Report on Bahrain's Crisis Released Today

Readers of this blog may recall several postings on the Arab Spring in the early months of 2011, especially reports on my friend Shubbar who was arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned for fifty days--just because he was the son-in-law of a prominent opposition leader. He was one of many victims of a harsh crackdown by Bahrain's security forces, carried out by the Sunni-dominated government against protesters from the Shia majority.

Another prominent victim was the Bahrain national team soccer star Alaa Hubail, whose story was recently covered in this poignant ESPN report:



Today, however, the government of Bahrain received a 500 page report from an independent commission that it had appointed to study the crackdown. To its credit, it allowed the commission to work quite freely in Bahrain and it allowed the document to be made public on the Web.

A quick review of the report suggests that the Commission was very careful to document facts as much as possible. For example, their staff compiled sixty vivid, firsthand accounts of arbitrary arrest and torture (see Annex B in the document).

In addition, Annex A records all the deaths tied to the unrest and crackdown:

• Thirteen civilian deaths attributed to security forces
• Eight civilian deaths "not attributed to specific perpetrators"
• Five deaths attributed to torture
• Four expatriate workers killed
• Five police officers and military members killed (three by protesters)
• Eleven killings that occurred "outside the Commission's temporal mandate" (after the cutoff date)

In a crude calculus of the two sides' losses, at least forty opponents of the government were killed, in contrast to three members of the police and security forces.

Scanning the bulk of the report feels a bit like reading a divorce proceeding, with the two sides bitterly disputing each point. But its thoroughness is a tribute to the work of the commission and its chairman, M. Cherif Bassiouni.

How this will play in the Bahraini government is the real question. My hunch is that the younger members of the royal family will try to use this as ammunition to force out the old guard (the prime minister), but they'll have an uphill battle, as Anthony Shadid pointed out yesterday in the New York Times.

Bahrain and Saudi Arabia

In today's New York Times, columnist Nick Kristof posted an open letter to King Hamad of Bahrain, requesting the release of Hassan al-Sahaf, a 57-year old Shia moderate. Like many other Bahrainis, including relatives of our friend Shubbar, al-Sahaf remains under arrest. Here's hoping that King Hamad will listen to such reasonable voices and free political prisoners. We're thankful that our friend Shubbar is out, but we won't rest until all the unfairly detained political prisoners are free.

Today's Times also has a story by Neil MacFarquhar on how Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has spent $130 billion to buy off opposition critics and forestall the kind of pro-reform protests that have rocked nearly every other Arab state. In addition to deep pockets, the royal family has a loyal religious establishment that has been preaching against revolt as un-Islamic. And the police have arrested anyone with the temerity to test restrictions against public protest.

As a result, and contrary to my expectations, the al-Saud family has managed to forestall any major protests, turning an announced Day of Rage on March 11 into a Day of Duds. Given the lack of protests so far, the al-Saud family wins the Donkey award for the most skillful use of carrots and sticks. 

But will this strategy work in the long run? As MacFarquhar writes, 

Saudi Arabia’s efforts have succeeded in the short run, at home and in its Persian Gulf backyard. But some critics call its strategy of effectively buying off public opinion unsustainable because it fails to address underlying problems.

Keep watching Saudi Arabia. The Arab Spring hasn't ended yet.

Freedom!

Good news! After 50 days of detention, our friend Shubbar was freed. We were in Italy, with limited Internet access, when we got the news, so it took some time to get the word out after we got the updates from Hajar and Shubbar. Sadly, Shubbar's father-in-law and brothers-in-law remain in captivity.

Bahrain remains under a state of siege, as the McClatchy reporter Roy Gutman has shown in a series of informative dispatches from the island, including a recent one on Bahrain's plans to sentence two protestors to death. Pressure from the U.S. may have contributed to a slight easing of the crackdown.

Whatever the cause, we're just glad that our friend is free.

Finally . . . Al Jazeera Picks Up the Story

It's about time. Al Jazeera English is finally telling the story of the crackdown from the perspective of detainees' families (similar to our friends Shubbar and Hajar).

Check out this story, which includes footage of the crackdown and an interview with the wife of an abducted man.

AJE also ran some of the first video confirming reports that the government of Bahrain has destroyed over a dozen Shia mosques:



Interestingly, someone in Qatar has decided to start pressing the Obama Administration to protect human rights. We'll see if this shift convinces the Obama team to press their allies in Manama a bit harder. There may be a voice for the voiceless Shia in Bahrain after all.

