An Account of the Arrest of One of Bahrain's Opposition Leaders

[Ebrahim Sharif Alsayed Campaign Poster for 2010 Parliamentary Elections. Image from unknown archive.] [Ebrahim Sharif Alsayed Campaign Poster for 2010 Parliamentary Elections. Image from unknown archive.]

An Account of the Arrest of One of Bahrain's Opposition Leaders

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[Late last night, early this morning Thursday March 17, 2011, Ebrahim Sharif Alsayed--who is Secretary General of the National Democractic Action Society, Wa`d (a Bahraini opposition group)--was taken from his home by plain-clothed men that identified themselves as amn al-dawlah [state security]. Below is a letter by his Daughter Yara Ebrahim Alsayed which provides an account of the arrest/abduction. The letter is being circulated on the internet and has been sent out by several Bahraini groups based in the country.]

1:50 AM bell rings at Ebrahim Sharif’s residence. There are a lot of boys/men outside. My mother assumes they are um-alhassam boys/men who trashed the um-alhassam National Democratic Action Society (Wa3d) branch with Molotov cocktail bombs less than 20 hours ago .

Their faces are covered (mulathimeen). No indication that they are police from what they are wearing. After a while, they noticed men wearing all black. Mother says they assumed they were just thugs at first.

Parents came down to address the situation (Ebrahim Sharif and wife). As soon as we stepped out of the door they noticed one of the boys/men climbing the fence (shiga7 ilsoor). One of them was trying to open garage door after hopping the fence (not really a fence, more of a cement barrier...you know what I mean).

The first man who hopped the fence had a gun in his hand and pointed it towards Ebrahim Sharif. Ebrahim Sharif said “nazel il musadas” (“put down the gun”). Parents ask “WHO ARE YOU?”, someone replies “open the door!”. Parents ask “wain ta9ree7kom?”, their reply “a7na gilnalkom ba6lo ilbab”.

Ebrahim Sharif says “Who Are YOU?” At this point they say “Amn el dawla”. Ebrahim Sharif and wife now buzz open the gate from inside. Ebrahim Sharif remains calm. Mother says he put on his shoes and went out to talk to them.

Ebrahim Sharif talks to who seems to be leading the group of men. Leader-guy says something along the lines of “come with us fe ta7qeeqat”. My mother was not close enough to hear the whole thing but this is what she understood.

During this time the some of the men outside start coming into the garden through the gate that was opened as mentioned in the last paragraph. Some were still on the road infront of the house. Mother and father walk outside to where the cars are and my mother notices 2 black cars, 2 jeep landcruisers, and about 3-4 small vehicles similar to corollas in size. Inside these small cars is about 4-5boys covered (mulathimeen).

All in all about 35-40 people outside the house. About 6 or 7 of the total are armed with rashashaat (guns).

Most of the men/boys are mulathimeen (covered), about two of them wearing white thoobs and ‘3itra is covering their mouths.

Mother says they have no idea where my father is right now. There is no way to contact him. She says they are waiting, praying, and hoping for the best. Hoping that the government will release an official statement in the morning of his whereabouts. Working with other Wa3d members on the situation. I asked my mother “Did they not tell you where they were taking him?”. My mother replies by saying “I told them I need a number to get in contact with him or to know information”. A few of them replied by joking and said “call city center (a large mall
in Bahrain)”. She doesn’t appreciate the humor is such a situation and shows this by saying “shinow city center!?” (What do you mean City Center??). The men joke again by saying “al6abeq ilthani yam iltilifoonaat” (second floor next to the phone booths). She mentions that only a few of them were replying to her question and the ones that did were the ones who made these jokes.

May God have mercy on my father. He is not an extremist. The National Democratic Action Society (Wa3d) is a secular one, meaning it is NOT religiously-backed. He is not a violent person. He is peaceful. He asks for reform but has done so in a way where he has never laid a hand on someone and never resorted to violence. I will not be able to forgive the ones who lay a hand on him. Only God knows the truth. Allah Yaster. I’m thinking about you Baba, I love you so much. You make me proud by voicing your opinion and not being scared for your safety, but right now, that is all I am thinking about. You have taught your children to stand up for what they believe in, to educate themselves, to be open minded, and to listen to people. You have played your role in making me the strong woman I am today, but I have never felt so helpless. I hope there are people out there who will protect him.

Peace & Respect; always,
Yara Ebrahim Alsayed

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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