Bahraini Monarch Afraid of Boogeyman

I was just peering through Al-Jazeera and came across this gem of an article: Bahrain king speaks of 'foiled foreign plot'.

So first, the government pulled down the monument at the Pearl Roundabout. That was a couple days ago and wasn't reported as widely as it should have been. Now, they have forced the protestors to retreat using armed force, and blame Iran for all this trouble. The desperate attempts to pin the blame on anything but their own misdeeds are so shallow and see through that it boggles me to think there are people about who agree with their actions.


The 1st Scapegoat



Don't worry about the Arabic reporting - the event is clear in the pictures. The government took down the monument - which has stood since 1982 - as if by doing so they are destroying a rallying point to the protestors. I suppose in a sense it was. However, unlike Egypt's Tahrir Square - whose name translated in English means 'Liberation Square' after the 1919 revolution - the Pearl Roundabout was a monument built in celebration of the GCC - the Gulf Cooperation Council. It was a monument of Bahraini prestige - but the upper class's prestige more than the nation's, for it was they who benefitted the most from the economic boom.

There's a massive irony here that's easy to miss and under-reported. Is the Bahrain government not, really, undermining themselves with this act? It was a rallying point in the last month, yes, but it was not so symbolic of Bahraini patriotism as it will be now. Perhaps the real symbols they should have attacked are those posters of the Shi'ite spiritual leaders, local and international, that you find plastered in every village. The absurdity of their action is somewhat boggling. But reading the youtube comments (most of which are in English, if you want to subject yourself to them) shows a clear pro-government slant. These people seem to regard the protesters as a nuisance.

Perhaps the protesters can be blamed as well: had they been more organised and more open to a dialogue, it wouldn't have come to this. But the level of violence and sabotage has been uncalled for.

The 2nd Scapegoat

King Hamad has claimed Iran is behind the last 30 years of unrest and this is just laughable. To a certain extent, yes, the Shi'ite Baharna and Iranians are cut from the same Twelver Shi'ite cloth. Historically the two countries have had a close relationship, the modern form of it probably dating back to the Safavid empire of the 16th to 18th centuries AD (when the Shi'ite sect came to power in Iran). There is a minority Iranian population, and the Shi'ite leaders of Iran are looked to in Bahrain - though the Shia also look to Iraq for that too.

So undoubtedly there is some Iranian influence in Bahrain, but its prominence is overblown. The protests in the last month follow decades of discrimination, torture and political under-representation. This hasn't erupted because of Iranian subterfuge but because of an unjust culture. Perhaps, decades ago, this was a real problem. The last time Iran expressed any interest in Bahrain was in the '70s, when the last Shah claimed that Bahrain is Iran - but it isn't. Bahrain and Iran are, at best, cousins. But it has long since devolved into an attack against any criticisers of the state. How can they use the Iranian boogeyman to justify arresting peaceful Bahraini bloggers in the 2010 crackdown? The dissent last year, or ever, has not been fuelled by Iran - they may have fed the fire at times, but they have not fuelled it.

Let us forget labels like 'Shia' and 'Sunni' because it is not about those. This is about those in power and those without; the rich and the poor. It's a conflict that's risen again and again in the history of civilisation. Of course, the monarchy would rather point the finger at an Ahmadinejad-shaped shadow lurking under their bed than attempt to eliminate this problem.

I suppose, to Al-Khalifa's credit, they have attempted to eliminate it before. The early noughties was a time of reform and change - good change. But that stopped. They perhaps figured they'd done enough, and left it at that. By the end of the noughties, they'd begun undermining their reform: the Bandergate scandal, the 2010 crackdown and the illegal naturalisation of Sunni immigrants aren't the actions of a progressive government.

The protesters are not guilt-free, either. Whenever the monarchy extends a friendly hand, the opposition has swatted it away. Al-Wefaq, the biggest opposition party, boycotted elections until 2006. And the protesters are perhaps as much to blame as Al-Khalifa for the stalled dialogue in the last few weeks. Other examples abound.

Al-Khalifa acts as though Iran covets their nation, and the Shia act as though Al-Khalifa is a viper. If anything is to happen - if anything good is to happen - both sides need to set these prejudices aside.