Here. There. Everywhere.

February is a meaningful time for Kuwaitis as this is the month when two very important events – National Day and Liberation Day – are celebrated, on the 25th and 26th. To commemorate Liberation Day, the International Women’s Group invited an exceptional woman as its guest speaker this month. I think I speak for everyone at the breakfast meeting when I say that she enthralled everyone as she shared her vivid eyewitness memories of the Fires of Kuwait with us.

In a region mistakenly known for its suppressed and deprived women, Sara Akbar, the special IWG guest speaker, stands tall.

At a time when the skies above Kuwait were overcast with dark smoky clouds spewing out of burning oil wells, left in the wake of the Iraqi invasion, Sara Akbar, then a Kuwaiti engineer, participated in the massive firefighting endeavour that ultimately doused the raging fires.

Strong, resolute, with a strict outer demeanour, Sara Akbar, the Chief Executive Officer of Kuwait Energy Company, belies the popularly held notion that Arab women are weak and suffering.

“She has been working in the oil sector for more than twenty-seven years. She is also a mother and has three children. Mrs Akbar was very active during the time of the Liberation,” said Karen Nauss Henry, President of IWG, introducing the guest speaker to the assembled guests who were from all over the world.

Akbar spoke of her journey which included her early experiences, her sudden propulsion into the spotlight after the Liberation and her later growth and development as a professional. “I will speak of the time when we spent days and nights to combat the fire which was the biggest man-made environmental catastrophe ever. Yes, there are volcanoes and earthquakes that rage destruction, but this was man-made, done by the troops of Saddam before they left Kuwait,” she recounted as the noted documentary ‘Fires of Kuwait’ played in the background.

“When asked if I look back at what happened twenty years ago with regret and sadness, I say, ‘I do not have any regrets because we as Kuwaitis learnt much from that catastrophe.’ Every dark day has a bright side and we have to remember the bright side of the catastrophe,” said Sara Akbar, an eyewitness to the disaster.

Sometimes she looks back at those days with  disbelief, at how an ordinary engineer did things which she normally would not have.

During the invasion Akbar and a small group of Kuwaitis managed to keep the oil company working with a small workforce. “In KOC we had 5,000 employees, but the invasion left us with just 50.” She spoke of the emotional trauma of witnessing the KOC being ransacked by the Iraqis and using the oil to feed their planes and tanks.

“My job for those seven months of occupation was to keep records of the events and to prepare a daily report for the government about all the activities that were taking place in the oil sector,” she said. Years later in 2003, after the Iraqi liberation, she recalled the Iraqi minister visited Kuwait for an OPEC meeting. During her meeting with the minister, she met two gentlemen who had accompanied him on the trip. “One of them had been my Iraqi boss for seven months at KOC during the occupation. He was shocked when I reminded him. He was the undersecretary to the Oil Minister in Iraq.” It is from him she found out that despite endeavours, Saddam’s government had been unable to find out the source of information being leaked out to the Kuwaiti government. “Thank God”, smiled the iron lady.

Sara Akbar’s story is a tale of personal courage touched with a sense of humour that allows her to smile at society and at popular perception which labelled her ‘crazy’ for her commitment and professionalism.

Sara told us that one  of the things she was involved in during the occupation was to “smuggle” expatriates trapped in Ahmadi to safe places in Kuwait city under the watchful eyes of the Iraqi forces. She said she begged for abayas from members of her family and friends all over Kuwait to help her do this! She also helped to “change their appearance” by helping them to dye their light coloured hair black.

Not for a minute during the occupation did she believe that the Iraqis would blow up the oil wells. Those still at work in the oil sector, regarded it as a threat used by Saddam to scare the Kuwaitis. “After all it was the craziest thing one could do,” she mused. On Feb 15 the discussion for withdrawal started. Three days later Akbar was at home when she heard the sound of gunshots. Being adventurous by nature, she immediately went to investigate and found the Iraqi soldiers shooting into the air as a mark of jubilation, as they were going to return to their homeland. “In the same minute I heard the explosions,” she said continuing the story.

“I looked back and I saw smoke in the air.” Akbar took her mother in the car and went to investigate the oil fields. “The more you went into the fields the darker it became. The darkness was unbelievable and the oil wells looked like flickering candles in the horizon,” said the lady who was traumatized by the sight.

It had not been an easy professional journey for Akbar. “All I wanted to be is a good technical engineer, so I put a lot of effort in training myself. I thought to be a good engineer, I should work in the fields and get my hands dirty.” She promptly approached the KOC management and told them of her desire to work in the fields. The response was as expected. Being a woman she was at a disadvantage, from social taboos and threats of bodily harm that might occur. She was refused permission, but Akbar persisted. Eventually she was given permission. The management tried to dissuade her with the timings which began at 7 am and got over at 4 pm. But Akbar continued determined. One day she was sent to an offshore well and was stuck in the site till late at night because of bad weather. When her replacement reached, he refused to get onto the platform, discouraged by the supposed dangers involved, despite seeing a lone Kuwaiti woman who had been at work at the same site for hours.

“For the next ten years, I worked on the oil fields, offshore and onshore, day and night, and the result of this work was that I knew the oil fields very well.

There were eight hundred wells and I knew every single one like the back of my hand. I had nothing in my life but my work and I loved it. I adored it,” noted one of the few women Chief Executives in the Gulf. It was the determination to help in the rebuilding of Kuwait that led a team of Kuwaiti engineers to approach the KOC management to help douse the fire. They were refused permission on grounds of experience.

But the team insisted and was ultimately allowed to join the firefighting mission. When they doused their first oil well they did it in the cover of the night, for fear of failure and inviting criticism. But by morning the team succeeded and proved everybody wrong. The team went on to control many oil wells after that, at times even dousing two wells a day.

Akbar spoke of the valuable lessons learnt from that catastrophe, of her belief that when Kuwaitis challenged can come together and overcome the biggest obstacle. “No matter what you do as an individual, nothing beats teamwork,” a mantra which worked well when she set up Kuwait Energy in 2005. With assets scattered around the world, the company has generated profits year after year.

Sara Akbar is a professional Kuwaiti woman who is a role model for women around the world. But her definition of success also includes a happy family life. In her determination to have a successful career she avoided getting married, for the first ten years. Later, she gave in to the long standing proposal. With a husband based in Bahrain, it was not easy to maintain a balance, but she did it. Hers is one of those rare instances of perfect partnership, where she asked her husband to seek retirement and move to Kuwait where she had a successful career. The mother of three children she attributes her happy family life to her extended family and husband who have always been a support. Behind most successful Kuwaiti women, there has been strong maternal presence and support, and Sara Akbar was no expectation. She recalls with fondness the important role played by her mother in helping her reach her goal.

The story of Sara Akbar is a fascinating story of the determination of a Kuwaiti woman to leave a mark and to contribute to her country’s success, something she has achieved in large measures.

From Kuwait’s Arab Times, by Chaitali B. Roy

I had seen the academy award-nominated documentary “Fires of Kuwait” and I had seen a woman among the firefighters, I wondered what she was like.

Now I was proud to have met her and heard her story.

Bravo, Sara, you did good!