Boy, people definitely have a short memory.

01/02/2001: The methaq is just out, no mention yet of a new constitution: government's view.

opposition's view

¶ 11:53 PM

From The Times of London:

'Spectacular' feared after Saudi carnage
By Michael Theodoulou in Nicosia and Daniel McGrory

Murdered Briton dragged through city as 22 believed dead

INTELLIGENCE agencies believe that Islamic terrorists behind the weekend kidnapping and murder of Westerners in Saudi Arabia are close to staging “a spectacular attack” which will cause devastating loss of life.
Their warnings come after at least 22 people died, including a Briton whose body was dragged through the streets of the port city of al-Khobar. Nine hostages died after their throats were cut.

Saudi special forces mounted a rescue operation and said that they had arrested the leader of the kidnappers. An official said that at least one of the gunmen had been killed. Three others escaped.

Last night the British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia said: “Further attacks may be in the final stages of preparation.”

Intelligence sources fear that al-Qaeda sympathisers are finalising plans for an attack on a key oil installation or the causeway linking Saudi Arabia to Bahrain.

Here's the rest of the article.

¶ 10:31 PM

So I've been trying to gather information from friends I have in Saudi Arabia. The outlook definitely does not look good, and in fact, if the worst case scenario occurs it could be hellish. I asked an American friend who lives in Jeddah about the situation, and he said people are not happy. The general mood, he says, seems to be extremely pessimistic. Nearly no body is happy with the government, be that muslim extremists, liberals, or ordinary Saudi on the street. The muslim extremists don't like the government because they see it as having been tainted too much by Western influence and not religously strict enough. The liberals see it as an undemocratic, despotic regime, and the ordinary Saudi on the street sees as a corrupt family that views everyone as its servants.

The more worrying thing, however, is the viewpoint of a Lebanese person who in Saudi Arabia. He has been there for twenty five years, and his message was to get the hell out of there. Even he decided that now is the time for him to leave. Why? He says he remembers the mood and situation in Lebanon before the civil war kicked off, and he said Saudi Arabia resembles that nowadays. People are tense, depressed, and unsatisfied.

If this is remotely true, it is catastrophic. To be fair, it does sound like a bit of a remote worst case dooms day scenario, but just the fact that some people think this way is worrying. If studying economics teaches you anything, it's the effect that expectations can have on people. Even if things in reality are not as bad as what people think, peoples own thoughts, expectations, and outlooks can shape up the reality, and can actually make the reality turn into what they expect.

If the situation does deteriorate rapidly in Saudi Arabia, this spells chaos for the whole gulf. Let's face it, Saudi Arabia makes up 85% of the population, size and economy of the Arabian Gulf. If the doomsday case does occur, it will have severe repercussions throughout the whole region.

Again, hopefully this scenario is way too pessimistic and unrealistic. Even if it does occur, the Saudi government does have a history of being able to ruthlessly put down those with an opposing viewpoint.

Arabic regimes have a reputation for ruthlessly and oppressively putting down any dessidents. Maybe this is one case where this ruthlessness could be an advantage.

¶ 7:42 PM

Well, terrorism has definitely hit home. Gunmen, claiming to be members of Al Qaeda, have indiscriminantly killed and taken hostages in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, with the final tally at 22 dead (English), mostly foreigners. Khobar is literally a stone throw away from Bahrain, and Bahrainis often go to Khobar for family outings and shopping.

... 

One thing that worried me though: How did three of the gunmen escape? I mean, I thought the whole compound was surrounded by hundreds of policemen, commandos, and from the pictures, it seems even spectators. I understand that the Saudi Police force is not really used to such activities, as it is kind of a new event in the Gulf (we only see this kind of stuff on American movies), but still. Either these gunmen are really top notch mavericks, or the policeman are really unexperienced (I'm sure some people will think of an explanation even more sinister).

This definitely brings up the question: Are we going to see any such attacks in Bahrain soon? It could happen through Saudi crossing the bridge over to Bahrain, but I don't think that's the main concern. Security checks are (relatively) vigorous on the bridge (no not because of fear of terrorism, but fear of alcohol and drug smuggling. Even if they can get through (and they probably can, the security is not THAT tight), I don't see why they'd want to cause havoc in Bahrain. These guys' main objective seems to get "Infidels" out of Saudi Arabia, and to topple the Saudi regime. I don't see how Bahrain would fit in their plans. Still, it could happen.

The more worrying concern, is, however, can we get Bahrainis doing such an attack? After all, apparenly five to seven Bahrainis are in Guantanamo bay (although possibly wrongly and unjustly; they might be innocent, and they're yet to face a trial). I really hope not, but to be honest I have no clue about the Al Qaeda situation and support in Bahrain. I'd like to think all Bahrainis are more pragmatic and reasonable than such fundamentalism. I hope that's true, but to be honest I have no way to prove it.

Our thoughts and condolences to the families and friends of those who died.

¶ 7:26 PM

Jamaica had Bob Marley, England had John Lennon, America had Jimmi Hendrix, and in Bahrain, we have Ali Ba7ar.

No, the connection is not that they're all dead. The connection is that they're all underground legends. Each has defined a certain phase and mentality in the country. Each represented somehow a challenge to the norm, and in a way also formed their own norm.

I know a lot of people make fun when they hear the name Ali Bahar. I, however, do think the guy deserves credit. Other than his music, the main reason I respect the guy is that he is one of few (if not the only) Bahrainis who actually sing in a Bahraini accent and dialect. Others disregard the accent completely, and put on a more accepted "khaleeji" dialect, while some even dismiss even that they are Bahraini (Ahlam case in point). Ali Ba7ar, however, although he's sung in different accents, sticks to the bahraini dialect. When you hear him go "Sadegeeeeeenyyyyyyy, maaaaaaaalah lazmeehhh, kil fara7neeehhhh, kil 3eshegneeeehhhh" or "cham 3anaaaaait," you have no doubt where his from. You can even identify which region from Bahrain he's from.

Yes, the music sounds kind of outdated. It has that eighties basic and artificial electronic organ beat to it, and it does sound corny at times (he tries to combine rock, reggae, and romance ballads in one). He, however, does have an extremely distinct sound, and you can recognize it immediately. Plus, he has a good voice, and his guitar player is reputedly one of the best in the middle East.

So what background and experiences have shaped his music? Well, he's done drugs, gone to jail, and come out again. Maybe that's a bad thing, but it definitely gives the guy experience. Anyway, if you've never heard his music, please do hear some of his stuff and his band: Al Ekhwa

eldeereh

Sadegeeny

mareet 3ala babkum

kam 3anait

min tekoon

If anyone want to listen or download more, here's a site.

¶ 6:24 PM

In the beginning of this academic year, before I returned to the city and university I'm in now, I was living and studying in London for a month. I didn't like the course in the university I was in so I decided to leave. Anyway, the point is, I had to live somewhere while I was in London. Where do you think I chose? The artsy atmosphere of Notting Hill, or the cosmopolitan feel of Earl's Court? Nope, I opted for the center of the universe: Bermondsey.

Now for those that by some childhood defect have never heard of Bermondsey, it's located close to London Bridge and Elephant and Castle. It brought such great things to the world such as Millwall F.C. and the Bermondsey Antique Market (now defunct and deserted).This is my attempt to pigeonhole Bermondsey: It is an area mainly populated by white, working class people. All of the areas surrounding it however, from Peckham to Elephant and Castle, are mainly composed of non-white people (and particularly black). Thus, the atmosphere in Bermondsey is tense, to say the least. Still, I had a very nice apartment, and the neighbourhood could never be described as dull.

I shared my aparment with an American friend. One day, we decided to pay a visit to our local pub, the Grange. It was me (an Arab), my American friend, and a posh English friend. I dress in a pretty arabic fashion: always shirts and jeans, with the added difference of a long trenchcoat (I got that trend from the posh guys at the current university I'm in). My posh Englisyh friend sticks to his stereotype, and always wears shirts, trousers, scarfs, and long coats. As you can tell, we fitted right in. Do I need to go on to what reception we got in the pub?

Well, I'll go on anyway. We opened the door, and suddenly, the whole pub went quiet. The whole place (7 people) stopped their conversations, and turned to gaze at us. This pub is frequented only by regulars, and any new people stand out. To add to this, we obviously were not locals since childhood. Thus, they decided to make their new guests as comfortable as possible.