Prison Time and Liturgical Time

Review of Avi Steinberg, Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian (New York: Nan A. Talese / Doubleday, 2010)

As our friend Shubbar sits in his sixth week of arbitrary detention, I've just finished reading Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian, by Avi Steinberg. Steinberg's and Shubbar's stories raise two common questions: What does it mean to be deprived of one's freedom? And how does one experience time in captivity?

Steinberg grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family in Cleveland and Boston. After graduating from Harvard a few years back, he was adrift from the community of his youth and adrift in his career ambitions (like so many young college graduates these days). But when he applied, and got hired, for a job as a prison librarian in a Boston jail, he found his voice and his story. He tells that story with self-deprecating humor, bittersweet pathos, street smarts, and quiet literary elegance. This is a coming-of-age story with unusual depth and richness.

As a blogger and author concerned with how liturgical time can transform our engagement with the world, I found the most eloquent passage in the book in a meditation on the experience of holiday times in jail.

Time has its own peculiar meaning in prison . . . . Although a person in prison always has countless hours, he has no access to time's attendant meanings. When it comes to time, most inmates are like the tragic mariner: water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink. There's endless time but not the nourishing kind, no seasons, no holiday cycles. At least, nothing that can be shared with others.

When snow collects in the yard--it is winter. When your cellmate smells particularly rank--it is summer. But these things don't imply anything beyond themselves. Snow doesn't mean sledding with your children, or skiing, or playing football or going to concerts for Christmas. It means snow.

The closest approximations of seasons in prison are the gambling seasons. When the Super Bowl gambling crunch hits, it is winter; when the NCAA basketball tourney happens, it is spring. These are the Christmas and Easter of prison. Aside from these sad interludes, prison time is neither marked nor shared by a community. It is personal and moves toward one holiday: the end of one's sentence. Each individual follows his own private eschatological calendar, which has only one holiday, the Last Day, the End of Days.

This is a very practical matter for those who work in prison. When you leave before a holiday, a well-meaning caseworker instructed me, you don't say "Merry Christmas" to the inmates. It doesn't make sense and, as she added, "It's kind of a slap in the face." In prison, seasons are best left unmarked and unremarked upon (pp. 375-76).

Imprisonment, then, expresses both literally and figuratively what it means to live flat, secular time. There are no seasons and only one holiday: escape. One lives in a private, solitary world, sharing no common times. It's truly hell.

In the meantime, living out of liturgical time, I am praying for an end to Shubbar's current ordeal: for his return to the many festivals and celebrations of the Shiite calendar among the bosom of his family. In this Easter season, surely we can hope in the One who broke down the gates of hell and liberated the first prisoners.

Update on Our Friend

As Americans were getting excited last night over the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, I received an email from Shubbar's wife saying that her father and two brothers were arrested yesterday in Bahrain. Her father is Sheikh Mohammed al Mahfoodh, the religious leader of the Islamic Action Society, or Amal (right). 



Needless to say, this leaves his daughter upset, since her husband has already been detained for one month, and now she is without father and brothers. Today, she asked me to convey the following message to President Obama:

Dear Mr President,

 

I am writing to you from Bahrain. First, I would like to congratulate you concerning Bin Ladin. However, I am writing to you concerning my country Bahrain. I am the daughter of Sheikh Mohammed Ali Almahfoodh, the chairman of Amal Islamic Society. I would like to tell you that yesterday he was detained with my two brothers to an unknown destination. A month ago, my husband was arrested as a hostage.

Mr President, this action is your full responsibility, since your policy is to spread democracy. Your administration condemned the dissolving of the societies, and therefore, you have the upper hand to release my father and brothers, and husband. My mother has collapsed as to the news. 

I beseech your help and protection, and whatever happens to my detained family is under your responsibility. 

Finally, I strongly urge your administration to prove to the world that the US respects their values and morals, and not double standards as many people are pointing out currently. I always looked at the US constitution as my aspiration to a better world.
I want to thank you for your time, and I hope something happens to reunite my family again. 

Best wishes,

Hajar Mahfoodh

"Unlike Anything That I Have Seen in My Twenty Years of Investigating Human Rights"

CNN is putting Al Jazeera English to shame with its much-better coverage of the deteriorating situation in Bahrain. (CNN reporter Amber Lyon has thousands of Bahraini admirers because she's taken an interest in their plight.) Yesterday their London and Atlanta studios featured a new report by Physicians for Human Rights, whose head told CNN that the situation in Bahrain was unlike anything he had seen in his twenty years of investigating human rights abuses.



