What's going on in Bahrain and why?

Just over a week ago when Mubarak resigned, I mused briefly on whether or not the revolution would spread to Bahrain, here. Of all the things that could've happened, I didn't expect Bahrain to be the very next country to grip the world after Egypt, but in the last week it's been almost all anyone's talked about. Now the spotlight has begun moving away from us and onto Libya - and good thing too, they need the world's support more than Bahrain does. The acts of the Bahraini government are incredibly mild compared to Ghaddafi's.

I've been asked by a fair few people in the last week about the protests going on, and now that the outcome of the revolution draws increasingly closer and clearer, I felt it'd be appropriate to shed some light about the entire situation.

This article ended up quite a bit longer than I originally thought it would be. If you read this to the end and are neither my lecturer or my parent, you deserve a biscuit.

So here we go:

Why are Bahrainis protesting?
Bahrain is one of the friendliest countries in the Middle East to tourists and foreigners. Those that come here will stay in hotels or enclosed neighbourhoods (sometimes with guards). They'll do all their shopping at one of the many malls there - Seef and City are the most popular. Available to them are private beaches, expensive restaurants and places such as the British and Rugby Clubs to make them feel at home. It's a bit like Dubai, but less gaudy. Those just visiting, for work or play, experience a very filtered version of Bahrain. They don't go inside the villages and witness the poverty, nor do they regularly pass through Jidhaffs, a centre for protests by rebellious teens in the last few years.

So, some facts and some history:

• Bahrain is home to roughly 1.2 million people. Of them, roughly 50% are foreign workers. Among the natives, 60-70% are Shia, while 30-40% are Sunni. Source
• Al-Khalifa, the royal family which has been in power for roughly 200 years, is Sunni. Many of the Sunnis are from the Najd region of Arabia, and the Shia are closely related to those who live in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province. Shi'ism is the predominant religion, and has been for at least 1000 years.
• Of the foreign workers, the majority are unskilled workers from South and South-East Asia. A great number of them are employed as unskilled labourers or maids, but some also come to Bahrain as doctors, bankers and other high paying jobs.
• The country was never colonised during the imperial age. However, it was a protectorate of Britain, and as such still has ties with the UK. Source
• Many foreign workers come here from the UK, and there are two private British schools. The two royal families also have fairly close ties.
• This may be why the Bahraini issue is milder than the Libyan, Syrian, Lebanese or Israeli/Palestinian one. In those countries, the wounds left from the colonial era have not healed even today, but Bahrain (and the other gulf states) were far less subjected to British and French rule.
• The monarchy, being Sunni, tends towards other Sunnis. As the majority are Shia, this also means that the Shia tend to be sidelined. This isn't an issue purely of 'Sunnis vs. Shiites', however the rivalry (as such) is definitive of much of Bahrain's modern history. Some of the ways this divide has been exacerbated:
• It is against the law for a Shi'ite to join the army.
• Shi'i and Sunni students go to different schools. The public schools (which most Shia attend) are not of a great standard, while those families with more wealth will put there children through private schools. That's not to say that you don't find Shia in private education - I was lucky enough to attend Ibn Khuldoon National School (where I was in the same year as one of the younger princes) and the British School of Bahrain. But I was one of very few Shia in the former, and the only Shi'i in the latter.
• Generally speaking, there is a feeling of suspicion between the sects; Shia think the Sunnis in power are keeping them down, while Sunnis think Shia are upstarts (and to be fair, there are a lot of tire-burners in the community). I only add this here because writing about education brought back to mind how little love was won amongst myself and my peers in IKNS, due to my religion and family name.
• The constituencies from which MPs are elected in Bahrain have been drawn in such a way that the majority Baharna (the indiginous Shi'a) have less MPs to vote on (and thus less political power) than the minority Sunnis, who have more MPs for less of the population.
• Al-Wefaq, the single Shi'ite political party, holds 17 out of 40 parliamentary seats. The remaining 23 are held amongst Sunni parties (including Al-Menbar, a relative of the Muslim Brotherhood and holder of 4 seats). Source
• That's also just the lower circle of parliament. The upper circle, the Shura Council, is appointed by the king, and has the power to veto any bills that lower circle attempts to pass. The political system was likely set up this way to keep the status quo stable, and in the monarchy's favour.
• The Bandergate scandal. 
• There is a history of torture in Bahrain, mostly against the Baharna and other dissenters. Source
• This was greatest in the 80s and 90s, and during that time the focus of activists was to regain the human rights of the majority as well as greater political freedom.
• These infringements of human rights were brought to an end in the late 1990s when Emir Isa died and King Hamad came to power (he changed the monarch's title, but it was no less a monarchy before Hamad took to being called 'King'). King Hamad also allowed all exiles to return to Bahrain (including the London-based activists, my family a part of that community)
• In the last few years, torture has made a comeback, as well as the imprisonments of political activists, from the juvenile streetside tireburners to educated bloggers. There's also been a general policy of taking these people to be guilty until proven innocent (which is the whole philosophy of torture, really). Source
• I highly recommend listening to Crossing Continents: The Two Faces of Bahrain. The radio programme covers the 2010 crackdown and can be found here.