Anyway, we decided to ignore the situation, order our drinks (non-alcoholic for me of course), and play some pool to ease the situation. As I was playing, I decided to look around. Boy, you see some characters. The nice thing about these pubs , to put in unpolitically correct terms, is that they're frequented by weirdos. After a while, you get to know the characters of the regulars, and to appreciate their eccentricities. In one corner, there was this reallllllyyyyy old woman (sixty plus), who not only has been beaten by the ugly stick a couple of times, but on whom also the effects of time have taken its toll. She wore heavy makeup, and was pissed out of her head. As you can imagine, she put forward the epotimal image of beauty and class. Right next to her, however, was a thirty-something year old guy who was heavily flirting with her. He was buying her plenty of drinks, apparently being witty (since she was laughing loudly in a harsh tone), and slowly wrapping his arms around her.

In another corner, there was a middle aged woman, who also was completely pissed out of her head, and talking to the bartender. This, in itself, is not striking, particularly in England. What struck me, however, is a comment, she made to bartender. "Ohhh, fu'ing hell, I got to be ge'in home now. I left me little kid for too long. I need to buy him some dipers."

Nice.

Seated,at the bar, however, were the two protagonists of our story, Robert, and some dimwit that I can't remember his name. We didn't expect to be left alone for too long, as I guess we were too curious of specimens to be left in peace, and sure enough, Robert and dimwit decided to approach us. Now I've lived in England for a four years, and I can understand many accents, including Scouser. Still, I could not decipher what Mr. dimwit was saying at all. I could understand Robert, alright, but not Mr. dimwit. I don't think being pissed as a monkey in the hands of Edmundo helped either.

Anyway, in the beginning they seemed to be quite friendly, so we thought, "hey, we might be even able to make friends here." Well, it did not turn out that way. After a while, mr. dimwit just go too drunk, and started slurring. I got tired after a while of asking him "Come again?", so I just kept nodding and feigning a laugh when I thought he said something funny. Slowly, as the alcohol built up, he became more aggressive in his tone, and started just barking unintelligible gibberish. Foturnately, he then reached his peak point of drunkenness, and decided to get up and start dancing all over the pub. That was him gone.

Robert, however, turned out to be more resilient, and gay. No, he was not interested in casual conversation, but in hitting on one of my friends. When my friend told him there was not chance in hell that he's willing to have him, Robert decided to become abusive, started shouting, and threatening. He made a particular point of mocking my posh friend, and calling me a terrorist. I, at this point, lost my patience. This issue, considering the state he was in, was not going to be resolved by an intelligent debate, and he was too drunk and too weakly built to scare me in a fight. So I looked him straight in the eye, put on a serious face, and said in a stern tone, "Walk away, or I'll kill you."

Now I'm not proud of what I did, but it happened in the spur of the moment. This strategy, however, of seriously but calmly threatening people by death, can have one of two effects. If you're unlucky and he calls your bluff, you're in for a fight. He, however, went for the second option. He just picked up his beer, slowly got up, walked to the bar and sat down. Maybe the Arabic stereotype helped.

Phew! Anyway, we got the signal of not being wanted there, so we finished our drinks, and got the hell out.

Next episode in the Bermondsey Escapade: The Fort

¶ 3:55 PM

If anyone is interested, this is, I think, a good analysis of the different factions in Bahrain nowadays. It's written by Abdulrahman Al Nuaimi, of the NDA. Obviously, if someone is not an NDA supporter, he'd think it's biased, but even so, if you're able to read the "biasedness", I think it would be a good read. Be warned though, it's a bit long, highly involved, and detailed. No, this is not for a casual read. Anyway, do give it a read if you have the time. I highly recommend it!

"Introductions that are needed before a national dialogue"

¶ 2:12 PM

So all the speculation was after all true. Gerard Houllier is no longer needed at Liverpool. No matter what anyone says, the man did a lot to help Liverpool, and he deserves a proper farewell. Thank you for all that you've done, and good luck to you whatever you'll do in the future. You'll definitely be sorely missed.

I was against him leaving, and wanted him to stay for (at least) another season, but such talk is of no use now. The question is, who is going to fill his shoes? Three likely candidates have been put forward: Benitez, current coach of Valencia, Martin O'Neill, current coach of Celtic, and Curbishley of Charlton. I've also heard an absurd rumour of it being Ranieri if Chelsea fir him.

au revoir 

First, let us dismiss the ridiculous. I doubt that they are going to hire Ranieri, and if they are thinking about it, then DON'T. Although I like the personality of the guy, I do not rate him that highly as a coach that will be good for liverpool. The main problem Liverpool has had over the last two seasons is settling on a certain formation. We've tinkered with everything, from playing Risse in defence to midfield, and rotating our defence between Traore, Finnan, Henchoz, Carragher, and Hypia. Let's not talk about the midfield and strikers either. The last thing we need is someone whose nickname is "The Tinkerman", and who never settles on any particular formation.

How about the other three? I personally would prefer Benitez. Unlike the other two, he has proven himself worthy both on a European scale and a domestic scale, and at a proper league at that, unlike O'Neill (no disrespect intended to the Scottish, but comeon, they're better off having two matches a year between Celtic and Rangers to determine the champion instead of a whole league.) Curbishley seems to me like getting caught in the hype too much. I can't recall him doing much other than achieving a decent table position for Charlton.

I admit, it's harder to choose between O'Neill and Benitez. Both are quite good, but if Benitez does actually want to sign, he seems just too damn good to give up. Plus, he might be able to make foreign players take a second glance to signing for Liverpool. Apparently he's also Michael Owen's number one choice. I'm just wondering what kind of attracting power does Martin O'Neill have. Both so far, have denied any link, and O'Neill actually has gone out bidding for players. So I guess although they have the highest probability out of any managers for the job, the probability is not that high either.

Whatever the board does, they have to pick someone someone good, and pick someone fast. Other teams have already started snapping up players, and we're yet to line up a manager. Right now it's looking like a lonely walk in Anfield.

¶ 1:32 PM

As one Bahrainni commentator once put it, the political situation in Bahrain can be summed up nicely now as , "Everyone can say whatever they want, and the government can do whatever it wants."

Of course, this is a generalization, but it seems to generally ring true. We still don't have complete freedom of speech, as no one can criticize the higher echelons of government. The government can't of course always do what it wants, as witnessed recently by the sacking of the interior minister (it took a few prominent shia clerics to be injured for that to occur). Overall, however, the statement above holds. Political issues such as naturalization, discrimination in employment, embezzlement and fraud in government, and unemployment, all if which used to be a big no no to discuss, are freely and openly debated in the press, conferences and seminars nowadays. On the other hand, fraud and embezzlement in the government continues, so does the issue of naturalization, ministers still yield huge and unchecked authority, and we have an inept parliament; so the government can continue to do what it likes (mostly).

Does anyone see in this certain similarities with past history? Here's a clue: Gorbachev, Soviet Union, 1980s. Answer: In the 1980s, under the leadership of Mikhael Gorbachev, the Soviet Union decided to undertake a series of reforms called Glasnost, which means openness, and Perestroika, which means restructuring. Basically Glasnost dealt with the process of opening up the press and the media and allowing free speach and freedom of expression. Perestroika, on the other hand, dealth with actual reform in the government, the economy, and the way things are run.

Now, if the will and true intent to reform is available, Glasnost is much easier to achieve than Perestroika. All it needs is for the laws diminishing or banning free speech and press to be removed, and the people will do the rest (the talking). Perestroika, on the other hand, is much harder to achieve. There will be certain groups who have huge interests in the way things are being run as they are, and they will do their most to resist any reform. Furthermore, restucturing a whole political system, an economy, and ministries is much harder than allowing people to say what they want.

That's what happened in the Soviet Union. Glasnost was achieved relatively quickly. Perestroika, on the other hand, stalled, and not much progress was made on that frontier. This however, makes for an explosive cocktail. Now you had the situation where corruption and ineptitude was still rife in government, but everyone can know about it and speak about it loud. It was if suddenly people awakened to a whole new reality, and what's more they can criticize it. No one needs to be told where this led the Soviet Union to.

Are we seeing elements of this in Bahrain? We do have the combination of (relatively) free speech, but it seems like slow systemic reform. Now people can start freely complaining about all the problems in society, and these problems can be detailed out much more than before. this seems to increase peoples anger anxiety over them, as now they know the true extent of the problem more than before. However, to solve (perestroika) these problems requires a long time horizon, and a very concerted effort, much more than just allowing people to say what they want. The current level of systemic reform is at snail pace at best. I know it's harder, and patience is needed, but we need to pick up the pace.I have no doubts that reform has begun already, but the pace has to be accelarated, or else we'll fall into the problem of Glasnost and Perestroika. What we need is a massive gesture, a massive step that shows once and forall that progress is going to happen, and fast. One massive to step to silence all the skeptics, including myself.