CNN's London studio added a feature with Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch, in which he correctly noted that hundreds of Bahrainis have disappeared. Among them, of course, is our friend Shubbar. On this Holy Saturday, I am praying for Shubbar and the others who are imprisoned.

Holy Week and Suffering in Bahrain

This week between Palm Sunday and Easter is the center of the Christian calendar, re-enacting the surprising events that (Christians believe) usher in the reign of God in human history: Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey (not a white horse), he symbolically re-claims the Temple, he washes his disciples' feet; he gives himself over to betrayal; he stands silently before his judges, torturers, and executioners; he carries the instrument of his own death to the site of his own execution. This--this?--is how the Kingdom is revealed, in the humble face of a suffering servant.

It's also the week of Passover in the Jewish lunar calendar, which is no accident, since the events of this week occurred during Passover, which is why the Christian church has always tied its observance of Holy Week to that calendar (and why Easter never has a fixed date in the solar calendar: it moves with the Jewish lunar months).

Just today, during this week of kairos (deeply meaningful) time, I received a disturbing message from my friend Shubbar's wife:

Thugs and security have attacked us twice, threatening to take my kids as hostages and causing my mum to go through a collapse two times. They stayed for two hours or so and created horror among the women and children in the house. They also took my brother in law and tortured him with electric shock to reveal the place of my father. We don't know where my father is since more than a month, but they are not believing us. I don't know what to do.

Pray for me and I seek your help if you have any idea.

In an earlier message she also said that her little two-year-old, who is just barely talking now, was deeply troubled by the original intrusion of masked security forces and the abduction of Shubbar. In fragments, this adorable little guy said

Mama; they came, they broke the door and the gate; they hurt baba [daddy]; they went; I don't like them; they are not nice; mama I am scared.

How do we even begin to comprehend the fear and anxiety that this family, like hundreds of others, is facing?

I couldn't help but notice some resonances between the suffering of Jesus and his community in Holy Week and the suffering of the Shiite community in Bahrain. Of course, there are many differences between the early followers of Jesus and 21st century Bahrainis, but their stories converge on this point: the Powers seek to crush resistance through force, to disperse opposition through fear, and to deprive their opponents through denying any hope. And ordinary people lose their will to resist; they scatter; and they lose hope. Rome (and the Al Khalifa) appear to have won.

So is there hope for Bahrain or for our friends? I see little, but the story of Holy Week suggests that hope may emerge at the darkest moments. Yesterday, liturgical churches would have read Isaiah 50:4-9, part of which reads

I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty? (vv. 6-9)

The church reads this prophetic, poetic text as pointing toward the drama of what is about to happen to Jesus, who was tortured.

But this suffering, paradoxically, is the way to glory. How can this be? The prayer for Wednesday of Holy Week in the Book of Common Prayer offers a model:

Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his body to be whipped and his face to be spit upon: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed.

I pray this prayer for our friends in Bahrain. I pray that the path of Jesus--through suffering toward redemption and glory--will be their road as well.

During this week, my Jewish friends say "Next year in Jerusalem," recalling how God liberated them from Egypt. During Ashura, my Shiite friends speak of the way of 'Ali and Hussein as opposed to the ways of Yazid and Mu'awiyya (Caliphs who tried to crush the Shiite movement). And, today and tomorrow, Christians speak of the way of Jesus as opposed to the ways of the Sanhedrin and of Pontius Pilate. We are all praying that justice will be done and that the weak will be vindicated.

May the reign of God triumph here on earth as it is already ruling in heaven. May justice be done. And may the captives be freed, here, today, as in heaven and in the future.

Palm Sunday: Two Weeks: Still No Word . . . And Increasing Tension

I heard tonight (as I do every twenty-four hours) from the wife of my friend Shubbar. After two weeks, there has still been no word about her husband. Nor have family members been able to get word to him. The crackdown on the Shiite community continues unabated, as she makes clear in this message sent tonight:

It is 3.00 a.m and thank God they did not come. But they attacked our village with tear gas and Bang Grenades; my kids couldn't sleep until very recently because they were scared of the sound. As we are at home, tear gas comes inside the houses but with a very little degree. All this is done by the security accompanied by troops to scare people and prevent them from sleeping.

