A Rock and a Hard Place

A quick foreword before the article: this is something I've wanted to write for a while now, though I've had trouble expressing my thoughts. I've been thinking about nationalism a lot recently. It's one of the bedrocks of our identity this day, whether it's a pride in one's nation (as Americans feel) or a quiet disgust of it, as most English feel when they the St George's Cross flapping in the wind. My own experience is a bit confusing, and this is a culmination of my thoughts on my own nationality and the impact of the Arab Awakening on it. I suppose I felt it necessary to explain this because of how grim a worldview I express below, and because I've sacrificed detail for brevity. I intend to come back to this when I've developed my ideas more deeply and coherently.

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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?

"Promoting Freedom of Speech and Press"... in Bahrain?

News today is a new Arab TV network is to be launched early next year. The imaginatively named "Al-Arab" is to be a rival of Al-Jazeera. It is to focus on the 'important shifts taking place across the Arab world, with an emphasis on freedom of speech and freedom of press'. It is the brain child of a Saudi prince, Alwaleed Bin Talal. And it is to be based in Bahrain.

The entire idea is laughable at first sight. That a Saudi prince would want to promote the Arab Awakening, when his family has opened its arms to exiled heads of states. That he would base himself in Bahrain, where his country's military repressed the Bahraini movement and helped temporarily crush the free press - there is a reason a Bahraini journalist was singled out for an International Press Freedom award by the Committee to Protect Journalists, an award given to those who have put their lives on the line to stand up to oppression. Such a network cannot exist in his home country, where free speech is non-existent. A Saudi Arabian base for Al-Arab is an impossibility; a Bahraini one is ironic.

It all sounds too ridiculous to believe. Compound this with the fact that the same man has only in the last week bought a $300m stake in Twitter, one of the most important social networks to the revolutions, and you have to wonder what Bin Talal is up to.

Is he really lining himself up as a patron of political and press freedom? Or is he excercising his power as one of the richest men in the world to protect his family from the very same things? Perhaps we'll find out next month, when Al-Arab launches.

Al Jazeera's Blackout on Bahrain

Just an interesting thing I noticed about Al-Jazeera a long time ago. I've pointed it out a few times on online forums, but I think it's worth warranting a small blog post - though it might be a few months late.

When Egypt was constantly in the headlines back in January, Al-Jazeera emerged as the first-stop broadcaster for news on the burgeoning region-wide movement. And while it has been brilliant in its coverage of Egypt and Libya, with Bahrain we see that Al-Jazeera is not without its own agenda, beyond seemingly embracing the 'Arab Spring'.

My interest in Bahrain's events at its peak, I was almost constantly on Al-Jazeera, reading up on everything happening. And its coverage was good to begin with. In the first month of the protest,; it seemed they had the interest of spreading the Bahraini peoples' message at heart.

Things went sour in Bahrain when on the 14th of March, exactly a month after the then-called 'Pearl Revolution' began, the Saudi army rolled in, dispersing the protesters from their camp and decimating the iconic pearl roundabout. Suddenly, Al Jazeera, which had so readily reported every morsel of news from Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen, stopped reporting on Bahrain. On both Arabic and English channels.

Clouding Reality with Labels - Arab Spring and Winter

The label given to the cultural revolution that has enveloped the Middle East has been deceptive to everyone who has used it. It was being called the 'Arab Spring' at least as early as March. A populist movement, it was widely regarded as a force for the Good of the region. But this simplification made it easy to ignore the complexities. The ground-breaking revolution of Tunisia, the expulsion of Mubarak from Egypt and the romantic war of the Libyans - which was only viewed as brutal with the death of Qaddafi, no longer a pharoahic figure but a victim of war. These overshadowed the struggles of Yemen, Bahrain and even to some extent Syria.

To call it the 'Arab Spring' is to paint the whole movement with a single brush, ignoring all the intricacies unique to each nation. It is a simplification that reeks of pan-Arabism and glosses over the difference in every country.

A Six-Point Plan

Inactivity is pretty boring, isn't it? It's time to get myself in gear - something I'm somewhat hesitant to say as that's the topic of my last post. I have an ideal image in my head of posting something noteworthy every single day, but the chances of that happening are slim. So to inspire myself to work, I'm going to make public my list of blogging ideas, and invite any reader to help with the list.

Rebooting

I haven't blogged in a while. I've been following the happenings of the Middle East - the 'Arab Spring' as the media has taken to call it, though I'm not a fan of the name - since Egypt erupted in mid-January. Most of all I've been obsessing over the events of Bahrain, which have only gone from bad to worse in the last two months. The last five months have been mentally draining, and I've needed a break away from it all.

This post is nothing more than me dipping my toe to test the water. The 'dive' as such will come later. So for now, while I revise for the upcoming exams, I'll leave you with this. It's an interview from two days ago, between PBS and my dad, who's been damaged by the government crackdown as so many others have, and more succinctly describes the issues than I can.