Citizens, Not Subjects: Debunking the Sectarian Narrative of Bahrain’s Pro-Democracy Movement

Citizens, Not Subjects: Debunking the Sectarian Narrative of Bahrain’s Pro-Democracy Movement
ISPU by Sahar Aziz 1 and Abdullah Musalem2

Against the Winds of Political Change

The origins of Bahrain’s pro-democracy movement are not sectarian. For the past three decades, Bahrainis have been dissatisfied with a weakening economy that does not fairly distribute the national wealth, a shortage of jobs for its growing number of youth, and the lack of any rule of law that grants equal rights to all of its citizens. In the past, these deep-seated grievances would occasionally erupt into protests and acts of defiance that were often met with violence. As with other Arab states, the Bahraini ruling family did all it could to suppress the growing demand for political reforms and a more equitable distribution of wealth.

The few occasions when it appeared that Manama was serious about reform ended in retrenchment as soon as the citizens exercised their increased freedoms. Hence much of the official rhetoric or negligible steps taken to support democracy were merely political posturing designed to create an image of liberalism for the international community in the hopes of increasing foreign investment.

An Ethnically and Religiously Diverse Arab State

Being a center of international trade has endowed Bahrain with a very diverse population. Throughout history, its ports have hosted Arab, Persian, South Asian, African, and European traders and invaders, many of whom settled down and assimilated. The majority of Bahrainis are Shi’a Muslims.7 At the end of the nineteenth century, the European colonial powers sought to create colonies or protectorates in their own image; the French established republics and the British established monarchies. The fall of the largely Sunni Ottoman empire and its competition with the Shi’a Persian empire found Arab and non-Arab members of both sects caught in a web of emerging nation states devised to serve colonial interests.

The current borders of Arab countries were determined in London and Paris. Elites who cooperated with them were rewarded economically and politically. Power was thus concentrated in the hands of a few. Bahrain was no exception. The ruling Al-Khalifa family does not consider itself indigenous; rather, it traces its ancestry to the Sunni tribes inhabiting the western coast of the Gulf with familial ties strengthened by decades of intertribal marriage and alliances.8 …more