Can we learn from history?

¶ 9:55 PM

Well, it looks like our esteemed MPs have reached their goal. Arabic Newspapers all across the globe, from Al Hayat in London to Al Khaleej from UAE. Here's a news digest if any are interested.

You know, not too long ago I was wavering between the oppositions viewpoint of not entering and of those who decided to enter. I was thinking, "well, maybe the parliament is not so bad. It's not perfect, but at least let's give them a chance. They've even talked about the pension funds issue." This firmly has ingrained my position: What we have is unacceptable, and the MPs themselves realize it. Sure, I've heard the arguments about us needing gradual change, and that you can't thrust full democracy all at one go on Bahrain. Let us settle with the democracy we have now, and then things well gradually change to the better. NO. There is a certain minimum standard to have before you can say you have even a partial democracy. We definitely have not reached that minimum standard with out current parliament.

No one guilty in the pension funds and social security scandal? Who the hell authorized all those fraudulent sales and transactions then? On the naturalization issue, they found six, SIX!, illegal naturalization cases. Give me a break. Do you think people are morons or what? What about all those illegally naturallized members of the police forces that number in the thousands? Unlike the pension funds issue, tHis is not money that you can magically disappear without anyone noticing, these are living and breathing that everyone can see! Morevover, most of them have guns! I don't have a gun!

Who are we kidding? NO CHANGE whatsoever will occur to the current legislative system through our two legislative councils. If there is change that is to happen, it has to be approved by the king. Sure, the parliament may be the one who drafts it and puts it forward, but if the government does not like it, it won't become law and its changes won't be enacted. That's why I do see the oppositions viewpoint perfectly. It's the king that ultimately can make the changes, so lets bypass parliament and petition him directly. That is the quickest, and easiest way to reach a solution to this problem. It requires the action of one good man, instead of 80 inept legislatures.

Right now, I'm thinking give me that piece of paper. I might be ready to sign.

¶ 11:05 AM

As every well respected parliament in the world, Bahrain's parliament was bound to have a scuffle in it. Yesterday was the day, when MPs decided they had enough (english) of civilized talking, and it's better to start swearing and using fists. Unfortunately, we didn't reach the great levels of the Indian and Russian parliaments, and no one ended up hitting each other.

Never mind that nothing has been done about the illegal naturalization issue, or that the three ministers responsible for the Social Securities and Pension Funds scandal have gotten off with nothing(and with a scandolously huge margin), that is not important. I didn't expect much from a parliament that is a lame duck anyway. The big story is we've decided boxing, and not debate, will solve the issue.

who's your daddy? 

Why did it occur? Apparently the first vice-president of the parliament, Abdul Hadi Al Marhoon, was carrying two banners that said, "No to Naturalization" and "Naturalization is pure evil", and he kept putting them up for the cameras every once in a while. The President, Al Thahrani, decided to reprimand his deputy, and told him that the streets is the place for placards and demonstrations, and not a parlimanent. The MP Abdul Nabi Salman, however, cut into a speach by Ghanim Al Boainain to support Marhoon's viewpoint. Al Boainain started shouting back Shut up! Abdul Nabi Salman started to respond, but then another MP, Sami Al Buhairi, who is a naturalized citizen himself, started yelling even louder for him to shut up. Mr. Salman replied back by accusing him of being the by-product of Naturalization. All hell then broke loose. After a while, when they decided the show was over and they were going to make headlines tomorrow, they calmed down and shook hands and kised each other.

*Clap Clap*. So this is what our esteemed parliament has been reduced to grab attention? Raising banners, having fistfights, and throwing insults? I guess the spotlight was taken away from them the last few days, what with all the events surrounding the demonstration and the sacking of the interior minister last friday, so its a good way to come back into the spotlight. They did need as well to hide their miserable failings in the naturalization and pensions funds with a big attention-grabber event.

Does anyone need anymore evidence that our parliament is ineffective? They criticize the opposition that petitions and demonstrations are not the way forward, and what do they do? They hold up banners and conduct one man demonstrations! Apparently in the scuffle even some of the MPs themselves were shouting "Why do we leave the oppurtunity for the government to mislead the public?" and "Why does the (parliament's) president always side with the government?"

Way to go! Next time do please have a fist fight though! I'd enjoy that! At least you'd be useful in one way: intellectually-bankrupt entertainment!

¶ 10:49 AM

I'm a big fan of Iranian people and their culture. They have a country that has every kind of landscape and weather conditions imaginable, a rich culture, and women that are simply stunning. Sure, they have a pretty bad regime at the moment, but that, I think is going to change soon.

Equally importantly, they have some of hte most amazing poetry ever written. The poet that I've been reading and listening to mostly nowadays is Omar Al Khayyam. Listening to Um Kulthoum singing his quartets late at night is just great. I'm old school, I know, but I don't give a damn.
!
omar al khayyam 

His Roba3eyyat, or quatrains, are simply brilliant. In fact, the philosophy in them is the one I kind of follow nowadays. In fact, I think most of Arabic youth nowaday follow that same philosophy, even if they don't realize it or if they've never read his stuff. His main philosophy is pretty simple: Life is short, it has a lot of pleasures, so why not try to make the most of it and enjoy these pleasures? You never know, you might die tomorrow, and all these pleasures will disapear. As long as you believe in the Almighty himself, then god will forgive for you. (Admittedly, there is debate on whether Al Khayyam meant pleasure as in the pleasure of worshipping god, or more carnal pleasures, such as drinking. Anyway, that's the beauty of poetry each person can read in it whatever he wants.)

My favouite two quatrains are the following two:

أفق خفيف الظل هذا السحر ............... نادى دع النوم وناغِ الوتــــر
فما أطال النوم عمــــراً ولا................ قصر في الأعمار طول السهر

القلب قد اضناه عشق الجمال والصدر قد ضاق بما لا يقال
يا رب هل يرضيك هذا الظما والماء ينساب امامي زلال

(Sorry I couldn't be bothered to find the English translations, but most of the quartets are available in the English site I put down).The first one I like because it's what I'm trying to do right now. I'm a BIG sleeper, and I need to cut down on sleep soon. No, not to enjoy myself, but to do a lot of studying (I'm kind of buggered and I have big exams coming up).

The second I like because it basically says if there are a lot of pleasures and beauty right in front of me, then how can you expect me not to enjoy any of them (again, one can interpret pleasure and beauty here as in more carnal ways, or in more metaphysical, religious ways.)

Anyway, I don't know why, but I thought I should share this. I'm going to stop blabbering now, but I do hope you give them a read.

¶ 10:23 AM

Alter Ego: Today's the day: Bahrain nationalism and Iran

Get the Drums Rolling: Iran Football Sucks

Interesting article

FIRE HIM

نقاط

Off to Doha

3-0

The Red Blues

Absolutely Fabulous

World Cup Qualifiers

Germany Here We Come

More on Euro 2004

European Championship 2004

Au Revoir Monsieur Houllier

Muharraq

The Final Push

¶ 9:47 AM

Sometimes(maybe for a lot of people it's most of the time) you just get bored of Politics, and this is one of those days for me. So why not take a break from that, and discuss something more decadent, such as literature.

Unfortunately, there aren't many recently published Arabic novels that are worth recommending. We definitely have a severe lack in worthwhile publication. Apparently, the whole Arabic world combined produces less publications than Spain on its own. There is, however, one great book, or should I see series of books that I've read not so long ago.

It's a trilogy called "A6yaf Al Azeka Al Mahjoora" (The Rainbows of the deserted alleys) by the Saudi writer Turki Al Hamad. It's divided into 3 parts. In ascending order they're called "Al Adama", Al Shmaisi and Al Karadeeb.

If anyone wants to read a book that has great descriptions of Saudi and Gulfy lifestyles, as well as being entertaining, then I would recommend this book. It also, I think, perfectly depicts the political mood and idealism that prevaded in the Middle East in the 1960s and seventies (not that I was around then! but it's from what I hear).

adama 

The protagonist is eighteen year old Hisham Al Aber, a romantic, idealist youth who lives off reading whatever he can lay his hands on. From Marx to Dostoyevsky, Nizar Qabani to Superman comic magazines you name it. The story follows his development from a highschool teenager to joining a leftist underground group, and the trouble that ensues from this. Along the way, it outlines how he first experiments with sex, love,cigarettes, alcohol, and how he deals with new and old friendships.

