The Flag of the Republic of Bahrain (Arabic):
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
The Republic of Bahrain
Shi'a opposition forum-goers are already designing the flag of the new Republic of Bahrain. A bit early perhaps.
The Flag of the Republic of Bahrain (Arabic):
The Flag of the Republic of Bahrain (Arabic):
The Quiet Before the Storm, Part I
With all that has unfolded in Bahrain over the past two weeks, it seems futile to try to catch up here at the outset. So instead of summarizing everything that's happened until now, it is worth considering where we stand now and what is likely to happen in the next week or few weeks. After all, things have seemingly quieted in Bahrain (though the prominence given now to events in Libya also has helped to displace Bahrain as the top news item). What happened?
What happened is a few things. First, the crown prince was sent on Bahrain TV to appeal for calm and "national dialogue," presumably because he is the least disliked (i.e., by the Shi'a opposition) of the three-headed monarchy that is the Al Khalifa, the other two being the king and prime minister. This, combined with the removal of the military from the streets of Manama as demanded by the opposition as a precondition for talks -- note that this order to recall the military was also explicitly portrayed as having come from Crown Prince Salman, again not coincidentally -- served eventually to calm things enough to bring al-Wifaq, who by then had left parliament, and other groups to the discussion table. Sure, there were still protests and counter-protests (i.e., by pro-government Sunnis), but once the police stopped shooting people, especially during funerals processions for people they'd already killed, it's amazing how things found a way of settling down.
Then, or concurrently, King Hamad headed to Saudi Arabia to meet with the newly-returned King Abdullah, nominally to welcome him back after his extended absence for medical treatment but more obviously (one assumes) to gauge the extent of his leash in negotiating with the Shi'a. That is to say, with the Saudis bankrolling some 60% of the Bahraini budget (according to an estimate I was given in 2009 by a Sunni parliamentarian) via the proceeds from the Abu Saafa oil field, King Hamad does not have a free hand to offer the Shi'a whatever concessions he thinks judicious. After all, the Saudis have their own Shi'a to worry about (who incidentally have just begun some small-scale demonstrations of their own in the Eastern Province), and they would likely sooner take over administration of Bahrain themselves than lose it to the Baharnah.
The most recent notable event is the return from exile slash medical treatment of Hasan al-Musheima', the fiery Secretary General of al-Haqq who until a week ago when he was pardoned along with other opposition figures was supposedly in charge of a "terrorist cell" plotting the overthrow of the regime. Seems likes a strange person to allow back in your country at a time like this if you really believe that. But that's another story.
To be continued..
What happened is a few things. First, the crown prince was sent on Bahrain TV to appeal for calm and "national dialogue," presumably because he is the least disliked (i.e., by the Shi'a opposition) of the three-headed monarchy that is the Al Khalifa, the other two being the king and prime minister. This, combined with the removal of the military from the streets of Manama as demanded by the opposition as a precondition for talks -- note that this order to recall the military was also explicitly portrayed as having come from Crown Prince Salman, again not coincidentally -- served eventually to calm things enough to bring al-Wifaq, who by then had left parliament, and other groups to the discussion table. Sure, there were still protests and counter-protests (i.e., by pro-government Sunnis), but once the police stopped shooting people, especially during funerals processions for people they'd already killed, it's amazing how things found a way of settling down.
Then, or concurrently, King Hamad headed to Saudi Arabia to meet with the newly-returned King Abdullah, nominally to welcome him back after his extended absence for medical treatment but more obviously (one assumes) to gauge the extent of his leash in negotiating with the Shi'a. That is to say, with the Saudis bankrolling some 60% of the Bahraini budget (according to an estimate I was given in 2009 by a Sunni parliamentarian) via the proceeds from the Abu Saafa oil field, King Hamad does not have a free hand to offer the Shi'a whatever concessions he thinks judicious. After all, the Saudis have their own Shi'a to worry about (who incidentally have just begun some small-scale demonstrations of their own in the Eastern Province), and they would likely sooner take over administration of Bahrain themselves than lose it to the Baharnah.
The most recent notable event is the return from exile slash medical treatment of Hasan al-Musheima', the fiery Secretary General of al-Haqq who until a week ago when he was pardoned along with other opposition figures was supposedly in charge of a "terrorist cell" plotting the overthrow of the regime. Seems likes a strange person to allow back in your country at a time like this if you really believe that. But that's another story.
To be continued..
Further Introductions
Since everyone knows that credibility is the foundation of the Interweb, I'll say a bit about myself and how this blog will/does differ from others that discuss politics in Bahrain.
I am a current Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Michigan. I spent the summers of 2006 and 2007 and most of the rest of 2007-2008 in Yemen as a Fulbright Fellow. I then moved to Bahrain after the Yemenis bombed (i.e., tried to bomb but killed only other Yemenis, as they regularly do) the U.S. Embassy and the State Department in its wisdom made everyone on government funding leave the country. As it turned out, the move served me well as I was able to continue my Fulbright through June 2009 in Bahrain, and to finish my dissertation fieldwork to boot. I am now in Doha through May 2011 completing a post-doc with a local survey research institute.