Until today, I don't know anything about my husband. Today professional people were arrested, a doctor, two nurses (females) and other young people (6 or 7). Still, the hospitals and clinics are besieged and people cannot go to receive treatment. On the national TV, it was stated that 51 of University of Bahrain's employees were sacked because they took part in the protests in the roundabout. Many students will also be kicked off the university but the number is not known yet. The ministry of education said that the teachers who took part in the strike were 7000 teachers; so I wonder whether all will be sacked as well. It is worth mentioning that all sacked people are Shiites only. Today they also attacked an elementary school to arrest two teachers but after two hours they were released.

Today, the troops destroyed three mosques in different place, and by this we have 18 mosques destroyed by cranes; all are Shiite mosques. [Several other sources have mentioned the destruction of mosques.]

Tomorrow the strike will begin and many are taking part in the activity.

As an employee of the University, Shubbar's wife is very concerned about her own safety. She said in an earlier message that the Bahrain state TV was singling out people at the university today, so she was worried that she might be arrested tonight.

It's hard to imagine how the situation in Bahrain could turn out well. There seems to be little hope.

But as the Christian world enters into Holy Week, I'm reminded that Jesus and his followers appeared to have been defeated in this week. By Friday, Jesus was dead and his disciples were in hiding. All hope was lost.

But, it turned out by Easter Sunday, passage through death was the way to life; defeat was the way to victory; laying down one's life was the way to gaining it; washing the feet of the lowly was the way to being glorified; betrayal was the way to community; turning aside from power was the way to gaining it; loving one's life meant losing it, and giving up one's life meant gaining eternal life.

As Jesus said early in Holy Week:

The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life (John 12:23-25). 

Thinking of the Holy Week drama, John Howard Yoder wrote in The Politics of Jesus that the cross was not just a detour or a hurdle or even the way to the Kingdom. Rather, it was the paradoxical Kingdom come. The rule of God came through submission and self-giving service.

In some mysterious way, then, we have to hope that God can work even through the most destructive work of the Powers. I'm praying that the self-destruction of Bahrain might eventually produce many seeds of justice. And I'm waiting impatiently for those seeds of justice to start blooming . . . soon!

Sample Letters to Urge the Release of My Friend Shubbar

In my previous post, I told the story of my Bahraini friend Shubbar who was arrested in Bahrain on the night of Sunday, April 3. I am asking you to consider writing government officials demanding his release. I have no idea if this can work, but I think it's important that the U.S. and Bahraini governments know that Shubbar has friends overseas. It can't hurt.

So here's a template:

[Your name and address]

[Please include your e-mail address]

[Date]

To the White House: use the White House contact page or write a snail mail letter to:
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

--and/or--

To the U.S. Secretary of State: 
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

--and/or--

To the Minister of Interior in the Bahrain Government:
His Excellency Shaikh Rashid bin Abdullah bin Ahmad Al-Khalifa
Ministry of Interior
P.O. Box 13, al-Manama, Bahrain
Fax: 011-973-17-232661

Dear President Obama [or Secretary Clinton or Shaikh Rashid]:

I am writing to inform you of a serious injustice in Bahrain that you are in a position to help reverse. On Sunday, April 3, my friend Shubbar Hameed Ebrahim, aged 35, was taken into custody by Bahraini security forces without being charged of any crime. Since then, he has been held in an unknown location. He has committed no crime, yet he remains in detention more than one week later, still without communication with his family. I urge you to press for [or "order", in Shaikh Rashid's case] his release.

According to his wife's testimony, "One man pulled me from my hair down the stairs and another began threatening, but we [didn't] know where my father was. They just could not believe us. They began beating Shubbar in front of me . . . . After that, they handcuffed him, masked his face and dragged him to an unknown place after around [two hours of] of insults and violence. One of them told me, 'I will fire your beloved from his work; you should die from hunger.'"

This outrageous assault violates both the norms of Bahraini hospitality and of international human rights law. Shubbar is a gentle, non-political person, a beloved husband and father of two young boys. [You might want to insert a picture of the two boys here, copied from my previous post.] Having earned an MBA from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, he and his wife have friends in the United States. As his friend, I urge you to press for his immediate release [or, for Shaikh Rashid, "I urge you to immediately order his release"].

I also urge you to [press for the] release [of] other arbitrarily detained prisoners in Bahrain. Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Bahrain has signed, says that "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention" and that "anyone who is arrested shall be informed, at the time of arrest, of the reasons for his arrest and shall be promptly informed of any charges against him."

Shubbar's arrest is a violation of international human rights conventions and of common sense. By cracking down on moderate, gentle people like him, the government of Bahrain risks alienating itself even further from the majority of its citizen population.

I pray that, with your help, the release of Shubbar might be a stepping stone toward restoring goodwill between Bahrain's citizens and its government.

