Showing posts with label Bahrain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bahrain. Show all posts

Friday, September 20, 2019

How Will Democracy Come To The Arab Countries?

While we are on the topic of China is an excellent time also to talk about Arab countries. How will democracy come to Arab countries? Most of them are monarchies.

There is the Bhutan way where the monarch decides he has been king long enough. Now he should choose to become a constitutional monarch and let an elected parliament run the show. That is the least disruptive path for all parties concerned. The people get their rule. The monarchs keep their wealth and respect. Although it should be noted, some of these royal things have obscene amounts of wealth. Nobody really needs that much money.

They should pay a generous wealth tax.

But this option does not seem on the horizon. I don't know of any monarch who is considering it.

But the current arrangements are inherently unsustainable. They will not go on forever.

2010: Bridging the Gulf: Bahrain's big experiment with democracy Though more liberal than its neighbours, the country is feeling the impact of political Islam. ........ Saudi Arabia. The two countries are linked by a 16-mile toll road, the King Fahd Causeway, but Khadija would not be welcome on the Saudi side where women are not allowed to drive even private cars. In Manama City, she bowls around in a stylish white London taxi, wearing a black hijab and grasping the steering wheel with white gloves........... worried about being cheated. "They pay or I drive on," she says bluntly........ "One hundred per cent of the male drivers see her as a threat" ........ a modernising experiment which was begun by the royal family a decade ago. ....... Eight years ago, Bahrain underwent a startling transition from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy; this archipelago with a population of around a million people is still getting used to political campaigns and four-yearly parliamentary elections. It's an experiment that has some limitations: political parties are not allowed and most candidates belong to political "societies" which function like parties in all but name. Ministers are appointed by the King and after the 2006 elections just over half the cabinet were relatives of the royal family; the long-serving Prime Minister, Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, is his uncle........ But while the royal family retains a great deal of power, political exiles have been allowed to return home, newspapers have more freedom than in most Middle Eastern states, and there has been a concerted attempt to give women more rights......... It's a standing joke that wealthy Saudis barrel across the King Fahd Causeway in gas-guzzling limousines, eager to enjoy the bars and casinos that are banned in their own country......... Bahrain has a history stretching back several thousand years. The glass-and-steel towers of Manama City are joined by another causeway to the old capital, Muharraq, where wood-shuttered pearl merchants' homes are being turned into museums. Bahrain Fort is a restored 15th-century complex at the northern tip of the archipelago, near Bahrain airport, but the site on which it stands has been occupied for almost 2,500 years. What looks like a set from Lawrence of Arabia was once the capital of the Dilmun, one of the most important ancient civilisations in the region........... Bahrain's pearl-fishing industry, which fell into disuse when oil was discovered in 1931. ........ The Khalifa family has ruled Bahrain since the 18th century and the present king, 60-year-old Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, has been in power since the death of his father in 1999. As in many Muslim countries, the ruling family follows a different branch of Islam from the majority of the population; the Khalifas are Sunni, while most Bahrainis are Shia. It's hard to believe that this wasn't a factor in the King's decision to start introducing political reforms, and the success of Islamist "societies" in parliamentary elections has exposed – and thus far contained – profound underlying tensions. Official briefings are at pains to characterise the royal family's modernisation programme as the result of "a genuine benevolent attitude towards citizens", but the government has benefited enormously from its support for the US during the Iraq and Afghan wars............ In 2002, the results of the first parliamentary elections in Bahrain were ominous for secular politicians: the elected lower house was immediately dominated by Islamist parties and not a single woman candidate was elected. The same thing happened in 2006, when the Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society took almost half of the 40 seats, although on that occasion one woman was successful.......... Dr Salah Ali, a former political exile who now chairs the Al-Menbar Islamic Society, a Sunni group which has seven seats in the lower house and is widely believed to have close links with the Muslim Brotherhood.......... there has been a ferocious campaign by Islamists in the lower house to ban alcohol in Bahrain ........ Mohammed Khalid, an outspoken MP from the Al-Menbar Society, who has made a name for himself as an opponent of anything he regards as un-Islamic. Mr Khalid embarrassed the government when he hailed terrorists fighting American forces in Iraq as "heroes"........... Diplomatic and business sources confirm that Bahrain is under pressure from political Islam, suggesting that the Shia parties in the lower house are worryingly close to Iran. That isn't much comfort to Bahrain's small Jewish population, although the government is fighting back; this is the only Arab nation in the world whose current ambassador to Washington, Houda Noono, is a Jewish woman........... One of the ironies of Bahrain's democratic experiment is that it depends on the unelected upper chamber, the consultative council (Shura), to defend the state from political Islam and a socially conservative electorate. ........ 45 per cent of public employees are female. Recent laws have given women paid leave to look after their children while the Shura is trying to establish workplace nurseries "with some resistance from colleagues" ........... This is the problem of the Middle East writ large. In the West, it goes without saying that democracy means respect for the rights of the individual, but across the region,

