Understanding Bahrain’s Shia Protesters

Understanding Bahrain’s Shia Protesters
By Genieve Abdo and Jasim Husain Ali*

WASHINGTON, Apr 4, 2011 (IPS/Al Jazeera) – Listening to the rhetoric coming out of Tehran, one might assume that Bahrain’s Shia opposition is relying on help from its co-religionists next door. But, in fact, the opposite is true: the Shia opposition wants nothing more than for Tehran to stay out of the sectarian dispute unfolding in the tiny kingdom.

The major demand of the mainstream opposition is to turn the country into a constitutional monarchy, much like those in Europe. Other selected goals include: an elected government; a free press; an unrestricted civil society; and an end to discriminatory practices against religions other than the Sunni minority, such as unequal employment practices, unfair distribution of wealth, and the elimination of all forms of administrative and financial malpractice.

As the world’s attention has focused on Libya, Bahrain’s mainstream opposition has made every attempt to distance itself from Tehran’s rulers.

Sheikh Ali, secretary general of Al-Wefaq, the main Shia opposition group, publicly announced in March that his organisation had no desire to implement Iranian-style Vilayat-e Faqih, the concept of supreme clerical rule.

Yet, even given these facts, the grand promises from Tehran – which now include sending young Iranian boys to Bahrain to protest, if not fight, alongside the opposition – show that Iran continues to manipulate the crisis in its favour by trying to persuade the world that the Shia in Bahrain are one with those in Iran.

In reality, Bahrain stands as one of the most politically- aware states in the region. Demands for reform did not emerge only a few weeks ago when the unrest started, but date back to the years before the kingdom’s independence from Britain in 1971.

In the view of many Shia, the arrival of Saudi troops weeks ago is merely a ploy by Bahrain’s rulers to quell calls by the opposition for a Western-style democracy in favour of the status quo. For the Saudis, a crackdown on the Shia protesters in Bahrain sends a message to their own restive Shia citizens in the eastern part of the country who also demand democratic rule. …more