Sincerely,
[Your name]

Tell the US and Bahrain Governments: Release Our Friend

Since tearing down the national symbol of Pearl (Lulu) Monument a couple of weeks ago (see my previous post), the Bahraini government has been busy cracking down on the Shia community there, using its newly announced "emergency law" powers to arrest people and hold them without charges. The Bahraini government, a key U.S. ally, has locked up as many as 700 people.

Among those arrested, for no good reason, was a good friend of our family: Shubbar (prounounced SHOE-bar) Hameed Ebrahim (right), aged 35. Shubbar is a beloved husband to his wife and father to two adorable young boys (left). He has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Kuwait University and an MBA from Bowling Green State University (2008) in Ohio, USA. Until Sunday night, he was working as a quality control engineer in Bahrain.

But at 11:30 pm on Sunday, April 3, masked security forces burst into his house. His wife, who also studied at Bowling Green, described the scene to me in an email:

I was in the sleeping room with my 4 year old son, S Ali, trying to put him to sleep as he has school next day, when I suddenly heard doors cracking and opened fiercely. I suddenly saw a man with a masked face, a pistol and a police stick asking me go out and take the baby out. Suddenly the house was full of these people. Most were huge and they messed up the whole house. They threw us all in the kitchen: my mum, my two sister, and two kids and me, and they took Shubbar. They were looking for my father [a leading opposition figure]. My mother went through a difficult collapse and we could not bring the ambulance since they are all accompanied with troops. One of the masked men told her you deserve to die, the world will be better without you. They broke our doors, stole 1000BD [$2,650 in cash] from one of our drawers, and some perfumes of Shubbar. They broke his glasses and they tore the tyres of our cars with knives: the total cost is also around 600-700BD [$1590-$1855]. They also stole more than 7 cell-phones.

One man pulled me from my hair down the stairs and another began threatening, but we don't know where my father was. They just could not believe us. They began beating Shubbar in front of me, but I could not help because I don't know. After that, they handcuffed him, masked his face and dragged him to an unknown place after around [two hours of] of insults and violence. One of them told me, "I will fire your beloved from his work; you should die from hunger." 

After seeing Shubbar taken away to that unknown destination around 1:30 am Monday morning, the family hasn't heard from him or the government. 

His wife writes,

I called a lawyer today, but we are still looking for him. We are very scared because missing people are found dead somewhere and since there is no law or order in the country, the troops do anything and at anytime. My kids are going through a hard time, they feel scared all night and keep asking about their father. They are scared from any knock at the door at night because they lived a real nightmare.

Their father had committed no crime and hasn't been charged with anything. He is being punished or used as leverage to find his father-in-law, a leading Shia opposition figure in Bahrain.

During his and his wife's graduate school years in Ohio, our two families got together several times for meals and outings. We discovered that Shubbar is a gentle, quiet, caring man with a great love for his family. He is no political radical. He's an engineer, for heaven's sake!

Please help me spread the word to the media and to the US and Bahraini governments: 

• This kind of arbitrary arrest is unacceptable and must be reversed. Shubbar and the many other unjustly detained prisoners like him should be freed immediately.

• This kind of arbitrary arrest violates Bahrain's pledges to uphold political rights. Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Bahrain has signed, says that 

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention. No one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedure as are established by law. (2) Anyone who is arrested shall be informed, at the time of arrest, of the reasons for his arrest and shall be promptly informed of any charges against him.

Although the Bahraini government will claim that its emergency law allows them to suspend this basic human right (under Article 4 of the ICCPR), the U.S. government should not accept the specious justification of a "public emergency."

• U.S. officials have called for a political dialogue between opposition forces and the government. The Secretary of State should immediately appoint a mediator to facilitate this dialogue.

Thanks for spreading the word and challenging this injustice!

Lord Have Mercy: Bahrain's Pearl Monument is Gone

When our family lived in Bahrain, we drove past Bahrain's Pearl Monument many times. It's the closest thing to a national symbol, hearkening back to the days when pearl fishing was one of the two major industries of the country, alongside fishing.

Thus, anti-regime protestors made a strategic choice to emulate Cairo's Tahrir Square here. They were striving to make this a national debate, employing a unifying national symbol. Although the protestors mostly came from the Shiite majority of the population, they repeatedly stressed the non-sectarian nature of their demands (see earlier posts on this blog for details). And they pressed for specific reforms toward a constitutional monarchy. Meanwhile, the government side claimed this was a sectarian matter and rallied Sunnis against the protestors. They showed their true colors by pulling down a national symbol to make sure they didn't have to share power.