The story, I think, excels in many different areas. It first gives a good insight into the political atmosphere of the Gulf in the seventies. It outlines how Arabs felt their pride and expectations sweel with Nasser, and the abrupt crash that occured in feelings after the catastrophe of 1987. It also however does a very good job of outlining how persecution, jailing, and torture occured in prisons in that period. Although beatings and imprisonment did occur, they are not as brutally horrible as some stories always convey.

The writer also does a good job of outlining the emotions and changes a teenager goes through in his transformation through an adult. Hisham's love and sexual experimentation are outlined in detail in the book, which is extremely unusual for a book from the Arabic world, let alone Saudi Arabia. Booze and alcohol are not left out either, and all of this in Riyadh! The book also outlines how Hisham's relationship with his old friends, from the pre-experimenation and leftist-party era, develops, contrasted to his relationship with the friends he met in the underground group. It is also just intriguing finding out how the mentality and thought process of Hisham changes through all his escapades, from an Idealistic youth, to a dejected adult.

What did critics say? What acclaims was the book able to get? Well, it received the highest acclaim of them all, one that I only know of 3 writers to receive. It received a death fatwa on the author (similar to Rushdies', only this time emenating from Saudi scholars), and the banning of the book in several Arabic countries. It's amazing Mr. Al Hamad still continues to live and write in Riyadh.

The trilogy is available in its entirey in Arabic, and the first part Al Adama is available in English, so it might be worthwile to check it out!

¶ 9:10 AM

Alter Ego: Today's the day: Bahrain nationalism and Iran

Alter Ego: Get the Drums Rolling: Iran Football Sucks

Alter Ego: Choices

Alter Ego: Boundaries

Theory of the World (Cotd. 2)

Alter ego: Theory of the World

Alter Ego: A Message

Alter Ego: Blogging

Meet the Devil

¶ 10:20 AM

Why do the Lebanese have it so good? Sunny Mediteranean beaches, rolling green valleys, and mountains you can ski on. Then you have their really amazing women, and a cuisine that would make anyone's mouth water.

The most astonishing thing, however, is that it seems where ever they set their foot they seem to be successful.To those who do not know about this, the Lebanese are kind of like the Irish and the Greek, where there are more Lebanese people outside of Lebanon than inside it. The difference is, however, in whichever country they're in they reach the top echelons of society. In the Gulf, no one needs to be told that the Lebanese are doing well. More remarkably, the Lebanese have been doing well for decades in Congo (Formerly Zaire), where they are apparently the number one diamond dealers. In South America, they have even reached higher proportions. I remember when I visited Brazil I was told that the lebanese constitute the "creme de la creme" of society there. Just Witness all the famous people from South and Central America with Lebanese descent. Carlos Menem Alberto ruled Argentina (albeit corruptly) for god knows how long. Add to this Elias Serrano the former president of Guatemala and Bukaram, the lunatic who ruled Ecuador for a while not so long ago. Then we have the non-political list, which includes people like Gabriel Omar Batistuta, the Argentinian Player, and Salma Hayek, the exquisite Lebanese-Mexican. On the business front, you have people like the Brazilian Carlos Ghosn, the chief executive of Nissan, who was voted the father of the nation (in Japan!) in 2001. Their reach has even extended to America, with people such as Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate and (former) head of the Green Pary.

Granted, they didn't do so well at home in the seventies up until the nineties, but they do seem to have flourished everywhere else. They seem to have reached the upper echelons of Business and politics where ever they go, granting them the (un)flattering nickname of "the jews of the Arabs."

On the Arts side, they have done pretty good as well. In Literature there were icons such as Khalil Jubran, in poetry Nizara Qabani, and in music Feiruz (and more recently maybe Shakira, if one can consider her talented; she's certainly got talent in one category (not music)).

Why is that? Is it because of that cool Mediterranean breeze that might invigorate them, or maybe it is because of the women? Maybe because they've lived in such a multicultural society that has been at the crossroad of great empires for so long? It could be that poncy French influence...Does anyone have any grand theories? Maybe we can learn from them!

¶ 8:48 PM

Like I said in a previous article, Al Jazeera just can't win. Whatever it does, authorities in the west see it as what one commenter here described as "a terrorist training camp", or Bin Laden Channel, while governments here see it as zionist, Blasphemous, and in fact Haram.

I've already talked before about how Bahrain banned Al Jazeera on the fact that it was pro Zionist. Well, now there is an official Saudi fatwa (religious edict) forbidding watching it. Not to be left out, Sheikh Saleh Fawzan, a member of the high committee for religious scholars in Saudi Arabia, has labelled watching Al Jazeera Haram, and that it is against alshar3 (rules of Islam) to watch it. According to him, "it Broadcasts poisons" that comes from the reformist opposition and also has a Pro-zionist agenda.

Does anyone see how ridiculous this is? A lot of westerners consider it a terrorist, anti-American and Anti-Zionist company; Islamists see it as a pro-Zionist company, Infidel company. Each, like I said in a previous post, only sees what he wants to see and forgets the rest. Westerners tend to only pick up the stories about Bin Laden and Palestine/Israel, and disregard the rest, and then complain that it is BinLaden Station (that's probably because, though, most of the western imbeciles who criticize it have never watched it, but go on what Fox News or the Washington Post reports about Al jazeera). They forget to mention that Al Jazeera is the first station in the middle East to regularly hold debates and talks with oppositions and reformists in the Middle East. They forget to notice that before Al Jazeera we did not have any kind of proper News in the Middle East, and had to settle for a video version of HELLO! magazine showing the places each high ranking politician visited everyday. The Islamists, on the other hand, tend to forget that Al Jazeera has probably the best coverage of Iraq and the Palestinian/Israeli confllict from an Arab viewpoint, and focus on the fact that it holds interviews with reformists, modernists, and liberals.

poison 

The result? The oxymoron of a pro-American, pro-zionist, pro-islamist, anti-zionist, anti-American, anti-zionist station?.

How about you just recognize it as it is, and just say that it's a station that offers each camp the right to air its view??

The Qatari Al Raya newspaper, however, had good reply to Sheikh Fawzan. If there was one station to ban under strict religious rules, which would it be? Nope, it would not be the low-quality MBC channel which just shows skantily clad women shaking their ass all the time (I don't mind watching that every once in a while, but it definitely does not stimulate a person intellectually, rather it's stimulation in another way), or programmes like Big Brother (which the Islamists are supposed to be against). Of course not, it is sponsored by Saudi government money. How can THAT be Haram. No, it had to be Al Jazeera, the first ever hard hitting political and news channel in the Middle East.

Do you think his fatwa came from a personal ijtihad (scholarly endeavour), or might it have been just a tad influenced by the Saudi government?

¶ 11:07 PM

The Second Constitutional Conference

Alter Ego: Today's the day: Bahrain nationalism and Iran

Alter Ego: Get the Drums Rolling: Iran Football Sucks

Interesting article

Dilemma

GCC and the Prisoner's Dilemma Diagram

Identity

Only Three Days

Awards Update

The Frist Annual BAHRAIN BLOGS AWARDS

Back in Bahrain

Alter Ego: Boundaries

Moods

Don't Abandon Us

The Women are coming

Vacant Jobs

7areem's day

بطيخة الفوضى

هذرة بحرينية

An Admission (Sectarianism)

We Need one of These


Thuwar Al 7amraa2

Toota Toota Entahat El 7adoota?

News Digest: Bahrain, Iraq, UK

A Lighter Note Against the Law Against Gathering

Someone Dear To Me

Prank

Bahrain: 29th State of India?

Political System in Bahrain: Cohabitation

Back From the Doldrums

Bahrain Blackout

Social Immobility

6erarwa (beggars)

Cracks

Holed Up

Background

No Comment

This is Not Good

Al Khobar

Fall of the Left; Rise of the Right Update

Glasnost and Perestroika: Bahrain

Boxing Match: Follow Up

Boxing Match

The Fall of the Left; Rise of the Right

Skepticism

The Old Days in Bahrain

Things Fall Apart

Good News Come in Pair (and a Jimmy Vest)

Bahrain Politics: Miscellaneous

1973 Constitution

Sex

Meet the Devil

Muharraq

Media in Bahrain

Liberal Fundamentalism

Who will Blink First?

Satanic Worshippers in Bahrain!

Why do They Boycott?

Politics in Bahrain: The Main Players

¶ 10:58 PM

Someon who visited this blog asked an important question: why did the leftist/liberal parties lose popular support in Bahrain, and why did more Islamist leaning parties rise in their place?