As for the reason why the world needs another blog about Bahrain (though I think there are not so many anyway), the main answer is that nothing currently maintained, so far as I can tell, is written by a non-Bahraini. If this might seem rather like a plus, and in some respects it is, it does raise the issue of neutrality in a place where few are neutral. These also tend to lend themselves to polemics in the comments section rather than constructive discussion or questions.
That said, a great and well-known blog is Mahmood's Den. Though it too is affected by the problems mentioned above, it offers a helpful local perspective and benefits from being, as it were, much closer to the action.
I am a current Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Michigan. I spent the summers of 2006 and 2007 and most of the rest of 2007-2008 in Yemen as a Fulbright Fellow. I then moved to Bahrain after the Yemenis bombed (i.e., tried to bomb but killed only other Yemenis, as they regularly do) the U.S. Embassy and the State Department in its wisdom made everyone on government funding leave the country. As it turned out, the move served me well as I was able to continue my Fulbright through June 2009 in Bahrain, and to finish my dissertation fieldwork to boot. I am now in Doha through May 2011 completing a post-doc with a local survey research institute.
As for the reason why the world needs another blog about Bahrain (though I think there are not so many anyway), the main answer is that nothing currently maintained, so far as I can tell, is written by a non-Bahraini. If this might seem rather like a plus, and in some respects it is, it does raise the issue of neutrality in a place where few are neutral. These also tend to lend themselves to polemics in the comments section rather than constructive discussion or questions.
That said, a great and well-known blog is Mahmood's Den. Though it too is affected by the problems mentioned above, it offers a helpful local perspective and benefits from being, as it were, much closer to the action.
A New Blog on Bahraini Politics
I have finally succumbed to the pressures of 21st century expectations about media and publicity to begin this blog about Bahraini politics. But don't expect a twitter or facebook account -- really.
I have been driven by frustration to create this blog for a couple of reasons. The first of these is that it seems difficult to get an op-ed printed even if you have information unavailable elsewhere -- more of this in a bit -- when competing with the likes of such visionaries of Arab Gulf politics as, say, al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abd al-Aziz Al Sa'ud. (Seriously? A "plea for reform?" More like a care package to enable the Saudis -- and the Bahrainis and Kuwaitis and Omanis, who have announced the same thing -- to avoid reform. I'm sure the NYT is just waiting for their respective op-ed submissions.)
In any case, in early 2009 I conducted the first-ever national-level political survey of ordinary Bahraini citizens, interviewing (not myself) some 450 random households spread across the island. Now, the results of this survey form the basis of my dissertation on ethnic conflict -- read, Sunni-Shi'i rivalry -- and political mobilization in the Arab Gulf, and from an academic prospective the project is a success and the findings interesting. Yet the results of the survey also tell us something interesting and important about the current political deadlock in Bahrain, and so far -- as per the rant above -- it seems that these are seen as too "academic" to be useful in a political policy discussion such as current newspapers now cater to.
So I guess I've gone and done what everyone now seems to have hit on some time ago, namely that it's easiest simply to start shouting your opinions over the Internet until people are satisfied that you know what you're talking about, at which point you're invited to take part in the normal, somehow more serious discussion along with Prince Talal bin Abd al-Aziz et al. "The present age is an age of advertisement, an age of publicity," says Kierkegaard. So advertise and publicize is what we shall do.
I have been driven by frustration to create this blog for a couple of reasons. The first of these is that it seems difficult to get an op-ed printed even if you have information unavailable elsewhere -- more of this in a bit -- when competing with the likes of such visionaries of Arab Gulf politics as, say, al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abd al-Aziz Al Sa'ud. (Seriously? A "plea for reform?" More like a care package to enable the Saudis -- and the Bahrainis and Kuwaitis and Omanis, who have announced the same thing -- to avoid reform. I'm sure the NYT is just waiting for their respective op-ed submissions.)
In any case, in early 2009 I conducted the first-ever national-level political survey of ordinary Bahraini citizens, interviewing (not myself) some 450 random households spread across the island. Now, the results of this survey form the basis of my dissertation on ethnic conflict -- read, Sunni-Shi'i rivalry -- and political mobilization in the Arab Gulf, and from an academic prospective the project is a success and the findings interesting. Yet the results of the survey also tell us something interesting and important about the current political deadlock in Bahrain, and so far -- as per the rant above -- it seems that these are seen as too "academic" to be useful in a political policy discussion such as current newspapers now cater to.
So I guess I've gone and done what everyone now seems to have hit on some time ago, namely that it's easiest simply to start shouting your opinions over the Internet until people are satisfied that you know what you're talking about, at which point you're invited to take part in the normal, somehow more serious discussion along with Prince Talal bin Abd al-Aziz et al. "The present age is an age of advertisement, an age of publicity," says Kierkegaard. So advertise and publicize is what we shall do.
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