The sad part is that the crisis could have been resolved, and now it's only inflamed. Had the government agreed to the resignation of the sitting prime minister (who's been there over 40 years) and new parliamentary elections without gerrymandered districts, ensuring a majority of seats for the majority of the population, the protests would likely have ended. Instead, the government has made only minor concessions.

And then, this past Monday, they invited at least 1,000 Saudi National Guard troops into the country to intimidate the opposition, reinforce the government, and enable a harsh crackdown.

And then, yesterday, the government tore down the Pearl monument to erase a "bad memory" (in the words of Bahrain's foreign minister). For a sense of how this is playing in the Shiite world, check out this  video:



For anyone who's been tracking developments in Bahrain over the past six weeks, including our friends in Bahrain, the only bad memories are of the Al Khalifa regime's crushing of non-violent protestors. First, the regime cleared the Pearl Monument area in a brutal crackdown in the middle of the night on February 16. And then it cleared the area in broad daylight on Wednesday.

I was hopeful that this could be resolved peacefully, but now I'm afraid that this situation will only get worse. So, in good Lenten fashion, I pray for mercy: mercy for those suffering in Bahrain, mercy for those suffering in Japan, and mercy for the whole world.

Tomorrow's prayer from the Book of Common Prayer goes like this:

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Lent: Bahrain Crackdown and Japanese Horror

It's Lent. And there are all kinds of horrible things happening in the world.

Somehow that seems right, since Lent is about entering into the stories of suffering, pain, and death in the life of Jesus (see chapter 6 of the book for more on Lent).

Because of globalized media, we hear and see all kinds of stories across the world. And the most compelling and gripping stories are those like the devastation in Japan. We cannot help but be gripped by the stories we see and hear. There are live amateur videos of the wave of water sweeping into villages and towns, steadily leveling everything. Nuclear meltdowns are looming. It's overwhelming.

But it's Lent.

On a smaller scale, our family is gripped by today's crackdown on peaceful Bahraini protestors. After hoping for dialogue for a few weeks, at least a thousand Saudi troops swept over the causeway into Bahrain on Monday, reinforcing the Bahraini security forces so they could burn down the encampments on Pearl Roundabout (see video below). In this tiny country that we love, it's sad and depressing.

But it's Lent.

The Nonviolent Wave?

Nearly every morning lately, I wake up thinking that I'll blog about stories related directly to themes of my book. Today was no different. For the third consecutive day, I sat down hoping to review a book on the decline of the U.S. car industry. Then I checked the news from the Arab world, which is stunning again, as it has been every day for the past few months.

And now I need to say something else. 2011 will be known as a decisive year in world history for its dramatic upheavals: the year of the Arab Wave. But the question is whether it will remain a nonviolent wave.

The king of Morocco and the president of Yemen both announced yesterday that they will advance political reforms that partially meet protestors' demands. In Morocco, King Mohammed VI announced that the country would go through "comprehensive constitutional reform" (for full text of the speech click here). In Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been facing daily protests against his regime, said in an address carried on national TV that he wanted to introduce a new constitution to make Yemen's government a parliamentary system. Nonviolent protestors have pushed these regimes to do something that was unthinkable a few months ago. 

Dramatic changes are sweeping across the Arab world in a wave of mostly peaceful unrest (Libya excepted). I see at least two forces pushing this wave.

First is globalization:

• Economic globalization contributed to uneven living standards. On the one hand, it improved health and sanitation standards, causing the population to boom. On the other hand, it didn't do enough to get Arab economies moving to create enough jobs for young people.
• Political globalization--specifically, the global institution of the sovereign state as the authoritative political structure--leads the protestors to demand specific changes within their own countries, rather than pan-Arab or pan-Islamic changes. Because the structures of authority are now unchallenged, there is little possibility of linking protest movements across national boundaries (a version of this argument about the impossibility of transnationalism was made by the French scholar Olivier Roy way back in the 1990s). Instead, we have seen distinctly different movements within each country, tied to their unique political histories.
• Cultural globalization--the exploding awareness of global trends within the region, driven by the Internet and satellite television--has led to a speedy spread of stories, ideas, and images. People see what their neighbors in other Arab countries are doing. Demonstrations and people power toppled the regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, while it continues to generate revolutionary fervor in every Arab country but Syria. Globalized media breed intense awareness, the possibility of networking, the desire to imitate others, and the consciousness of regional and global solidarity. During the Egypt crisis, I found it amazing that pro-democracy demonstrations were organized outside Egyptian embassies around the world within a few days. People abroad felt connected to Egyptian protestors and felt compelled to support them.