To be honest, I'm not an expert on the subject, but here is my sweepingly general (and hence probably wrong) conjecturing:

Each of the avobe two issues (fall of the left, rise of the right) occured because of general regional developments, but they also had specifically Bahraini causes as well. Here is how I perceive the issue to have developed:

Fall of the left:

1. The rise of the left in the fifties, sixties and seventies in Bahrain was necessarily linked with the rise of Nasserism and Pan-Arabism in the whole of the middle east. After the death of Nasser in the seventies, the Arab world did not see another single leader that had the charisma and honesty of Jamal Abdul Nasser. All of the other leaders were more pragmatic, less ideological, and more concerned with their own benefits that Pan Arabic benefits. Naturally, the left was delt a severe blow with the loss of what can be called its god father.

2.Most of the leaders of the left in Bahrain were either exiled, killed, or thrown in jail. It's hard to succesfully to continue run an organization when you are 2000 miles away from home (AbdulRahman Al Nuaimi as an example.)

3. In the seventies, the wealth generated by the oil surge tempered people's ideological fire. When you're income suddenly increases by up to ten times, you kind of lose the urge to keep on fighting for an ideology. Some of the opposition leaders even joined the government and took up ministerial positions.

4. The left in Bahrain had a lot of bickering within it. There was the communist party, the socialist party, the Nasserite party, the Baathis party, etc. , and each of these were at loggerheads with the other. This continues to the present day, where societies such as the NDA and Al Menbar Democratic society are constantly at each others' necks.

The rise of the right:

1. In Bahrain, one of the reasons that could be associated with the rise of the right is their extremely well done organization, especially in the Sunni sect. Islamists were basically the only ones who were involved in general societal organizations and charities. Witness Al Islah or Al Tarbiya Al Islamiya. They, to their credit, were involved actively in collecting charities to build schools, mosques, help orphans, help the Palestinian issue, etc. Thus, people came to know them very well and trust them. This also gave them huge resouces and an impressive organization structure. In fact, Sunni Islamists movements did not start as a political movement at all, but more as societal movement, aiming to collect charities and also correct what they saw as the "excesses" of society that dominated in the seventies and sixties.

2.That is another reason I think, the "excesses of societies" in the seventies, that the Islamists were able to galvanize very well and construe themselves as a reactionary and correctionary force to them. If you look at pictures of Bahrain from the seventies, you would think it's a different country. Girls are all over in Mini Skirts, and I mean MINI skirts. Men had huge affros. Furthermore, the right was able to succesfully argue that Nasserism and co. was a departure from religion, and wrong. The reason we lost to Isreal and saw ourselves humiliated etc. is because we deviated from religion. One could make a connection here to Sayid Qutb, the Egyptian father figure of the Muslim Brotherhood group in the Arabic world.

3. The local tension in Bahrain that rose in the nineties also contributed. The political activity and demonstration at this time was mainly done by people representing the Shia group within Bahrain. The government made sure its propaganda reached the Sunni group in Bahrain, whom it wanted to court, that this was some sort of sinister conspiracy and movemnent by the Shia to take over Bahrain. The rise of the Islamic regime in Iran helped this. The atmosphere spread around that Iran was bickering in Bahrain's local politics, and wanted to take over. Just witness the show trials we had in the nineties of capturing people who worked for Iran and were attempting to overthrow the regime. Thus, a big division was created between Sunnis and Shias. In these situations each people tend to shift towards the groups that would represent their own Sect. Shia religious figures who were seen as representing the Shia population gained support, and Sunni religious figures who were seen as representing the Sunni sect gained support as well. Leftist groups, who were advocating national unity, lost out, as they were viewed suspiciously by both sides. It's interesting how most of the opposition in the fifties up to the seventies were more balanced in terms of Sunni and Shia people. In fact, the majority of the activists were Sunni, and particulary from Muharraq. This completely changed in the nineties, where the activists were almost exclusively shia (except for the remaining old leftist activists.)

4. All popular movements need a hero, a father figure that can resemble that move. The left had Nasser in the wider Arabic world, and had some very distinguished figures in Bahrain. However, most of them were exiled, toned their ideas down and became part of the system, or died. No new "superstars" emerged. The Islamist movements however had an abundance of star examples to point to, both in and outside of Bahrain. The Sunnis could point to and ride on the stellar succes of what they did in the Afghanistan-Soviet war. They even had people who fought in that war, and thus a certain aura surrounded them, just like with the left in the seventies. The Shia Islamists could point to the success of overthrowing the Shah in Iran and to Khomeini. In Bahrain, there were no shortage of heroes either, such as Sheikh Abdul Amir Al Jamri and others.

Anyway, this all I could come up with. If anyone else has a better (or maybe complimentary) theory, please do share!

¶ 10:58 PM

It seems that skepticism and being suspicious is firmly engrained nowadays in Bahraini society. I'm not sure why though.

No one really believes what the other side says. Everyone always thinks that whatever anyone says, never take it at face value, and that there must always be an ulterior motive. Of course politicians everywhere in the world have to couch their statements in certain politically correct "phrases", and thus the public views them with a bit of skpepticism, but in Bahrain, we do have an amazing extreme. Whatever the government says or does, it cannot be for the obvious or the stated reason. There must be another motive lurking furhter behind. Similarly, whatever the Shia opposition says, it cannot be the prime reason, but it is a cover for a hidden agenda.

For example, when the King sacked the interior minister, most people felt extremely suspicious. "This was done to save face, or to calm the situation down. It wasn't an issue of right and wrong." Or "The guy was old anyway. He was going to be taken off in the next ministerial shuffle anyhow." With the Shia opposition, whatever they say, it must be to further some kind of Islamic thuggish agenda. Whatever they propose, be it constitutional changes or end to discrimination in jobs, it must be somehow connected to them wanting to attack a couple of other French restaurants or to blow a salander (a gas cylinder). It cannot be because it is right.

These are just two examples in Politics, and the list can continue. Leftist opposition want to turn us into some sort of aethiest, blasphemist marxist country. Sunni Islamists want nothing but to lock our daughters up and bring Taliban in, etc.

I'm not sure how this skepticism and suspiciousness developed. One of the reasons is definitely institutional. People have been used to for the past thirty years watching or reading the state news and articles, and having to decipher the hidden missage. The stuff written was so pathetic, one sided and propagandist that no one can take it at face value. Naturally no one believed anything written, and people had to develop the amazing skill of reading between the lines.

One other reason might be societal. People, from the early teens, seem to get used to "hiding" stuff from their parents, family, teachers, etc. When you smoke your first cigarette, there's no way you'd tell anyone. When you go out with a girl, no one has to know either. If you ever try drinking, that's definitely a big no no. So people become experts at hiding things and telling "white lies" to hide them. However, the people on the other side, the people being lied to, also become experts in detecting lies. Thus, you have to always look for alterior motives. "If he says A, then A can't be true... but what does A imply?? What is B?" Thus, we develop an expertise in bending or hiding the truth, and also and expertise detecting bent or hidden truth.

This naturally needs to skepticism and suspiciousness all around. It might even occur between friends. If a friend for some reason doesn't show up to the yam3eh (the gathering) and you ask him where were you? He might reply, "Ha? Kan 3endy shaghlah." (I had something to attend to.) You can't help then but be a bit curious and suspicious of what he did.

I also think one of the reasons is that (I mentioned this in a previous post) people would have a preformed opinion, and they would not deviate from it. In fact they would only look for reasons and evidence that supports this opinion, and disregard everything else. People who disagree with the government would look for any example that supports the government being bad, corrupt, etc. and would disregard any examples that might support a good deed done by the government. Similarly, you might have some Sunni people who are suspicious of the Shia. Thus, any example that shows the Shia were acting suspiciously would be read with great attention, while anything else would be disregarded. The same applies to some people in the Shia community, where they'd disregard any Sunni with a balanced viewpoint and would only refer to examples of Sunnis oppressing them. This continues on. Each side finds biased examples that feeds his viewpoint, and disregards the rest. Thus, we end up with two polarized group that think that the opposite group is the devil. Whatever one group says, it is not believed by the other, and each group looks for alterior motives or conspiracy theories to explain these outward statements of the other groups.Just look at the latest demonstrations. One camp said that this is just another example of the Shia being rowdy. The other camp said this is another example of the government oppressing us.

This cycle of suspciousness continues upwards, and reahces the highest institutions. When someone of importance (whether in government or political parties) makes a statement, it almost is never believed. People start looking for hint words and allusions to decipher the message.

