Bahrain Monarchy Teaches Lessons Of Inefficient Counterrevolution

Bahrain Monarchy Teaches Lessons Of Inefficient Counterrevolution
September 5, 2012 – The Trench

In the aftermath of Nabeel Rajab’s three-year prison sentence, The Trench observed that the Bahraini monarchy must want the island’s democratic uprising to continue for a minimum of three years. “Minimum” being the operative word, because the monarchy evidently wants to set an indefinite date for the uprising’s end. On Tuesday Bahrain’s High Court of Appeals ruled against some of the country’s highest-profile activists and delivered a range of lengthy prison terms, conceivably to crush the opposition.

Except the only way to “defeat” Bahrain’s opposition – without losing King Hamad’s crown in the process – is the institution of genuine democratic reforms at the parliamentary and judiciary levels.

The King’s latest moves are so predictably unjust that their “shock” should only exist as a sheer force, like ice water, rather than as a result of false expectations. Some defendants have already endured horrific conditions in Jaww prison and other confinement centers as they await a protracted appeal process. Seven are being tried in absentee for “crimes” that either fail to exist, or are legitimized by the revolutionary situation at hand. The idea of due process is absent before and after the final verdict, systematically destroying any possibility of a fair trial. All opposition parties, human rights groups and activists of consequence have roundly denounced the rulings as a total violation of justice, along with many of Bahrain’s Western allies (out of coercion, not free will).

According to state media, “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Bahrain expresses its refusal of the statements related to the court sentences issued by the Supreme Appeals Court Tuesday, September 4, 2012 ‘in the case of “overturning of the government and communication with foreign entities along with the violation of constitutional laws.'”

As for the effects of Draconian sentencing, this act will produce the same popular backlash as Rajab’s unjust imprisonment and further extend Bahrain’s democratic uprising. Nothing short of mass slaughter inspires revolutionary action in the same manner as imprisoned leaders, who provide ideological hubs to rally the resistance around. In short, the quickest path to ending Bahrain’s uprising involves freeing them and opening a convulsive negotiating process. The longest path unjustly imprisons and tortures them.

King Hamad is cunning enough to have stayed below the West’s tolerance for this long, but the delusion of his inner circle cannot be permanently masked by tear gas and favorably media coverage. Tactical successes continue to be negated by strategic errors, ultimately playing into the weaker side of an asymmetric conflict, and the monarchy appears to be semi-sincere in its belief of invincibility. This overconfidence is partly responsible for Bahrain’s current state of affairs, yet new examples crop up by the week. Overlooked in the aftermath of Rajab’s sentencing, King Hamad’s Eid-ul-Fitr address demonstrated just how defiant his regime is by speaking about the uprising in past tense. Revolutionaries mutate into “strife-mongers.” …more