Darker Than Black Tuesday [Notes From the Bahraini Field- Update 6]

[Bahrainis protesting at Saudi Embassy in Manama. Image from washingtontimes.com] [Bahrainis protesting at Saudi Embassy in Manama. Image from washingtontimes.com]

Darker Than Black Tuesday [Notes From the Bahraini Field- Update 6]

By : Jadaliyya Reports

Amid an atmosphere of extreme tension a number of Asian men, mostly from Pakistan, have reportedly been attacked with swords and iron rods during the last two days. The government seems to have taken up their cause to point blame at opposition protesters although as of yet the circumstances in which they were attacked, and who attacked them are not clear. The men attacked were all civilian residents who have in the past borne the brunt of anti-government sentiment. Mostly Pakistanis, they are often recruited by the hundreds into Bahrain`s security forces, their citizenship fast tracked and social benefits guaranteed. They are then used in riot police squads to mete out violent repression against locals. That said, the description of men wearing masks and carrying swords given by victims interviewed in the local press is very similar to description of baltajiyya thugs who instigated violence and vandalism at the Bahrain University earlier in the week.

With the arrival of Saudi troops in Bahrain on Monday, members of the seven political societies which presented demands to the Crown Prince in lieu of dialogue described the entry of GCC troops into Bahrain as an ‘act of war without declaring war,’ saying that the troops would inevitably be used to crush the protest movement.

The King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa then declared a “state of national safety.” He was presumably referring to the safety of his oppressive regime, as troops of the Gulf Peninsula Shield began their work to “enforce law, promote security and stop anarchy before starting the national dialogue.”

What this entailed:

Reports surfaced early in the day about riot police shooting rubber bullets, bird pellets and CS gas in the village of Ma`ameer, and seemingly orchestrating random attacks in various neighborhoods. Violence in residential areas also continued with clashes between baltajiyya and protesters, with sources saying that gunshots were heard in Aali and Saar areas. It is important to note that only two groups of people in Bahrain society have access to firearms - security personnel and member of tribal families allied with the ruling family, who use the guns for hunting expeditions. Checkpoints also remained in place.

By afternoon, news filtered in describing the advancement of troops to Sitra, where two protesters and one policeman were killed. The first is a demonstrator, Ahmed Farhan, who’s head was blown open (*this is an extremely graphic video). The second, a Bangladeshi resident who was reportedly trying to defend a group of women under attack in the area, was also shot with live ammunition. The third is a policeman, although circumstances of the death are not clear. Hundreds were reported wounded and, once again, medical staff reported attempts to prevent the injured from accessing medical treatment. In one case, staff reported that the health centre itself came under attack by the army too, and photographs of an ambulance pocked with a bullet mark have surfaced on web forums. Almost simultaneously, the Salmaniya Medical Complex (SMC) came under attack, with reports of ambulances being stolen by armed thugs. In the notable absence of the recently appointed Health Minister Nezar Al Baharna, SMC doctors were dispatched to Sitra but were reportedly threatened by troops and prevented from treating injured civilians. Among the wounded today were also a number of baltajiyya, plainclothes policemen from Syria and Pakistan who`s identification revealed them to be Interior Ministry employees.

Meanwhile, thousands gathered outside the Saudi Embassy to protest the actions of GCC troops, and a large gathering continued at the Pearl roundabout until late in the evening, where public prayers were held to commemorate the dead and mark the national crisis. In the evening, armed and masked men attacked the offices of the only non-government propagandist paper, Al Wasat, for a second time this week. Political societies & the General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions urged a continuation of strikes (announced after the news of GCC troops deployment in Bahrain). News of solidarity rallies in Qatif, and planned rallies in Kuwait, London and Cairo emerged.

Later in the day, the US Department of State announced the voluntary departure of dependents of those serving at the base because of “deteriorating security circumstances,” and the government of the Philippines advised Filipino workers to leave Bahrain.

There is a lot of speculation about the diplomacy that led to the current situation, with commentators suggesting that Bahrain is caught in the middle of a wrangle between Saudi (pro-crack down) and the US (pro-dialogue). Given the situation today this stance seems a little generous in its analysis of the US, which has its largest naval fleet in the gulf stationed in Bahrain, and the Bahraini government, both of whom, as tweeted by an observer, allowed today`s crimes to occur because they “gave the green light - or the absence of a red light.”

 

[The above is part of a series of email reports from Jadaliyya affiliates in Manama. They will be updated regularly to reflect the latest developments in Bahrain. Also see our Notes from the Bahraini Field Update 1, Update 2, Update 3, Update 4, and Update 5].

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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 


[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412