How many anti-government activists does it take to make a movement?

Reports of anti-government demonstrations in Kuwait today sound a bit underwhelming: Several hundred Kuwaitis demonstrated on Tuesday evening for a change of the Gulf state’s prime minister and demanded more political freedoms. Protesters gathered in a car park they named "The Square of Change" in front of a government building and called for Sheikh Nasser ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

Reports of anti-government demonstrations in Kuwait today sound a bit underwhelming:

Several hundred Kuwaitis demonstrated on Tuesday evening for a change of the Gulf state's prime minister and demanded more political freedoms.

Protesters gathered in a car park they named "The Square of Change" in front of a government building and called for Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah, a member of the ruling family, to leave.

Reports of anti-government demonstrations in Kuwait today sound a bit underwhelming:

Several hundred Kuwaitis demonstrated on Tuesday evening for a change of the Gulf state’s prime minister and demanded more political freedoms.

Protesters gathered in a car park they named "The Square of Change" in front of a government building and called for Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah, a member of the ruling family, to leave.

Demonstrators chanted in Arabic "The people want corruption to go" and "Leave, leave Nasser" as they stood in front of a large banner which read: "A new government, with a new prime minister, with a new approach."

Just six members of the Kuwaiti youth group Kafi (Enough) were in front of parliament in the early hours of the morning.

I don’t mean to mock the Kuwaiti opposition movement, but with the excitement of the last few weeks, outside observers might do well to exercise some caution before attributing much importance to seemingly new signs of protest in the Arab world. Just as the generous press attention granted anti-Putin marches in Moscow can often give the mistaken impression that some large portion of the Russian population is involved with the democratic opposition, I would imagine that demonstrations of between six and several hundred people probably weren’t all that rare — even in the placid, autocratic Gulf states — even before the current excitement.

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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