Islamist parties are attracting support on programmes that deny the most basic human rights.

......... the Al-Menbar Society vociferously opposed government plans to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which allows individuals to change their religion. "This means that Muslims could convert to another religion, something against Islamic law, since those who do so should be beheaded," declared a leading Al-Menbar MP, Dr Salah Abdulrahman........ Opposition to the protocol was eventually defeated, allowing Bahrain to ratify the treaty in 2006, but the episode demonstrates the difficulties facing the royal family's modernisation project. ........

Bahrain's experiment with democracy is being watched closely across the Middle East.

"It's having a positive effect on the region, including Saudi Arabia," Dr Haffadh told me. What is undeniably true is that

Saudi women, who are among the most cloistered in the world, now have only to cross a bridge to see Bahraini women dress as they wish, enjoy the same legal rights as men

– and even drive taxis.......... Iran... A woman's testimony in court carries only half the weight of a man's.


Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Saudis Going Into Bahrain Like Saddam Going Into Kuwait

King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz. (2002 photo)Image via WikipediaJust because the autocratic regime in Bahrain extended an invitation does not mean the move was legitimate. This Arab wave of democracy does not end with the nefarious regime in Iran ending up with much more regional power. This wave will sweep away the Iranian mullahs from power. That has to be the outcome we have to work towards.

The Saudi king has to go. The mullahs in Iran have to go.

Gaddafi tried to tell the world it was the Al Qaeda playing tricks on him in Benghazi. Should we have believed him? There were people who said if you kick out Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood, a party of Islamists, will take over that important country?

And now there are people who are thinking in terms of a scenario where the Saudi king is still in power a few months from now, and the mullahs are still in power in Iran several months from now.

