This type of chili with rice is pretty common in Europe generally, in my modest experience. I have a distinct impression that the hardcore US ‘rice is unheard of, and beans might cause a riot’ thing is both regionally varied, and a little bit of revisionism. I was looking at some winning recipes from the ‘chili cookoff’ championships, and it seems that the category divisions – trad red, ‘homestyle’, etc – are relatively recent, and if you go back a bit, there’s all sorts of stuff in there. 
Just don’t tell the Texas state legislature I said so.
Mind you, while I like a mushy pulse as much as the next person, cooking kidney beans for three and half hours seems a tad excessive. I think “bloom the spices at the start, add the beans towards the end” would be more standard moves.