Maybe times have changed. Maybe people have actually started making statements that do somehow convey their true motives just a bit more accurately. The harder part will be to make people actually believe these statements. The mentality that arised from years and years of being accustomed to falsehoods and false propaganda needs time to change.


Maybe it's about time each person started stating what he truly believes, and maybe it's about time we started believing what people say.It's good to be skeptical, but it's good to give the other side a chance as well.

¶ 10:57 PM

A great, great post from Global Soul in Reflections from Canada. It is about the history of demonstrations in Bahrain. Once again, I thank you for such an enjoyable post.

It made me remember all the stories I've heard from my family about the demonstrations, strikes, and political activities that occured in Bahrain since the thirties. My family has a long history of getting in trouble with the authorities, and other than getting a few bloody noses, it does produce some good stories to tell. I'm going to share two of them here.

The first one concerns my grandfather, allah yru7ma (may his soul rest in peace). I've heard many stories concerning his escapades, and this is one of them. Apparently, there was a strike that was to occur one day in the 1930s (I think it was 1938, I'm not sure). Now word got out to the police chief in Muharraq (he was a sheikh, but I can't remember his name), and he decided action needed to be taken to stop this strike. The leaders of the strike had to be arrested, and the police needed to be organized.

My grand father heard about the plans about the police chief, and decided this should not be allowed to happen. So what did he do? He did what any sane, logical, and grounded man would do. He took a big shotgun, found the sheikh, and cornered him in a kharaba (a metal yard) a few meters from our old house. He stood there pointing the gun at the sheikh for a few hours until the strike was over, and then let him go.

Needless to say, after that he spent a couple of nights and received a bit of a beating in the police station.

Now I don't know how much truth there is in the story. My grandfather has been known to tell a few tall tales, so maybe it should be taken with a pinch of salt. In anycase, it was an entertaining story to hear anyway.

The other story was narrated to me by my father. My father spent a year in jail in the early seventies (no, not for taking up a shotgun or anything like that, he was just a political activist.) While he was in jail, he had a cell mate called Majeed Marhoon. Now apparently Mr. Marhoon was famous in Bahrain as the best (and probably only) saxophone player in the country. Mr. Marhoon was in jail for life. Why was he in jail for life? Well here's the story:

In the 1960s the intelligence department in Bahrain (led by the British governor of course) had a fearsome officer by the name of Ahmed Mohsin. Apparently this guy was feared and loathed by everyone in Bahrain. Mr. Marhoon decided to find a solution to this problem. In 1966, a bomb exploded in a car, and in this car was Mr. Ahmed Mohsin. Take a wild guess who planted that bomb.

Apparently people went out celebrating in the streets after this. Mr. Marhoon, however, was caught and sentenced to jail for life. He was released in 1990, and is still somewhere around in Bahrain playing the saxophone.

The bombings in the 1960s in Bahrain were effective in eliminating the intelligence and interrogation officers. However, they had an unwanted side effect. In order to replace these officers, Henderson and Co. were brought in. No one needs to be told about what Henderson (a demented Brit whose CV includes working in Kenya to stamp out the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya) has done to Bahrain.

Ahh.. the good stories of the old days...I'm sure there are tons of people out there with stories to tell. If you have any, please do share!

¶ 10:53 PM

I got back home today, and I was expecting to enjoy a nice cup of tea and read some uplifting news. Boy was I wrong.

I started reading about the latest updates in Bahrain, and ooh boy, today was a turbulent day.

a huge crowd attended the demonstration 

The Shia religious scholars were planning a demonstration against the recent attacks on the Shia shrines in Najaf and Karabala. The demonstration was to take place between the highway from Seef Mall to the Cornaish Highway. According to Al Jazeera, about 20,000 people turned up, including some prominent relgious scholars such as Sheikh Ali Salman, Sheikh Isa Qassim, and Sheikh Al Ghuraifi.

but so were the police 

I don't know what exactly happened, but it seems that all hell broke loose. According to Reuters and other sources, the police blocked the roads, fired tear gas bombs, fired shots, and attacked some of the demonstrators. Two Police Jeeps were burned in the confrontation as well. Most seriously, some of the prominent scholars and activists were apparently injured and had to be hospitalized, including Sheikh Isa Qassim and Jawad Feiruz.

trouble begins 

The situation and how it developed still seems a bit foggy at the moment. Al Jazeera.net reports that the demonstration was peaceful, and that what started the whole debacle was the riots squad firing tear gases. Montadayat Al Bahrain website (and it definitely does not offer a balanced view) offered the same story, and that the burning of the Jeeps was done in retaliation to police escalation.

trouble continues 

This is not good. Whatever were the reasons for the instigation of this event, it is definitely a serious setback. Particularly worrying is the injuries that some of the religious scholars received, as that is going to inflame the whole Shia community.

the aftermath 

Furthermore, there have been reports that the King has called Sheikh Isa Qassim in the hospital, and has also fired the minister of Interior over this incident. The Interior ministry is (or was I should say, if the above is true) being held by Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, but he has been sick and away from Bahrain. Sheikh Ali bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, the son of the prime minister and also the head of Batelco, has been deputizing for him. Apparently both have been removed and their replacement is Sheikh Rashid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa, who works in the Bahrain Defence Force. If indeed this is true, this extremely interesting news, especially as the actions of the King seem to be in direct conflict with his uncle, the Prime Minister, who is currently not in the country.

Does anyone else have any more information on this issue? If anyone does, please let us know!

(Note: the pictures are take from the website Montadayat Al Bahrain. All copyrights belong to them. If I have infringed on them, please let me know and I'll take them off.)

¶ 10:22 PM

I don't think anyone needs to be told that things aren't exactly stellar at the moment in Iraq. However, there is still this issue that I'm searching for an answer for. Why did the American government decide to invade the country in the first place?

The first reason given (does anyone remember it?) was chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons, or as the popular phrase became, "Weapons of Mass Destruction." I doubt there are many people who believe that reason anymore. The U.S. administration (and the UK for that matter) have gone hush on this subject, and it has become kind of a taboo topic. Even Colin Powell admitted that they were misled on this issue. I mean, come on, they were able to track down one guy, just one guy, down to a small rat hole in some scrubby village. Weapons, however, who are supposed to be radioactive and traceable, and one would assume need a large area and complementary facilities to store them, are yet to be found. All that was recovered was some old rusty small artillery shell in the desert left over from the Iraq-Iran war that gave an itch to some 70 year old man.

Then the reason that was given was to liberate the Iraqi people, and to remove a vicous and ugly dictator. Not many I think will deny that Iraq will be (hopefully) much better off with Saddam gone, but is that the real reason to invade? Why wasn't it mentioned in the beginning, instead of WMD? Also, if liberating a nation is the main criteria, how come troops are not being sent to liberate North Korea or Zimbabwe or Uzbekistan (which in fact the U.S. is supporting).? Maybe North Korea cannot be attacked because it does have Nuclear Weapons. Maybe attacking Iraq was a combination of the above two reasons: it does not have WMD (hence it's safe to attack it), and it was a despotic regime. Hmm.. not sure about that one.

The most popular theory for attacking Iraq with war skeptics is oil. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence to point to this. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleeza Rice among others have all been working in some sort of oil firm at one poitn of their life. In fact, it seems nearly all of the administration has all ties. I doubt that was the reason for invading, however. The most important thing for oil firms, and the main thing they crave after, is stability. They do not want oil entering the news all the time, and people getting worried about the risks of oil, and thus start looking for other ways to produce energy. Maybe the administration was looking for short term and personal gains in terms of oil, but I doubt the big oil companies would've sanctioned it.

I have come across this very interesting theory circles recently. The reason for the invasion, so the theory goes, (remember this is complete conjecturing, maybe very deep into conspiracy theory territory), is an ideological one. It goes right to the heart of the ideology of the "neocon" figures in the administration, particularly Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle. Their main ideology rests that America, in order to do "good" in the world, must project and use its power forcefully. America, being the only superpower in the world, must use that force to shape up the world in a manner it prefers.

Now I'm sure a lot of you are by now saying, "wooow, you've lost the plot man. You've been smoking too much weed or something." Well, the above part, outlining their ideology, is not really much in doubt. In fact, it's their written in paper, and signed by them. For some reason, however, this stuff never reaches the news, so I did a little research to find the relevant documents.