The whole idea is to sweep them from power. The whole idea is to start afresh. This is not a Shia Sunni fight like the Saudi royals are pressing hard for the world to believe. If the Saudi king tells you he is the person standing between you and Bin Laden, do not believe him. He is the person standing between the people of Saudi Arabia and their democratic aspirations. To that add the people of Bahrain as well.
Wall Street Journal: The New Cold War: For three months, the Arab world has been awash in protests and demonstrations. ...... a dramatic spike in tensions between two geopolitical titans, Iran and Saudi Arabia. ...... On March 14, the Saudis rolled tanks and troops across a causeway into the island kingdom of Bahrain. The ruling family there, long a close Saudi ally, appealed for assistance in dealing with increasingly large protests. ...... shows how easily the old Middle East, marked by sectarian divides and ingrained rivalries, can re-emerge and stop change in its tracks. ...... There has long been bad blood between the Saudis and Iran. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni Muslim kingdom of ethnic Arabs, Iran a Shiite Islamic republic populated by ethnic Persians..... Iran holds in its sway Syria and the militant Arab groups Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories; in the Saudi sphere are the Sunni Muslim-led Gulf monarchies, Egypt, Morocco and the other main Palestinian faction, Fatah. The Saudi camp is pro-Western and leans toward tolerating the state of Israel. The Iranian grouping thrives on its reputation in the region as a scrappy "resistance" camp, defiantly opposed to the West and Israel..... As far away as Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, the Saudis have watched warily as Iranian clerics have expanded their activities—and they have responded with large-scale religious programs of their own there. ...... Spurred on by televised images and YouTube videos from Tunisia, protests broke out across much of the rest of the Arab world. Within weeks, millions were on the streets in Egypt and Hosni Mubarak was gone, shown the door in part by his longtime backer, the U.S. government. The Obama administration was captivated by this spontaneous outbreak of democratic demands and at first welcomed it with few reservations...... In Riyadh, Saudi officials watched with alarm. They became furious when the Obama administration betrayed, to Saudi thinking, a longtime ally in Mr. Mubarak and urged him to step down in the face of the street demonstrations. ..... The Saudis were further agitated when the protests crept closer to their own borders...... As for the U.S., the Saudis saw calls for reform as another in a string of disappointments and outright betrayals..... The Saudis believe that solving the issue of Palestinian statehood will deny Iran a key pillar in its regional expansionist strategy—and thus bring a win for the forces of Sunni moderation that Riyadh wants to lead. ....... the ramping up of regional tensions has another source: fear of democracy itself. ..... Long before protests ousted rulers in the Arab world, Iran battled massive street protests of its own for more than two years. It managed to control them, and their calls for more representative government or outright regime change, with massive, often deadly, force. Yet even as the government spun the Arab protests as Iranian inspired, Iran's Green Revolution opposition movement managed to use them to boost their own fortunes, staging several of their best-attended rallies in more than a year..... Saudi Arabia has largely avoided protests during the Arab Spring ..... "The problem is a political one, but sectarianism is a winning card for them" ...... Iran and Saudi Arabia are, uncharacteristically and to some observers alarmingly, tossing direct threats at each other across the Gulf. ...... the understanding that the kingdom works to stabilize global oil prices while the White House protects the ruling family's dynasty. Washington has pulled back from blanket support for democracy efforts in the region. ....... While Saudi troops guard critical oil and security facilities in their neighbor's land, the Bahraini government has launched a sweeping and often brutal crackdown on demonstrators. ....... forced out the editor of the country's only independent newspaper. More than 400 demonstrators have been arrested without charges, many in violent night raids on Shiite villages ..... In Yemen, the Saudis, also working under a Gulf Cooperation Council umbrella, have taken control of the political negotiations to transfer power out of the hands of President Ali Abdullah Saleh
This is not a Shia Sunni fight. This is a fight between autocracy and democracy. This is a fight between the Arab peoples and their autocratic rulers. Just like the autocrats in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain see common cause, the peoples of Saudi Arabi and Bahrain have to see common cause. They have to rise together.

America has no love affair with the House of Saud. America's love affair is with democracy. It always has been, always will be. But it is for the people of Saudi Arabia to rise, it is for the people of Iran to rise all over again. I remember 2009.
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Saturday, March 19, 2011

Ultimately It Is About Iran, Because That Is Where It All Started

Key Petroleum Sector facilities (2004) Iran (W...Image via WikipediaSyria's Turn

Tunisia was a warm up act. Egypt was a warm up act. Libya is a warm up act. Yemen, and Bahrain will be warm up acts. Saudi Arabia will be a warm up act, as Syria and Jordan. Morocco, Qatar, United Arab Emirates. They all will be warm up acts.

And then Iran will wake up all over again. All this is in preparation for Iran. Because that is where it all started. The people of Iran woke up in 2009. And we are reaping the rewards today in all these other countries.

But the final push has to be made in Iran itself. The mullahs are unpleasant people. They need to go.

