctor of political science did not see a fundamental change in the Hamas movement's dealings with the Egyptian side.

The Arab thinker would not have missed the opportunity to express his opinion on a watershed event in the history of the Arab nation in August 2020, when the UAE announced the normalization agreement with Israel.

He said at that time: “The decision was taken without dialogue, neither with the people, nor with the elites, nor within the Cooperation Council.”

The thinker focused on the fact that the Emirati-Israeli agreement was without conditions, and expressed his regret for that, before comparing it to the agreements that preceded it between the Israeli side and each of Egypt and Jordan, which stipulated a change in the behavior of the occupier, as well as the problems of settlement and return.