Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah: A Busy Political Path Since Kuwait’s Independence

 Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al Sabah part of a delegation of Arab foreign ministers in a meeting with US President Richard Nixon in 1973 (Getty Images)
Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al Sabah part of a delegation of Arab foreign ministers in a meeting with US President Richard Nixon in 1973 (Getty Images)
TT
20

Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah: A Busy Political Path Since Kuwait’s Independence

 Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al Sabah part of a delegation of Arab foreign ministers in a meeting with US President Richard Nixon in 1973 (Getty Images)
Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al Sabah part of a delegation of Arab foreign ministers in a meeting with US President Richard Nixon in 1973 (Getty Images)

The life of the late Emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, was full of rich political experiences that began with the country’s independence from Britain in 1961.

Sheikh Sabah received educational and training courses in some European countries and held important positions at a young age. He was the country’s first Minister of Information and the second Minister of Foreign Affairs. He is the fifteenth Emir of Kuwait, and the fifth since the independence.

Kuwait before Independence

Kuwait gained its independence from Britain on June 19, 1961, when the late Emir Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, the 11th ruler of the country, signed the independence document with the British High Commissioner in the Arabian Gulf, Sir George Middleton.

Kuwait witnessed an active political life, even before its independence from Britain. The country saw its first written constitution and the birth of its Shura Council in 1921. Moreover, Kuwaitis were the first Gulf people to elect a legislative council in 1938.

The Gulf State was also known for its parliamentary system that was established by Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, the man of independence. During his reign, the constitution was approved, the first document of its kind in the Gulf. The current constitution was promulgated on November 11, 1962 and entered into force on January 29, 1963.

Seven years before the independence, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al Sabah began his political career at the age of 25.

In 1954, the Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al Sabah, appointed him to the Supreme Executive Committee, which acted like a cabinet and was responsible for organizing state departments.

After the completion of this committee’s work, he was appointed in the following year as head of the Department of Social Affairs and Labor, when the governmental departments in pre-independence Kuwait were in the ranks of the ministries.

In 1956, he established the first center for popular arts in Kuwait. He also worked on publishing the official newspaper, Kuwait Today.

With the formation of the first cabinet in Kuwait’s post-independence era, Sabah Al-Ahmad was appointed Minister of Guidance and News (Media) in the first government, and thus became the first Minister of Information in the country’s modern history.

By virtue of his membership in the government, he also became a member of the Constituent Assembly which started the process of drafting the constitution. In 1963, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, and he remained in this position for 40 years.

He also held the ministries of finance and oil as an acting minister, in the fifth ministerial lineup after the independence, between December 4, 1965, and January 28, 1967.

After that, he headed the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development. The late Emir was also appointed as acting Minister of Interior between February 16, 1978 and March 18, 1978.

In 2003, an Emiri decree was issued appointing him Prime Minister, a position he held until January 24, 2006, when the Council of Ministers nominated him as Emir of the country, and members of the National Assembly unanimously pledged allegiance to him in a special session that took place 5 days later. He is the third Emir to take to oath of office before the National Assembly in the history of Kuwait.



Defending Migrants Was a Priority for Pope Francis from the Earliest Days of His Papacy 

Pope Francis poses for selfie photos with migrants at a regional migrant center in Bologna, Italy, Oct. 1, 2017. (AP)
Pope Francis poses for selfie photos with migrants at a regional migrant center in Bologna, Italy, Oct. 1, 2017. (AP)
TT
20

Defending Migrants Was a Priority for Pope Francis from the Earliest Days of His Papacy 

Pope Francis poses for selfie photos with migrants at a regional migrant center in Bologna, Italy, Oct. 1, 2017. (AP)
Pope Francis poses for selfie photos with migrants at a regional migrant center in Bologna, Italy, Oct. 1, 2017. (AP)

Advocating for migrants was one of Pope Francis' top priorities. His papacy saw a refugee crisis in the Mediterranean, skyrocketing numbers of migrants in the Americas, and declining public empathy that led to increasingly restrictive policies around the world.

Francis repeatedly took up the plight of migrants — from bringing asylum-seekers to the Vatican with him from overcrowded island camps to denouncing border initiatives of US President Donald Trump. On the day before his death, Francis briefly met with Vice President JD Vance, with whom he had tangled long-distance over deportation plans.

Some memorable moments when Francis spoke out to defend migrants:

July 8, 2013, Lampedusa, Italy

For his first pastoral visit outside Rome following his election, Francis traveled to the Italian island of Lampedusa — a speck in the Mediterranean whose proximity to North Africa put it on the front line of many smuggling routes and deadly shipwrecks.

Meeting migrants who had been in Libya, he decried their suffering and denounced the “globalization of indifference” that met those who risked their lives trying to reach Europe.

A decade later, in a September 2023 visit to the multicultural French port of Marseille, Francis again blasted the “fanaticism of indifference” toward migrants as European policymakers doubled down on borders amid the rise of the anti-immigration far-right.

April 16, 2016, Lesbos, Greece

Francis traveled to the Greek island of Lesbos at the height of a refugee crisis in which hundreds of thousands of people arrived after fleeing civil war in Syria and other conflicts in the Middle East and South Asia.

He brought three Muslim families to Italy on the papal plane. Rescuing those 12 Syrians from an overwhelmed island camp was “a drop of water in the sea. But after this drop, the sea will never be the same,” Francis said.

During his hospitalization in early 2025, one of those families that settled in Rome said Francis didn't just change their lives.

“He wanted to begin a global dialogue to let world leaders know that even an undocumented migrant is not something to fear,” said Hasan Zaheda.

His wife, Nour Essa, added: “He fought to broadcast migrant voices, to explain that migrants in the end are just human beings who have suffered in wars.”

The news of Francis' death shocked the family and they mourned “with the whole of humanity,” Zaheda said.

In December 2021, Francis again had a dozen asylum-seekers brought to Italy, this time following his visit to Cyprus.

Feb. 17, 2016, at the US-Mexico border

Celebrating a Mass near the US border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, that was beamed live to neighboring El Paso, Texas, Francis prayed for “open hearts” when faced with the “human tragedy that is forced migration.”

Answering a reporter’s question while flying back to Rome, Francis said a person who advocates building walls is “not Christian.” Trump, at the time a presidential candidate, was campaigning to do just that, and responded that it was “disgraceful” to question a person’s faith. He criticized the pope for not understanding “the danger of the open border that we have with Mexico.”

Oct. 24, 2021, Vatican City

As pressures surged in Italy and elsewhere in Europe to crack down on illegal migration, Francis made an impassioned plea to end the practice of returning those people rescued at sea to Libya and other unsafe countries where they suffer “inhumane violence.”

He called detention facilities in Libya “true concentration camps.” From there, thousands of migrants are taken by traffickers on often unseaworthy vessels. The Mediterranean Sea has become the world’s largest migrant grave with more than 30,000 deaths since 2014, when the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project began counting.

Feb. 12, 2025, Vatican City

After Trump returned to the White House in part by riding a wave of public anger at illegal immigration, Francis assailed US plans for mass deportations, calling them “a disgrace.”

With Trump making a flurry of policy changes cracking down on immigration practices, Francis wrote to US bishops and warned that deportations “will end badly.”

“The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women,” he wrote.

US border czar Tom Homan immediately pushed back, noting the Vatican is a city-state surrounded by walls and that Francis should leave border enforcement to his office.

When Vance visited over Easter weekend, he first met with the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. Afterward, the Holy See reaffirmed cordial relations and common interests, but noted “an exchange of opinions” over current international conflicts, migrants and prisoners.