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What is the point of Bahraini nationalism? In whichever way you cut your belief that Bahrain should belong to its people - whether that includes all residents, all born residents, or only those elite, impoverished Baharna, who are the most ancient amongst today's people, you must ask yourself, why bother?
Bahrain is a minute country. It is an archipelago of 33 islands, of which only four are inhabited. And of them, the largest of these islands - Bahrain itself - is largely only inhabitable in the northern-most stretch of land. Within that stretch live roughly a million people, of whom only half are citizens. Its oil reserves are minuscule comparative to its neighbours, and as a centre of Islamic banking it's not quite where others are yet. Few tourists come to see those hundreds-years-old mosques, or the historic fort that once stood guarding the island, or the burial mounds where a millenia-old people, more ancient than the Baharna, lay resting.
Were Bahrain's people to claim their political independence, it would not stand. Because Bahrain, unfortunately, is little more than a clump of sand off the Arabian coastline. If a democratic revolution were to ever have succeeded, we would no doubt have seen a hugely Shi'i parliament. And while secular and economic political lines should be striven for, it is far more probable that, at least in the early, formative days of this theoretical democracy, politics would be religious.
So in this religiously-charged democracy, the Shi'a would come to rule Bahrain, those people who were oppressed will become oppressors no doubt. You would see the Sunnis disenfrachised, and the foreign workers sent home. Most importantly, Saudi Arabia would stop bankrolling Bahrain's continued 'independent' existence - because the Saudis are Bahrain's current patrons.
And what then?
Bahrain would be stricken with poverty. The people would have to seek financial aid. When the Saudis, and by extension the Americans and British, turn their back on Bahrain, who then would this little clump of sand look to?
It would look to Iran, that welcoming Shi'i powerhouse of the region.
Despite a wish to be independent, Bahrain cannot be simply because it is too small. In fact, it has not been truly independent for at least 500 years. When the Portuguese invaded the Bahrain isles, it was at the time a part of a greater area called Bahrain, whose borders stretched much of the Arabian coastline, now shared between Iraq, Kuwait, the Saudis, the UAE and Oman. When these first Western invaders were overthrown, the Iranians moved in. They were kicked out by the invading bedouin Beni Utbah, today's Al-Khalifas, who soon after brought the country within the British empire. And when the British left, the Saudis effectively turned Bahrain into their own protectorate.
Since Bahrain lost most of its land 500 years ago, it cannot truly stand on its own. In fact, if Greater Bahrain still existed, the political makeup of the Persio-Arabian Gulf would be very different - for almost all the oil in the region would be shared between Bahrain, Iraq and Iran, Shi'i hands. But, as that is not so, and as it would be impossible to make it so without a world war, Bahrain shall remain a tiny, rather useless clump of sand.
If the 14th February uprising is successful, if we Baharna were to take back the keys of our country from the Al-Khalifa and their Saudi masters, it would only be a matter of time before we handed those keys over to Iran. Though the goal of independence is noble, it would be shortlived. As Lebanon, the little nation of Christians and Muslims caught between Israel and Syria, is one of the warzones of the region, so too could Bahrain be that nation of Sunneh and Shi'a caught between Saudi and Iran.
I am Bahraini; I'm also British. Truly though, I am neither. I have the misfortune of being that awkward middle generation: my parents were first generation immigrants clingly to their culture, attempting - whether deliberately or not - to contain my siblings and me within a Bahraani cocoon in a British landscape. In Bahrain and Britain both, I am an outsider, never completely a part of either society. I don't even know what to call myself - Bahraini, Bahraani, British or English? Do I just adopt the one that suits me best? I can't easily say.
I bring this up because I find myself at odds with supporting the revolution, where both sides claim to be the patriots. The Al-Khalifa family has outstayed their welcome. That is easy enough to see. Every day that their brutal crackdown on the protesters continue, they delegitimise their claim to rule. Yet I also find the thought of a successful revolution grim. How long before the freedom fighters become dictators, or before other dictators control the country? Change is going to come, but how much of it will be for the better? Indeed the longer it takes for change to take place, the more radicalised the population will become, until it is the moderates who are on the fringes. So far it seems the only thing that has stopped this is the protesters' lack of military access of any kind - Bahrain's reliance on a mercenery army means there are no defections leading to a situation such as is happening in Syria now. There will be no civil war as Libya endured.
The horror - or perhaps purgatory - of civil war will not come to Bahrain; it will remain a 'strife' only. And the longer the struggle continues, the longer I find myself asking, where is it going? And how does it define me?
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