Another year, another outing for those who perennially call for the Bahrain Grand Prix to be cancelled. They do not know what they are talking about.
Bahrain has least eight indigenous ethnic groups, including a small but very ancient and entrenched Jewish community which maintains the Gulf’s only synagogue and Jewish cemetery, and also including a community of black African descent, part of the East African diaspora in the East hardly known about by those very used to the West African diaspora in the West.
Around one fifth of the inhabitants of Bahrain is non-Muslim, and around half of that is Christian. The women’s headscarf is strictly optional. No one disputes that Bahraini Muslims are two-thirds Shi’ite. Correspondingly, no one disputes that Bahraini Muslims are one-third Sunni.
All legislation requires the approval of both Houses of Parliament, and, while one of those Houses is entirely appointed by the monarch (as in Britain or Canada), the other is entirely elected by universal suffrage. The Upper House, to which women are regularly appointed to make up for their dearth in the elected Lower House, includes a Jewish man and a Christian woman; the latter was the first woman ever to chair a Parliament in the Arab world. The Christian woman who was previously Deputy Chairman is now the Bahraini Ambassador in London.
The Ambassador to the United States is a Jewish woman, the first Jewish ambassador of any modern Arab state, although the third woman to be an Ambassador of Bahrain. She was previously an elected parliamentarian. Notably, she describes her Jewish identity as unconnected, either to the State of Israel, which Bahrain does not recognise, or to the Holocaust, of which she knew nothing until she was 14.
Her British higher education and British husband, as well as the fact that the synagogue brings in its rabbis from Britain, point to the very close ties indeed between that country and this. We installed the Al Khalifa in 1783, and they have done everything to keep up the link ever since. From Bahrain, via Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, to Oman is Britain’s natural and longstanding sphere of influence, as their rulers would and do tell you. It is beyond me why they are not in the Commonwealth.
I did not welcome the Saudi intervention in Bahrain, which, as the base of the United States Fifth Fleet, had not been subjected to any such incursion without at least American approval, if not American instruction. I have no wish to see a Wahhabisation of Bahraini Sunnism, since at present all of the above is perfectly acceptable even to the Salafi Members of Parliament.
But which part of it do the demonstrators wish to conserve? Do they wish to conserve any of it? Or do they wish to overthrow it in order to replace it with something else entirely? We have not asked. We never do. It is very high time that we did.
Why do we need to ask? It's their country-it's up to them, not us.
ReplyDeleteWe have interests. But we are being bounced into acting against them, or at the very least into standing by and letting others do so. By no means only in Bahrain.
ReplyDeleteWe should stand by and do nothing-it's not our country, and they have the same rights to democracy as everyone else.
ReplyDeleteNone of your business what those brave protesters "wish to conserve". It's a matter for them.
No, we have interests there. And we are not the only ones.
ReplyDeleteSo if others "have interests" here, they have a right to prevent us toppling our inauthentic rulers?
ReplyDeleteIf we can interfere in their internal affairs, then you believe others can interfere in ours.
Eh?
ReplyDeleteOh, go away, you silly little boy.
Typical of opposition to attack a point of view and a valid one at that too.
ReplyDeleteThe Government of Bahrain has come under excessive fire by international media, who do not understand the depth of the problem. Then again some simply wish to sensationalize for the sake of self-promotion.
This person calls them "brave demonstrators' whose statements defy all logic. They are lawless, attack police and expatriate workers on a daily basis and yet the world has fails to condemn these terrorist acts.
I have lived in Bahrain for over 20years and I agree with your perspective. The only point I would draw your attention to is the fact that percentages of shiaa and sunni are unknown. Regardless, majority want to go down the path of reform in a non-violent manner and with the Alkhalifa very much in place. The PM is not the hardliner as described by the West – they forget how much he has done and how much he continues to do for the people of Bahrain.
@SallyfromSaar
www.sallyfromsaar.com
Very many thanks, Sally. Stay strong.
ReplyDeleteThat link to Sally's website does not work.
ReplyDeleteThe one on the blog roll does - http://sallyfromsaar.wordpress.com/
ReplyDeleteEvening David -
ReplyDeletenice to read an article from someone that has made an effort to do some research on Bahrain. However I do contest two points in your article, first the British did not exactly install the AlKhalifa in 1783 please read the article on this link to get a better handle on British connection to Bahrain - http://dilmun-times.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Kelly-1957.pdf an excellent article written by Chattam House and published in 1957
Secondly many people certainly do dispute the Sunni Shia split you mention for Bahrain I for one - that “Shiites comprise about 70 percent of Bahrain's citizens” This so called percentage divide did not exist before US ambassador Ronald E. Neumann used it during his tenure here 2001 - 2004 that is according to Wikileaks and cables originating from the US embassy. It is a myth of convenience often quoted to justify criticism of the regime and present them in a negative light.
The first population census was initiated by the British in 1941 and they have been conducted at regular intervals ever since. The last was held in 2010 as you state when the native Bahrani population was counted as 568,399. The census asked of a person, their sex, religion, marital status and nationality. For religion the tick boxes used were Moslem, Christian, Jew, Hindu or other. The census form did not ask one of sect i.e. Sunni or Shia or even Protestant or Catholic. Thus on what hard data are the regularly quoted percentage figures of a Shia majority based when within the system, official data does not exist. (I ticked other but that is irrelevant).
An analysis of election returns assuming Shia voted for Shia and Sunni for Sunni would produce a different split one that is almost even however this is speculative at best as we do know that Sunni in Shia areas voted generally for secular Shia independents while Shia in Sunni areas didn't vote at all. It is only true to say however of the entire residential population of 1,234,571 people, (local and expatriate combined) 70% are Moslem.
Way back in the 40’s and 50’s when the British undertook the first census, they did collect data in relation to sect. They found the population almost equally split. Assuming therefore the descendants of these people grew at a roughly similar rate they would make up a similar sized percentage in the current population in both communities, Sunni or Shia one would think. Not so even this assumption is too simplistic as we know that Sunni do have smaller families than Shia the ratio is around 5:7 which would account for a Shia majority but not 70%. When discussing Bahrain it is also important to provide, for it is never stated but always implied, a definition of who or what is defined in the use of the statement Shia majority. The lack of definition is done with obvious intent, to highlight a sectarian divide to define the Shia as everyone of that religious sect, who by inference by default are instantly accredited as being the followers of the clerically led so called opposition. No one ever asks how do the descendants from the thousands of mixed marriages or moderate the secular Shia, socialists and others fit into this equation.
Then to end with we have also to consider the rhetoric from the street; how many times have you heard street voices claim the government has naturalised over a 100,000 foreign nationals in recent years. If 70% of the population of the 2010 census were Shia they would number 397,879 leaving just 170,520 Sunni to be accounted for made up from both these newly naturalized and native Sunni descendants peoples. Where have all the descendants of the historic Sunni gone did they cross their legs during the intervening decades? I forget which robot figure of film said "does not compute" but the old idiom of telling a lie so often that it becomes an accepted fact is certainly pertinent in the this case of Bahrain.