(Un)Historic Errors: Bahrain One Year On

On the eve of the first anniversary of the uprising in Bahrain, it might be time to step back from our usual celebration of the opposition’s “good fight” and take a more critical look at its discourse to date. So enamored was the world with the fact that a wealthy Gulf Arab state was about to rise in revolt, so shocked were we with the brutality of the government’s response, that the leaders of Bahrain’s uprising have since been held in a halo of untouchability. Their movement—as admirable as its democratic ambitions may be—has been spared the necessary reflexive critique. Still, there are less savory elements of the opposition’s political battle cries and several abject political failures in its record. Yet critique has thus far only come from the political right in Bahrain, from angry conservatives still in denial of the bankruptcy of their political stance and bent on delegitimizing the opposition as sectarian, backward, unpatriotic, and violent.

Three glaring problems arise when we look at the history and discourse of the opposition in Bahrain—dominated by mainstream Shia political movements—over the past year. First is the complete failure of the protest movement to reach out to those Bahrainis who are not part of the opposition: the politically conservative Sunni element. This is not meant to undermine moments when cross-sectarian cooperation seemed possible early in the uprising. The first pro-government rally in Bahrain, for instance, was as much of a risk to, as it was an affirmation of, the regime’s authority. The vast majority of Bahrain’s Sunni population, however, has been perturbed by the increasing mobilization of Shia religious and political leadership—locally and regionally—that has made yellow Hizballah flags, among other manifestations, part and parcel of Bahrain’s public iconography. A few pronouncements by Sheikh Ali Salman calling for a totally unarticulated notion of a “civil state” was (and is) simply not sufficient.

Admittedly, media outlets and resources available to the opposition have been severely restricted in the last year. The limited avenues of organization have been further constrained by the continued imprisonment of the opposition’s more articulate leaders. Even so, there is no excuse for the opposition to remain enchanted by its own empty slogans such as “Sunnis and Shias are brothers, we won’t sell out the nation.” The opposition should have put forth concrete proposals for the protection of individuals from the reach of the Shia clergy in the event of a power sharing agreement. This is especially significant, given that the Bahraini regime—like others in the region—has nurtured the specter of a “Shia takeover” to deploy sectarianism as a political strategy. The opposition, however, could have at least assuaged such fears— real or imagined—by suggesting constitutional amendments that would protect individuals’ personal lifestyle choices and the judicial system, under which they choose to marry, divorce, inherit, transact, and generally live. Why not go the extra mile and pronounce an explicit disavowal of religious figures—both Sunnis and Shias—becoming parliamentarians, if a “civil state” is what they truly are calling for? 

The second extensive failure of the opposition has been its inability to reach out to that second large group that lives in Bahrain, but do so as a segregated and politically abandoned set of communities: that of expatriate workers and migrant laborers. The Bahraini regime, realizing that it could capitalize on the xenophobic rhetoric of the opposition, suddenly turned itself into that group’s staunchest ally after years of institutionalized neglect, exploitation, and sheer disdain.

Although resentment amongst protesters towards naturalized and privileged mercenaries who work in the security forces and army is often understandable, the blatant racism and xenophobia towards expatriate workers entrenched throughout the Gulf, is not. To date, such racism has found a home in the discourse of oppositions and regimes alike. The opposition in Bahrain, to the detriment of its democratic credentials, has only managed to speak of enfranchisement in the most limited and unsophisticated manner, for Bahrainis and “citizens.” Such terms, typical of Gulf nationalist discourses that reek of this type of dated, and often chauvinist exclusivism, have been made thoroughly meaningless by the events of the last year.

Nonetheless, this has allowed the regime to use isolated and sporadic attacks against a small number of expatriate workers and security personnel to suddenly and absurdly position itself as their champion and protector. In the process, the regime became an arbitrator and upholder of “human rights,” the third element I would like to discuss in my critique of the opposition’s performance to date.

Recognizing that some of the opposition’s most daring and courageous leaders are seasoned human rights workers; human rights cannot function as a shield from bullets and batons. The “international community’s” expression of moral outrage at the disregard for such “rights” often functions as a palliative that is blind to constant and deliberate forms of systemic and structural violence in Bahrain and the Gulf, as among the few places in the world where absolutism is not only almost universally tolerated, but celebrated. It is almost an expression of these moralists’ own anxieties about “what might change” in the “strategic oil rich region of the Gulf” if such human rights violations are not stopped. It is why political science in the Gulf often resembles the study of “political risk.”

After all, human rights are not extant things that we simply need to evoke to “gain.” By simply banking on the discursive salience of human rights, i.e. what they tell us, we implicitly recognize the ineffective nature of what these so-called “rights” can actually do. It is like evoking the sanctity of religious credos that have themselves become empty if not oppressive. In any case, have we not learned that human rights only accrue to those on the “right” side of conflict in the Middle East and elsewhere? Finally, if we insist on using the notion of human rights, it cannot be applied selectively, to citizens but not to so-called “guest” workers.

These issues undoubtedly came to mind early in the uprising in Bahrain but were not addressed because we were enamored by the novelty, enormity, and seeming vitality of the protests. We said that it was not the time for these critiques to become part of the mainstream discourse of the uprising. We needed to maintain its momentum and the unity of the protests, thinking that “historic” transitions will call forth these issues to be addressed in due time, as they sometimes do. But it is as often the absence of these critiques—the failure to build bridges if not alliances with society’s other half, thirds, or quarters, however we define them— that made it impossible for the democratic movement in Bahrain to achieve what it set out to do in the first place. It is certainly not too late to address them now, nor will it ever be.