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Syria's Turn

(en) Syria Location (he) מיקום סוריהImage via Wikipedia
New York Times: In Syria, Crackdown After Protests: Protests broke out in four Syrian cities on Friday, the first large-scale demonstrations here since the pro-democracy uprisings began in the Arab world three months ago. Brutal police crackdowns followed, leaving six people dead and scores injured..... In the largest protests, several thousand people gathered in the center of Dara’a, in southern Syria, chanting “God, Syria and freedom only” ..... A Facebook page, “the Syrian revolution 2011,” has called on people to protest against corruption and repression. ..... Small protests in the capital on Tuesday and Wednesday were violently dispersed by the authorities, who arrested scores of demonstrators. The state news service, SANA, dismissed those protests as the work of outside agitators. ..... about 20 youths who had written graffiti complaining about the high cost of living and calling for more freedoms...... “They used live ammunition immediately, no tear gas or anything else”
Democracy in Syria, as in Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia or Libya, or in Iran, is not Britain's business, it is not the business of France, it is most definitely not the business of the United States of America. But when the people rise and take to the streets to peacefully protest, if any actor, any entity, any apparatus, any organization, any state structure, or mafia group, or a terrorist group, or a clan, or royal family, or an army, or a police force decides to unleash animal brutality upon those peaceful protesters, not just the US or Britain or France, but the entire community of nations on the planet has to stand up for them, and there are many, many nonviolent options. You impose global travel bans on all members of the regime, you freeze their assets, you issue strict warnings of vocal support, you extend moral support, you offer logistical support, maybe they need a few laptops, a few camera phones, medical supplies perhaps, and you give the offenders a little time, all the time making it absolutely clear unleashing animal brutality is not acceptable, and of course you press charges against them in the International Criminal Court, and you issue Interpol warrants for their arrests. And if they don't stop still, then you go to the UN Security Council for the final act. That final act still fits the definition of non violence. The violence against Hitler's regime fit the definition of non violence.

Or some monarchs in the region could do the smart thing and not unleash animal brutality upon their people and request that they be turned into constitutional monarchs. That is a legitimate option. But that is not an option still on the table after you have unleashed animal brutality upon peaceful protesters.

2011 is to be democracy's biggest year in world history. China itself is fair game. Russia is fair game. And the fuck with Mugabe.
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Khalifa Of Bahrain Must Go


Friday, March 18, 2011

Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia

King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz. (2002 photo)Image via WikipediaThe road map for Libya also has to be the road map for Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. It is not for the United States to urge people into the streets, but when they do come out to peacefully protest no regime anywhere should feel it is okay for them to unleash animal brutality upon those peaceful protesters.

Just because Yemen is a small country, just because Bahrain is a small country does not mean we can afford to ignore them. We encircle Saudi Arabia by doing right in Yemen and Bahrain. Freezing the global assets of repressive elites and imposing travel bans on them is where you start. Then you issue interpol warrants authorized by the International Criminal Court. Then you threaten surgical aerial strikes.

The message has to be clear. You do not get to unleash animal brutality upon a peacefully protesting people. You can refuse to accept their demands. You can negotiate with them. But you do not get to unleash animal brutality. Not in this day and age. Not in this century.

This is all about building momentum. Tunisia was about Egypt. Egypt was about Libya. Libya is about Saudi Arabia. Yemen and Bahrain are about Saudi Arabia. And the entire Arab world is about China and Russia. If we do it right in the Arab world, China could be shaking in summer.
A thick band of dust snaking across the Red Se...Image via Wikipedia
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Sunday, February 20, 2011

This Is Also About Women's Rights

Muammar al-Gaddafi's signature.Image via WikipediaThis tumult in the Arab world has to be taken to its logical conclusion of grand success. Everyone in a position to help has to help. Because this is also about women's rights across the Arab world. Only after a country has become a democracy, and the democratic processes come into play can there be sound hope for concrete advances on women's rights.

Gender equality will not come about right away, but steps towards that gender equality are so much harder if not impossible to take when a country is not a democracy. There are no outlets.

The irrelevant old men who run all these countries need to be all pushed out, and in haste. This is not the time to be polite and civil to people who have reigned mercilessly over their peoples for so long.