That's why. The Shia are tired of being put down, and some Sunnis, who disagree with the government's policies, are sympathetic to the Shia too. In an attempt to muscle out the Shia majority by artificially creating a Sunni one, the government is quite happy to hand out citizenships left and right to foreign workers - Arabs and Pakistanis; Sunnis. Of course these foreigners need a place to stay, usually in new neighbourhoods and areas close to pre-existing villages of Sunni majority. Generally speaking, the Sunnis aren't too happy with this program (which is unofficial and denied by those in power, but widely believed to be a truth).

It is worth pointing out though, that while a Sunni/Shi'i divide exists and is heavily present in Bahrain, it has not been the driving point of the protests. The people have been asking for their human rights, a freer democracy, a greater respect for the indigenous population.

In the last two days, there's been a greater call for the monarchy to step down, and for King Hamad to leave. In my opinion, the protesters are being rather brazen here and asking too much in that respect. The king has a good twenty years to his reign, supposing he doesn't die as early as his father (who passed away at the age of 65; the current king is 61). His son is being groomed for power and increasingly a part of the country's politics. And their family has been in power for 200 years. This isn't Mubarak, who won power by the fluke of his predecessors' assassination and was too old and detached from the public to hold his place two weeks ago. The Al-Khalifas have a greater hold to their seat. It seems to me that a constitutional monarchy in the same vein as we have here in the UK, where the monarchy is just a figurehead and little more than an object of public affection, is a much more realistic aim. But perhaps I'm wrong. Sitting over here, thousands of miles away from Bahrain, it is easy to coolly analyse the situation. Perhaps the people, in their passion, might have exactly what they want.

I've digressed from the topic of what has led us here to what is happening now, but with regards to the former topic there's one more factor I'd like to address, and that is 'the Arab malaise'.  I mentioned this in my post a week and a half ago, but I'd like to go into it again. Put forward by Samir Kassir, a Lebanese journalist and writer, he said:

It is no pleasure to be an Arab today. Feelings of persecution for some, self hatred for others; a deep disquiet pervades the Arab world.

Unfortunately, I won't have his book (which you can find in English on Amazon, with a forward by Robert Fisk) until tomorrow; pity because I'm very interested in what he has to say. But the quotes above convey enough, and despite having been written in 2005, until the Tunisians overthrew Ben Ali, it was still true. The people are under dictatorships and there is an ocean-wide gap between rich and poor. The people are worn out after the imperial age, the Cold War and today's American age, where the Arabs have become the world's villains. Those countries touched by constant war are perhaps the most worn out of all: Palestine, Lebanon and, of course, Iraq.

Now it is like a heavy weight has been lifted from the shoulders of the Arabs and, for the first time in at least 100 years, there is hope for the people once again. We have seen Ben Ali fall, we have seen Mubarak fall. The Bahraini government is weak and Ghaddafi's grip on Libya is increasingly tenuous. And that isn't all, but these revolutions are happening so fast, and there are so many of them, that it's difficult to keep track of them all. The people, for perhaps the first time, feel that their future is in their own hands. And it is on a grand scale, from Morocco to Iraq: all the Arab world is touched by this.

So what can we expect to come?
The short answer: it's too soon to say. Even for little Bahrain. Undoubtedly, some revolutions will be greater successes than others - hopefully, trendsetting Egypt will be a great success in the coming future. In Bahrain, the government is likely to be quick to concede to the protesters' demands, though how much they will concede we are yet to know. The race in Bahrain that was to open the F1 season has been cancelled today, and according to The Financial Times, that's $500 million  (£308 million) of tourism revenue lost. As well as that, the revenue made every weekend when the people of Saudi Arabia take Bahrain by storm to enjoy the island nation's far more liberal attitudes are more hesitant to visit the country, and should Bahrain become a country ruled by Shia it might put them off entirely.

Amidst this uncertainty, there is however one thing I'm sure of, and that is that we are beginning to enter a new age in the history of the Middle East. And what's exciting about this new age is its optimism.

(A follow up to this post can be read here.)