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.

Why I Haven't Given Up on Tom Friedman . . . Yet

If you've read my book, you know that I respond critically to Thomas Friedman's views of globalization in every chapter. Lately, though, I've found his columns in the New York Times less and less helpful.

But yesterday, he published a column analyzing the wave of unrest in the Arab world that reminded me why he's still worth reading from time to time. We have to remember that he got his start in the Middle East, after he earned an M.Phil. in Middle East studies from St. Antony's College at Oxford. And his first book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, has some first-rate stories from the region in the 1980s.

In addition to the obvious factors--"tyranny, rising food prices, youth unemployment and social media"--yesterday's column also describes some less obvious ones that contributed to the Arab revolts:

• The Obama factor (a guy with the middle name of "Hussein" becoming president of the US offers hope). 
• Google Earth (where poorer Bahrainis could see with their own eyes the large estates of the Al Khalifa family, while they lived in cramped conditions). 
• Israel (whose top leaders have been arrested lately for corruption, right next door to Egypt).
• China (which hosted the lavish Olympics despite starting from a position of poverty similar to Egypt's in the 1950s)
• The Fayyad factor (the current prime minister of the Palestinian Authority Salam Fayyad, who is running the West Bank by promoting clean, effective, efficient governance).

The only problem with this list is that it mostly assumes that Arabs had to look outside their countries to be galvanized into action. It plays down the role that ordinary people played on their own. Did they really need to look at Israel to think that they wanted their corrupt leaders to be held accountable? Were people just sitting there passively?

Still, this is an interesting picture of a networked Arab world, full of young people who watch Al Jazeera and hear about what's happening all across the globe. Surrounding all these Arab revolts is the process of, yes, globalization.

What I mean is this: Taking Manfred Steger as our guide, we can define globalization as referring to "the expansion and intensification of social relations and consciousness across world-time and world-space" (Steger, Globalization: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd ed., p. 15). We are seeing in the Arab world the consequences of a whole generation of young people connecting with each other and the outside world, of a whole generation becoming conscious of their power to change the world, and of a whole generation making those changes happen.

Thanks to Friedman, we can embed this global process in localized Middle Eastern contexts.

Footnote to earlier posts: Now it looks like the United Arab Emirates' rulers are trying the old pre-emptive carrot strategy of buying off opposition in advance. They have promised $1.5 billion in infrastructure projects to the poorer of the seven emirates that make up the federation (in addition to the wealthy ones of Dubai,  Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah, that would be Ajman, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, and Umm al-Quwai). That may be a sign of more danger to come.

"Inside Job" Won Best Documentary

Semi-regular readers of this blog (all two of you) might remember that Charles Ferguson's documentary film Inside Job has interested me for awhile now (see previous posts here and here.)

For those of you, like me, who don't obsess over the winners of the Academy Awards, I'm pleased to report (a little late) that Inside Job won this year's award for best documentary feature.

It's nice to see the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rewarding a great and important film that all Americans should see.