The other factor here is non-violence, which is sorely lacking only in Libya. In a piece in today's New York Times, Erica Chenoweth of Wesleyan University argues that non-violent protests are actually more successful in bringing about transitions to democracy. As she puts it,

Although the change is not immediate, our data show that from 1900 to 2006, 35 percent to 40 percent of authoritarian regimes that faced major nonviolent uprisings had become democracies five years after the campaign ended, even if the campaigns failed to cause immediate regime change. For the nonviolent campaigns that succeeded, the figure increases to well over 50 percent.

The good guys don’t always win, but their chances increase greatly when they play their cards well. Nonviolent resistance is about finding and exploiting points of leverage in one’s own society. Every dictatorship has vulnerabilities, and every society can find them.

Alas, the rebellion in Libya failed to stay non-violent (not that one can blame the rebels, who were facing violent crackdowns by the Qaddafi regime). But the details in Chenoweth's forthcoming co-authored book, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (Columbia University Press, 2011), suggest that non-violence may be a more successful strategy than violent resistance.*

If the protestors stay non-violent across the region, we may see a number of new democracies emerge. Or if they take the Libyan route, we could see lots of bloodshed and a possible triumph of tyranny.

I know which route I'm praying for, and it ain't Libya's.
_________________
* The same day I wrote this, Sojourners published a blog post on Chenoweth's work.

Another Helpful Take on Bahrain

Jean-Francois Seznec of Georgetown University has just published an interesting analysis of the Bahrain crisis on a site affiliated with the Arab Studies Journal.

He focuses on the combination of four volatile factors:

• The split between the reformist crown prince, Salman bin Hamad al Khalifa, and his great-uncle the (corrupt but powerful) prime minister, Khalifa bin Salman al Khalifa.
• An opposition divided between the reformist al-Wefaq group, which had elected eighteen members to the gerrymandered and weakly empowered lower house of parliament, and the more radical al-Haq group, led by Hassan Mushaima.
• The younger, Facebook generation which emphasizes being Bahraini over religious sectarianism.
• The large regional neighbors, Saudi Arabia (population 20 million) and Iran (population 65 million). The Saudis back the royal family hardliners (the prime minister), while Iran backs the mostly Shia protestors.

No matter what, he argues, the royal family will have to lose power, either to the Saudis (in the case of a crackdown) or to the population (in the case of a negotiated transition toward constitutional monarchy).

If the U.S. State Department is wise, it should be supporting negotiations toward real power-sharing. I think the appointment of a Shiite prime minister out of a freely, fairly, and democratically elected parliament would end this crisis. 

For now, the U.S. embassy in Bahrain was sharing donuts with protestors who were asking the U.S. for help the other day (see video).

It'll take more than sugar to satisfy the opposition. We need our government to push for a democratic transition in Bahrain, or else this crisis will only continue.

Women in Bahrain Protests

Check out the nice little video here interviewing women who are taking part in the protest movement at the Pearl Roundabout.


Yet another reason why we should be optimistic about hope and democratization trumping radical Islamic violence. Yet another example of Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare (he'd hate women being politically involved).

Saudi Sticks, Bahraini Carrots, Secular Demands

Protests continue to roil the Arab world. Citizens in Egypt and Tunisia keep pressing their regimes toward reform. Libya is collapsing into civil war. But keep your eyes on the Gulf region, on both Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

After Friday's protest marches in Saudi Arabia's Eastern (al-Hasa) Province, the Saudi Ministry of the Interior issued a statement reminding "some people" that "the applicable laws in the Kingdom strictly prohibit all forms of demonstrations, marches and sit-ins." A not-so-subtle hint to those who were marching on Friday.

Will this law be enforced strictly on this coming Friday, the "Day of Rage" announced on Facebook? If not, expect protests to swell. If so, we may see violence. Either way, Friday, March 11 could be a decisive day in Saudi and Arab history.

Over in Bahrain, the Al Khalifa family is sticking with the carrot strategy. Their interior ministry pledged to hire 20,000 people, edging partway toward the demands of protestors, who complain that Sunni foreigners are naturalized as citizens and then hired as security and military forces. (The interior ministry is considered second-rate compared to the defense forces anyway.) But as I've been arguing on this blog, buying off the opposition will no longer work. At this point, it's just insulting.