The Saudi King Is No Exception, He Has To Go Too
Democracy: An Israeli Plot?
China: 2 PM, Sunday
Bomb Gaddafi's Tent
Khameini, Gaddafi, Caecescu
Et Tu, China?
When They Open Fire
Iran: Brute Force Does Have An Answer
Iran, Bahrain and Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia
Arab Democracy: What The US Needs To Do: Stay Deeply Engaged
Arab Dictators Are Shaking
Egypt: A Revolution, Not A Reform Movement
How Many People Could Mubarak Kill?
Arab Dictators Will Fall Like A House Of Cards
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The Saudi King Is No Exception, He Has To Go Too

King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz. (2002 photo)Image via WikipediaGaddafi is about to fall. Then it is going to be the turn of the king of Saudi Arabi. The monarchy in Saudi Arabia has to come to a total end. Monarchies everywhere need to be ended. This is the time to do it.

This is not the time for reform, this is revolution time. Revolution means big, fundamental change. 

What is going on in the Arab world has never before happened in the Arab world. The scope of it all is breathtaking. Nothing like this has happened in Arab history in two thousand years. This is a millennial shift. This is tectonic. 

Let no one be mistaken. This tide will only subside after every single autocracy in the region has been toppled. The Arab street has spoken. That is the clear verdict. 
Democracy: An Israeli Plot?
China: 2 PM, Sunday
Bomb Gaddafi's Tent
Khameini, Gaddafi, Caecescu
Et Tu, China?
When They Open Fire
Iran: Brute Force Does Have An Answer
Iran, Bahrain and Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia
Arab Democracy: What The US Needs To Do: Stay Deeply Engaged
Arab Dictators Are Shaking
Egypt: A Revolution, Not A Reform Movement
How Many People Could Mubarak Kill?
Arab Dictators Will Fall Like A House Of Cards
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Monday, February 14, 2011

Iran, Bahrain and Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia

President Shafat Hussain (center), of the Repu...Image via WikipediaArab Focus, Microfinance Focus
Los Angeles Times: In Iran, Bahrain and Yemen, protesters take to streets: protesters inspired by the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia take part in street marches..... The tumult in a region normally kept tranquil under the heavy-handed security of conservative Gulf regimes underscored the widening reverberations of new pro-democracy movements in the Middle East ...... the protesters' numbers have been small ..... thousands more people who turned out for the main scheduled march were walking quietly along the sidewalks toward Azadi Square ...... clashes that in some cases involved young demonstrators beating security personnel ...... west of Imam Hussein Square ..... "The police support us, the Iranians support us." ...... "We would like to stress that Feb. 14 is only the beginning. The road may be long and the rallies may continue for days and weeks, but if a people one day chooses life, then destiny will respond." ...... Yemen, meanwhile, was undergoing its fourth straight days of protests ..... Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's president for more than 30 years 
A political revolution is all about momentum. Right now there is momentum. The right thing to do is to stoke the fire. Get the people out into the streets. An amazing regional level political clarity has been achieved. This can not be let go to waste. 2011 is 1989. Two successes in a row are a lot of momentum. This has to be put to good use. Finally Iran's time has come too.

Arab Democracy: What The US Needs To Do: Stay Deeply Engaged
Arab Dictators Are Shaking
Egypt: A Revolution, Not A Reform Movement
How Many People Could Mubarak Kill?
Arab Dictators Will Fall Like A House Of Cards

Los Angeles Times: Egypt military dissolves parliament, suspends constitution: calling for elections within six months ..... the military, the most respected institution in the nation, was edging toward forming a credible democracy ..... the army left intact the ex-president's Council of Ministers to run the government. ...... Cars honked and drove around the city hub for the first time in more than two weeks as scores of soldiers fanned out into the remaining tent cities on the square and unceremoniously tore them down...... several hundred police officers held a protest of their own in front of the Interior Ministry demanding higher salaries, access to government medical care and rehiring of officers fired for disciplinary or administrative violations.
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