Most of the people on the administration, in one way or another, are affiliated to the neo-con think tanks American Enterprise Institute or Project for New American Century (PNAC). PNAC was created in 1997 to promote “American global leadership”, and included in the 25 people who signed it founding “statement of principles” are Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Libby.

Their most (in)famous report is the one called “Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century”. Here are a few excepts:

The US “is the world's only superpower, combining preeminent military power, global technological leadership and the world's largest economy... At present the US faces no global rival. America's grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible.”

The American administration is advised to “fight and win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars” and at the same time “perform the `constabulary' duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions”.

The key "region” to look out for is the Persian Gulf, and Iraq is particularly singled out: “The US has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."

The report, however, says there is a key snag: “the process of transformation is likely to be a long one absent some catastrophic and catalysing event — like a new Pearl Harbor”.

The events of 9/11, although unfortunate, it seems providesd the perfect catalyst, or so goes the conspiracy theory.

There are two camps within American conservatives. Those that prefer focusing on domestic issues, a relative withdrawal from international issues, and paying attention to issues at home. This view caters to what is called the "Midwest" supporters. All what people care, so the ideology goes, is having a good job, safe streets, and being able to get along with their daily life. Their main concern is not what is happening in Saudi Arabia or Russia. In fact, they don't have much interest in what is going on globally.The goal should be to focus on home.
The other viewpoint is that of the neocons, which seems to advocate the opposite, as outlined above.

Before September the 11th happened, the most noticeable feature about the Bush administration was its withdrawal from international politics, at least compared to the Clinton era. The administration was not very proactive on the Palestinian issue, as Clinton was, but was more focuse on domestic "compassionate conservatism." After September the 11th, however, it seems that the neocons ideology was able to take over, and a proactive global approach was taken.


What do you guys think of this theory? It definitely is very interesting (although very involved, I admit.) I definitely do not think George Bush is the chief architect of the whole American foreign policy, but it seems people like Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others definitely have a big influence. I mean, I don't in any particular way think the guy is dumb; he's probably of average intelligence. However, when you're surrounded by people such as Rumsfeld (princeton), Wolfowitz, and Dr. Condoleeza Rice (professor of Russian Studies), you do stick out as a sore thumb. Comments such as "the French have no word for entrepreneur" do not help either. Maybe he was being ironic... hmmm...

It is interesting to read about how the chief architects of this neocon ideology all seem to subscribe to the philosophical work of Strauss. The Economist has a good article on this.

So Maybe the conversation at the White house went something like this:
R: Good morning Mr. President
G: (tucking into a Dorrito) Howdy ol' partner.
R: Mr. President, I think it might be a good idea to invade eyeraq.
G: Why is that Rummy?
R: Well Mr. President it's an ideological issue. America is the only superpower present in the world today. Hence it seems imperative to use this power globally in order to reconstruct the world in a way that facilitates America's interest.
G: Whooa... Settle down Rummy. Speak English. How many times did I tell you never to use a word with more than three syllables with me?
R: (sigh).. well basically because america is strong and we should use this strength to shape the world.
G: good point. My daddy called me today and said he wasn't happy that good old Saddam is still in power. Daddy's pissed off that he isn't President no more and that man still is. He used to be a friend of yours didn't he Saddam?
R: Long time ago sir. Not anymore.
G: Well alright, but how are we going to sell this to the people. You can't tell them the crap you just told me.
R: No sir. We were thinking that we could say eyeraq has nuclear and biological weapons.
G: Does it?
R: well, probably not sir, and even if he does he'll only be able to use them on his own people.
G: how do you know that?
R: we sold him the equipment and facilities to make them sir. They're a tad bit old now.
G: Do you think the people will buy this nuclear stuff? I mean, people are just barely over the Cold war?
R: True sir.. we need a catchy name, something that grabs attention.
G:hmm...well... Whoooa!.. My Dorrito... It just fell!!!
R: Whoooa .....my Dorrito.... WMD.. Weapons of Mass Destruction! That's perfect sir! That's what we'll call it! You're a genius!
G: I know that Rummy. How are my daughters and nieces doing by the way?
R: Getting drunk and doing cocaine.
G: it's good to see they're keeping the family traditions alive.

¶ 5:48 PM

Two pieces of good news have appeared in the news today. One was the release of all the detainees held in relation to the petition saga without any charges or any bail due to an order by the King. The other, equally as significant event was the meeting of the King with the leaders of the nine political parties.

Thank god the saga of the detainees seem to be over. Interestingly, it seems that the release of the detainees had nothing to do with the actual meeting of the King with the political parties' leaders. It seems the issue was not even discussed at the meeting, according to AbdulRahman Al Nuaimi, president of the NDA society.

Well now that this saga seems to be over, one has to still wonder about the bigger, wider issue. What will happen now to the petition issue? Will we finally see a solution to the problem, where both sides might be able to reach a mutual solution? Apparently, the constitutional issue was at the top of the agenda in the meeting with the King.

There are some signs of concern, however, that this meeting might not have been as fruitful as hoped. One of the comments Mr. Al Nuaimi made was that the release of the detainees occured because the government realized it made a mistake, and it should be viewed as a grant or a "heba" from the government (i.e. it was a matter of right and wrong and not charity). Al Wefaq and the other boycotting parties also apparently plan to hold a celebration in honour of the detainees, whom they consider heroes. Furthermore, Al Nuaimi commented on how the membership of the political parties and the doors for signing the petition are still open. This seems to be more of a mood of defiance than complete satisfaction with the situation. Maybe I'm being a bit presumptious here, but if an agreement has been reached regarding the issue, the opposition would probably have been less critical.

In any case, a meeting is a step in the right direction, and hopefully the meetings will continue to happen until a solution acceptable to most people is reached.

On a lighter note, it seems that Tony Blair needs protection, but not of the kind he received in parliament today. While talking in Prime Minister's questions, three condoms filled with purple flour were hurled at him, with one hitting him squarely on the back. Now, I know a lot of people consider Tony Blair to be a dickhead, but is this the best way to deal with that?

You can watch the video of the event here (Watch how the face expressions of Gordon "I'm posh but I'll pretend I'm working class" Brown and John "I am working class but I'll pretend I'm posh" Prescott change).

¶ 12:48 AM

Since I'm feeling highly unproductive today and not doing much shcool work, what the heck, I'm going to post three blogs. This one concerns the Bahraini Politics events today.

First issue to discuss is a couple of recent interesting articles I've read at my favourite political party's website (no, I'm not going to try to be balance and unbiased here), the NDA:

What after the Formula 1?

This article deals with the Formula 1 success and what can be drawn from it. The writer observes how everyone was startled by the way the government was able to accomplish the $150 million dollar project in only 18 months, and with huge success. This leads one to wonder about the other sport venues and projects that have stalled in Bahrain. Our national stadium is a shambles and a disgrace. Talks of rennovating it have been around for ten years and longer, but nothing seems to have happened. I remember when Southamption came to play Bahrain a few years ago, the one thing their manager pointed out was how bad the pitch was and how difficult to play on it is. Even more humiliating, the stadium has been closed for the past year now, and teams had to settle to play on the less equipped Isa Town stadium. The issue has become, as my friend commented, an "Area 51", where no one talks about it. No one exactly knows what's going on with it. How come we have been able to finish a huge race track in 18 months to world standards, and we can't get our National Football Stadium, the stadium of the most popular sport in the country, up to Djibouti standards in 10 years?

Does anyone remember the whole National Stadium debacle in the first place? Well, this was a long time ago, in the eighties, but here is the story: Saudi Arabia apparently donated a huge sum of money for a WHOLE SPORTS VILLAGE to be built. The amount of money we are talking about here are vast, but no one unfortunately knows. What we ended up with however, is one single stadium; more like a chabra than a sports village. Someone laughed the whole way to the bank, but no one knows who it is, or how much he got.

One could also rant on and on about the "pitches" local clubs have. How a lot of them are not even grass pitches, and have taken forever to build and rennovate(unlike the formula 1), but let us not delve there.

Article 2:

This second article is very interesting. It takes a look at the internal politics struggle that gave rise to reform in Bahrain, both within the opposition and the royal family. We do not get many articles like these in Bahrain, as the focus is usually on the theoritical arguments and principles such as democracy, human rights, etc. that supposedly gave rise to the reform. The author here actually analyzes the "hawks" and "doves" in the opposition and particular the government. Boy, this guy has guts. Discussing how the government has opposers and supporters to reform within it is a big No-No in Bahrain. But then again, he's a former socialist activist who had to live in extreme caution and fear for the last 30 years, so what's writing an article to him.

