Something’s up.
I – like the majority of Bahrainis – have become pessimistic and always looking for hidden meanings.
This latest feeling descended on me when I heard that a staunch loyalist MP invited the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid bin Ra’ad Alhussein to come to Bahrain to personally investigate the situation here and thus be assured that everything is good and that reports of repression are exaggerated.
This was swiftly followed up by the speaker of the house of representatives to affirm the invitation.
I can’t help but think that this is not real.
If they open themselves up for even cursory examination by international bodies, a hell of a lot of skeletons will come out of closets that will forever change this country from the core. This would be a good thing of course.
We as a country are facing a lot of challenges none of which will be resolved without real political will and recognising our deficiencies and doing something concrete to address them. And sycophants and their ways will simply not do.
Is this the reconciliation and rapprochement that we all have been dreaming of for the last few years?
I truly hope so.
Comments
Mahmood..please do not get sucked into a vortex of pipe dreams.
Arab culture being what it is, nobody is going to open their closets and expose the fetid garbage within
Author
I know what you mean. The hope, though, is that countries are bound to answer to the UN and that’s what’s keeping them toeing the line. The threat of sanctions and reprimand is usually enough to get systems to wake up and do something to lessen the situation. Even a wrap on the knuckles have got some countries to reverse course. Let’s see what happens here…
Author
Hani Alfardan of Alwasat has a good column today reflecting on this. The gyst of his column suggests that nothing will really change and that the parliamentary invitation is yet another test balloon to ameliorate the onset of the periodic review in May 2017. He suggests that if the invitation were genuine, it would have come from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rather than a powerless parliament.
Read his article (in Arabic) here: http://www.alwasatnews.com/news/1221776.html
Author
In a prelude to the period review in May 2017, the HRC has released a laundry list of Bahraini shortcomings. Read about it in Alwasat today (in Arabic) here: http://www.alwasatnews.com/news/1221725.html and you can keep an eye on the current state of affairs as well as events and reports leading up to the third cycle of Bahrain’s periodic review at http://www.ohchr.org/EN/countries/MENARegion/Pages/BHIndex.aspx