Revolution Bahrain – The Fire that won’t be Quenched

Nearly two years on from Bahrain’s uprising, protests continue on a daily basis and human rights violations are rampant. Roshan Muhammed Salih argues the revolution has proven an inconvenient one not only for a complicit West but for the region’s Sunnis too.

Despite Western complicity and Arab indifference, Bahrain’s revolution goes on
By Roshan Muhammed Salih – 2 December, 2012 – Ceasefire

Bahrain has all the ingredients of the typical Arab Spring uprising – mass protests against pro-western despotic rulers, human rights violations, unlawful detention, military courts, foreign intervention, heroic resistance and bravery.

This cocktail has proven to be an effective mobiliser of the so-called Arab street, encouraging millions to support “good against evil, the “people versus the regime”. But not in Bahrain.

The truth is that much of the Arab and wider Muslim world remains indifferent to the situation there, buying into the sectarian propaganda bandied about by satellite TV stations and media commentators.

This uprising is seen by many as a Shia revolt which might extend Iran’s influence in the region. This attitude, in my view, is a serious error which will only entrench US-led imperialism through its Saudi proxy, and will poison Sunni-Shia relations when Muslim unity is a pre-requisite for Arab Spring success.

Rather, the uprising in Bahrain should be seen as a mutiny against despotism and western imperialism. And it should be supported by Sunnis whose own schools of thought have always considered Shias to be their brothers, and who should realise that western imperialism is the major obstacle to true and meaningful change.

Yet the fact is that nearly two years after the uprising first broke out in February 2011, not much seems to have changed in the country itself. Protests take place every day (largely unreported), human rights abuses and discrimination remain rampant, and the so-called reform process remains stalled.

The uprising has also been overshadowed by events in Syria, and more recently in Gaza, while regional and international support for Bahrain’s despotic rulers remains firm. And the Sunni world, it seems, just doesn’t care.

Human rights

A year ago the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) excoriated the country’s rulers for using “excessive force” during a crackdown on protests in early 2011.

The head of the commission, Cherif Bassiouni, said many detainees were subjected to “physical and psychological torture” and their basic human rights had been violated. Many inmates, he added, had been blindfolded, whipped, kicked, given electric shocks and threatened with rape to extract confessions.

Sayyid Ahmad, who was recently granted asylum in Britain, says he has direct experience of this.

“Masked men beat me, they blindfolded and cuffed me when I was in detention,” he told me. “They made me chant slogans against Shia leaders, they pulled my hair, spat in my face. But the worst thing was when they sexually abused me – that was the only time when I felt I couldn’t take it anymore. That made me hate myself.”

Ahmed obtained his degree in electrical engineering from Brighton University before going back to Bahrain to find work in 2010. But on his return, he says, he couldn’t find a job because the best ones were reserved for Sunnis.

So after a frustrating 8 months unable to find the job he felt he deserved, Ahmad was more than ready to join the protests when they erupted in February 2011. …more