The Air Show, the “Black Smoke” Campaign

Bahrain Special: The Air Show, the “Black Smoke” Campaign, and the Dark Arts of Regime Propaganda
20 January, 2012 – by John Horne – EA Global

The Bahrain International Airshow began on Thursday. Continuing today, it is the first major international event in the kingdom since the crackdown on citizens calling for democratic reform. The al-Khalifa ruling family hope it will attract significant investment to the Kingdom while building close ties and relations with businesses, governments and militaries overseas.

The air show is an exclusive affair to which only 40 select corporations, each paying $160,000, have been invited. Even with Avaaz’s campaign to encourage a boycott of the F1 Grand Prix, the Air Show is a much more significant, and cynical, event in the guise of entertainment. It provides a forum for networking such as this:

BDF Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa meets with British Defence Ministry Undersecretary Lord Astor and Defence Senior Advisor on Middle East Lieutenant General Simon Mayall. Also present at the meeting are British Ambassador to Bahrain Ian Lindsay and British Military Attaché Commodore Christopher Murray

A subsequent feature will consider the Air Show’s place in the sale of arms to Bahrain and other member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), including the interest of the United Kingdom, given that a British firm, Farnborough International, organises the event. Farnborough is a subsidiary company of A|D|S, “the trade organisation advancing UK Aerospace, Defence and Security industries”. On Tuesday, A|D|S launched its “Flying Forward” campaign in the House of Commons, aimed at expanding the export of UK aerospace equiptment manufactured by companies such as BAE Systems, EADS, GKN and others. This comes at a time when British economic strategy is based on shifting from a net importer to a net exporter of goods — a tricky proposition given the UK has very few major manufacturing industries left, with the notable exception of weapons and military systems.

For now, however, a look at the protests by Bahrainis against the Air Show, in particular, the burning of tyres to create vast plumes of black smoke to cover the sky (see Friday’s Live Coverage).

Opposition activists in Bahrain have often used tyre-burning as a show of defiance and as a means of blocking roads. Yesterday’s national tyre burning campaign was united under the banner “Mourning in the Sky”. Many of these actions were led by the “February 14” youth movement, a loose coalition of activists seen by some as a much more confrontational wing of the opposition.

The “Mourning in the Sky” tyre-burning was predominantely a protest demanding the immediate release of opposition leader and founding member of the Al-Wefaq Party, Hasan Mushaima. Mushaima, who suffers from cancer, was sentenced to life by the regime last summer, accused of seeking to overthrow the Royal Family. The protest, in solidarity with the tyre burning in Dar Kulaib village against the Air Show, took place in locations across the country, including Sitra, Tubli, Karrana, Salmabad, Isa Town and Nuwaidrat. …more