As Bahraini opposition politician Ebrahim Sharif told the New York Times, 

"This is about dignity and freedom — it’s not about filling our stomachs." 

This is the message that the tottering regimes of the Arab world need to hear. What ordinary, young citizens want is an end to corruption, an end to repression, and an end to politics as usual. They want their voices to be heard. They want the rule of law. They want term limits for prime ministers or presidents. They want better governance. They want a growing economy and the prospect of good jobs.

Note what they are not saying. They are making modest, incremental, tangible, secular demands. These are not the demands of crazy religious fanatics. The protestors are not railing against the United States or Israel or chanting "Islam is the solution"--the vague, utopian slogan of the Islamic movements. They are asking for real reforms in the structures of power. (A demonstration today outside the U.S. embassy in Bahrain was not attacking the US, but asking for its help.) Democratization, not revolution, is their goal.

One observer of the Bahrain protests describes a sign with pictures of all the British prime ministers that have served since 1970: all eight of them. Below that is a picture of all the Bahraini prime ministers since then: one (Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al Khalifa, right). After 41 years in power, he's gotten a little corrupt and out of touch. Hence, it's no surprise that the the protestors in Bahrain marched to the Prime Minister's office yesterday and demanded that he resign. 

The other interesting thing about the Bahrain protests, noticeable to anyone who's seen photos of the past two weeks of protests, is that nearly everyone is waving a Bahraini flag. The protestors are playing down their Shiite religious background and pushing their demands in the context of national unity. The discourse is using the terms of secular nationalism rather than of religious grievance.

Although this could change if things get ugly, I think this is another encouraging sign. And although we may be paying more for gas in the next few weeks, the turmoil may give birth to a more stable region for decades to come. Stay tuned. . . 

Another Solid Analysis of Bahrain

Jane Kinnimont of the Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House) published a helpful overview of the history of Bahrain's struggle for a constitutional monarchy on the Foreign Affairs website.

Lots of observers are tracking the situation, which continues to remain tense, but this piece offers some historical perspective. None of us can predict what will happen next. Stay tuned.

Protests in Saudi's Eastern Province

Here's a video of a protest march today in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province. These young men were protesting the recent imprisonment of a Shia cleric named Tawfiq al-Amer, who has advocated openly for the empowerment of Shiites in Eastern Saudi Arabia, where they are a majority.

Hopeful Signs?

The other day at a forum on "Egypt, Social Media, and the Middle East" I praised the Obama Administration's handling of the wave of domestic unrest sweeping across the Arab world. And my colleague Greg Miller stressed that a role for Islam in the politics of these countries does not mean that we are headed for another Iranian Revolution. All of us stressed that the current situation is overall hopeful and not scary. Other than rising oil prices, which will only go up next week, the news is mostly good.

Our message: Let's not lose the good news in the midst of the upheaval. In the long run, in most countries, this process should yield more stable and legitimate governments.

This morning I see more positive signs that our hopeful analysis is holding up so far--and that the Obama foreign policy players have handled a fast-moving crisis pretty well:

• The Washington Post reports that administration officials actually understand the distinction between al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. In fact, they are preparing for the possibility that peaceful Islamist political parties might play roles in the transitions in places like Egypt and Tunisia. (In Tunisia the Islamist al-Nahda party has been legalized.)
• Foreign Affairs, the voice of the foreign policy establishment, published an excellent piece about sectarianism in Bahrain by Kristen Smith Diwan, one of the leading experts on Bahrain alongside Rutgers' Toby Jones. If people are listening to her analysis, which seems highly accurate in light of my experience in Bahrain, they will realize that empowering the Shia opposition in a truly democratic process (as opposed to the faux democracy of the past decade) is safer than repression. So far our government has been on the right side of this. As I told the forum crowd the other day, Obama most likely told the Bahraini government not to shoot their own people anymore. That's a wise policy right now.
• The other foreign policy establishment, ForeignPolicy.com (which is now owned by the Washington Post), ran a piece early in the week on Saudi Arabia by a respected expert on Saudi Arabia that reinforces my concerns that serious protests will emerge next Friday, March 11. The title is ominous: "Yes, It Could Happen Here." Really, if it can happen in Oman, it can happen anywhere. And while large-scale protests next Friday could scare the oil markets, it could also scare the Al-Saud family into a process of dialogue with opposition forces in the country that could yield something like a constitutional monarchy.

Of course, we could all be wrong. The chaos in Libya, which is quickly turning into a civil war, could turn out to be the norm across the region. But for the moment, it seems like level heads are mostly prevailing in the region and in Washington.