Article 3

This third article, I think, is extremely well done. It replies back to all the critics who've accused the opposition of being the ones who keep asking for trouble, causing conflict and escalation, and how they are always termed "unpatriotic" and "seeking outside support." It's funny how when the government looks for outside acclaim for its policies, and lines up Western apologists for its actions, such as when Professor Fred Halliday of LSE was brought to talk about the great achievement Bahrain has made, while at the same time chastizing the opposition for trying to bring in (they were not allowed in Bahrain, and were sent back at the borders to where they came from) Gulf Nationals and others to discuss the constitutional matter in Bahrain.

And then the opposition is accused of escalating and "heating up" the situation, not stepping down, and causing havoc. All the opposition did was to host a meeting to discuss the constitution problem, and then organize a petition (a piece of paper!) to send to the king about the issue. On the other hand, guest delegates for the confereence were prevented from entering the country, the hotel (Gulf Hotel) where the conference was supposed to take place was ordered not to allow it, and when the venue was changed to a club, that club was threatened with closure if it allowed it. Then when the petition started, the political parties-oops, sorry "societies", we don't have political parties in Bahrain- were threatened with closure if any of the signatories were not members of the parties. After that, even when the signatories were all from the political parties, the government decided to arrest about 24 of them and throw them in jail on accusations of wanting to change the political system and method of rules in Bahrain, and some of these charges carry a life-sentence. When the opposition met with officials to try to get them released, they were told that they will be released only if the opposition restricts the petition signatures to pre April 21 members (the date the opposition opened up its membership doors). The detainees were turned into hostages and made part of a bargaining process! Plus, there are reports of a sudden increase in the amount of riot police and "Baloshis" patroling the streets. Now isn't that escalation?

What did the opposition do in return? When they were threatened with closure if signatories were not members, they worked around that by openeing membership doors wide open and making people joing first and then signing, in an effort to accomodate the government. After people were arrested, they asked people not to go on mass demonstrations and riots. If Al Wefaq wanted, it could've easily asked its huge base of supporters to go on massive demonstrations that would've stalled the country. Instead, they asked only the families of those detained to protest. Now does that seem like escalation?

Speaking of the petition and the detainees, this I consider is a litmus paper for the development freedom of speech and political rights in Bahrain. I know many people who say we agree with what the petition says, but no way in hell would I sign it. Why? Because people are afraid it will reflect badly on them and they would not be able to get a job afterwards and might be segregated against. Hell, I feel the same way as well. I completely agree with what is in the petition, but I do not have the guts to sign it. Why? I'm a person with no job experience whatsoever, and I hope to be able to work in Bahrain one day. I also do not want to one day decide to go Saudi Arabia, and suddenly find my name blacklisted and banned from entering any GCC country. Now this may be not true. Maybe that stuff does not happen any more, but the point is people are still afraid that it might happen, and hence would never sign anything that the government opposes. Thus, we have kind of a one sided democracy. You can have whichever political viewpoints you like, but if they are not that of the government, you wouldn't dare put it officially down on paper.

Just look at what happened to those who were out to gather signatures for the petition. They're now in jail. I, if I was in Bahrain, could've been one of them. I'm sure the government is going to produce evidence of "anti-government" documents they found in their homes or on their computers, such as maybe a leaflet or a cookie showing they visited the Voice of Bahrain website. Hell, I've visited that website. Most of the Bahrainis I know have visited that website. That doesn't mean I agree with what they say (I most defnitely do not), but I still like to hear the other point of view. I'm even scared for myself now because of what I'm writing in this blog! And you think I'm ever going to sign a petition?

Until I can sign a piece of paper without fear, I will continue to believe we do not have a proper democracy in Bahrain.

¶ 9:50 PM

The fifteenth of May marked the 56th anniversary of "youm Al Nakbah", or the day that the Palestinian territories were officially usurped by an Israeli state, the single worst day for Arabs in modern history.

How was this anniversary marked? By the demolition of hundreds of homes, rendering homeless thousands of people, just like 54 years ago. History repeats itself. Man, it is not a good time to be a Palestinian living in Palestine. May Sharon burn in hell like the pig he is.

I do not blame Israel for what has happened, neither do I blame America. I put the blame squarely on Arabs. As a Western friend of mine once told me, "How can it be, that a country of less than seven million people on an area about the size of Wales, continuously defeats and humiliate sa whole people with a landmass greater than the United States, with 300 million people in it, and one of the most valuable natural resources in the world?" How is that? We have no excuse. America and Israel are defending their interests, and that is to be expected. How are we to justify that we as Arabs, with a population and land area more than 30 times of Israel, have no answer to them? Whatever the reason for that is, the problem lies squarely with us.

I doubt many Arabs even remembered that 15th of May was the anniversary of this disaster.

Palestine, many people may have forgotten about you, but some still haven't. Your day will eventually come.

¶ 8:03 PM

This is a followup about one of the comments I got in my posts. A commentor objected that the reason the opposition want to go back to the constitution is because it does not allow women to vote and run for parliament, and that it does not explicitly state that women are equal to men with respect to their rights in the constitution. A similar debate was going on in Mahmood's blog, and I was part of it.

Now I seemed to remember that the 1973 constitution did explicitly mention women as equal to men, and that the reason women did not get to vote and run in elections back then is because of a an royal decree ("marsoom beqanoon"). Since our old constitution was based on the Kuwaiti constitution, I assumed that the reason women couldn't vote in Bahrain is similar to the one in Kuwait, and that it is because of a law issued rather rather than something in the constitution. I Hence, I was perplexed, and decided to investigate this old constitution. I mean, this is a pretty big issue, and if the old constitution does indeed specifically bar women from voting or being represented, it would be a huge drawback.

So I looked up a lot of different sources (to avoid accusations of impartiality and of the constitution being doctored) of the 1973 Bahraini Constitution written in Arabic. What I found was as I suspected, the word "aljins", or sex, definitely appears in Article 18 of the 1973 constitution (I've inserted the bold font):

مادة (18)

الناس سواسية في الكرامة الإنسانية ، ويتساوى المواطنون لدي القانون في الحقوق والواجبات العامة ، لا تميز بينهم في ذلك بسبب الجنس أو الأصل أو اللغة أو الدين أو العقيدة.

An exact translation of the above is:

Article 18:
People are equal in human dignity, and citizens shall be equal in public rights and duties before the law, without
discrimination as to gender, race, origin, language, religion or belief.

This is exactly the same as article 18 of "door" (bab) 3 which appears in the new 2002 constitution:

مادة (18)

الناس سواسية في الكرامة الإنسانية، ويتساوى المواطنون لدى القانون في الحقوق والواجبات العامة، لا تمييز بينهم في ذلك بسبب الجنس أو الأصل أو اللغة أو الدين أو العقيدة.

Translation:

Article 18:
People are equal in human dignity, and citizens shall be equal in public rights and duties before the law, without
discrimination as to gender, race, origin, language, religion or belief.

Now I was extremely perplexed, to say the least, about the claims being made that the old constitution does not support women equality like the new one does, since the articles are exactly the same. However, I looked up an english translation of the old 1973 constitution, and low and behold, Article 18 reads:

Article 18:
People are equal in human dignity, and citizens shall be equal in public rights and duties before the law, without
discrimination as to race, origin, language, religion or belief.

The word gender has magically disappeared out of the English translation of the old constitution! However when one looks at the English translation of the new constitution, the word gender is there:

Article 18:
People are equal in human dignity, and citizens shall be equal in public rights and duties before the law, without
discrimination as to gender, race, origin, language, religion or belief.

What's going on here? Now I assume the original document of the old constitution was written in Arabic, so the word "aljins" is definitely there. Who is this person who translated it though? We can't even trust people to translate a document properly!

Anyway, does anyone have access to 100% verifiable documents of the English and Arabic versions of the old constitution? I could only find four links on the web to the 1973 Arabic text, and three of these were from what can be termed "opposition" websites (funny how the parliament's website didn't have a copy of it, something to hide?). If anyone has any other links, so as to address the skeptics, could you please post them? Also, if anyone has contacts with authoritative people to ask about this issue, it might be important to find out. I mean, this is a huge issue, and I'm just surprise that no one seems to have pointed it out before!

Links to Arabic Text of 1973 constitution:
link 1
link 2
link 2
link 3

Links to English Texts of the 1973 constitution:
link 1
link 2

Links to Arabic Texts of the 2002 constitution:
http://link 1
link 2

Links to English Texts of the 2002 constitution:

link 1
link 2

¶ 6:39 PM