Machiavellian Bahraini

This afternoon I came across this article on Reuters: 'Bahrain's foreign minister said Monday Saudi and UAE forces called in to help quell street unrest would leave only when "any external threat" he associated with Iran was seen to be gone'.

What absolute bollocks. The so called 'Iranian threat' has been created by the Bahraini government and its Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) allies as a reason to keep the Bahrain crackdown going. What is this vague Iranian threat that can only be wiped out by putting fear in the heart of the population; by creating mass unemployment for a specific sect; by imprisoning and killing protesters and bystanders alike; by treating the Shia as guilty-until-proven-innocent; by destroying the free press; by instilling terror?

It's a sorry state of affairs that what began as a non-sectarian movement has been transformed into a battle between Sunnis and Shia. The Sunnis are untouched by this upheaval, and may even be profiting from it - who will fill up the thousands of positions opening but them? The only common ground between the Shia population and Iran is their faith, and the monarchy is milking that cow for everything it's worth to justify its crackdown.

It sickens me to see how they've painted the Shia as Iranian conspirators and made the two inextricable from each other. The Western powers have mumbled words of condemnation and empty warnings, but nothing more to Bahrain. And how could they, when the enemy is 'Iran'? When supporting Iran is a political bomb, how can they support the Bahraini protesters? Though whether they'd want to help the protesters in the Gulf and put the precious oil at risk is a question I would perhaps rather not hear answered.

They've snared their Shi'ite opposition, that's for sure. They've managed to mute both the protesters voices and the international community. Many Shia are leaving the country, travelling as far away as they possibly can - Kuwait and Qatar for some, the US and UK for others. It's beginning to look like an ethnic cleansing, and I'd hardly be surprised if that was a part of their plans - they've always wanted to turn the indigenous Shia into a minority.

Alienation in Bahrain

One of my earliest memories is of playing with the other children just out of our mothers' sights in a London-based community centre. This was a place where many Bahraini exiles and activists would congregate, discussing current affairs and handing out newsletters and pamphlets. It wasn't all about grim politics, but it's the grim politics that comes back to me right now. One type of pamphlet passed around a lot would have pictures of tortured men in them, evidence of the regime's crimes. I saw them over the years, though not very often. These sorts of things weren't for a child's eyes after all, but the few glimpses of bodies black and blue and bloody have remained with me.

I haven't dwelt on those memories in years, but they came back to me today while reading Human Rights Watch, watching CNN's reports and visiting the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (which is blocked by Bahraini ISPs). Some of the images, of people tortured and people injured by security forces, are shocking to say the least. My own first impression was that this looked like something straight from the 90s.

What's going on in Bahrain and why? A follow up

The 14th of April will be the two month anniversary of what was briefly called the 'Pearl Revolution' in Bahrain. I wrote my first post on Bahrain back in February and got quite a response. In that post I mused that the Bahraini government would be likely to succumb to the peoples' demands, so as not to lose the big tourism revenue the F1 race would bring. And I'm sure they intended to keep their reputation as one of the most progressive Arab nations. My musings were wrong, to say the least. I think we've reached a point where we can look back at what's happened and analyse, though, and I want to look at some of the recent developments.

I think it's important to add as a disclaimer that I'm in no way unbiased, and there's no point hiding it. Take what I say with a pinch of salt.