Mahmood's Den

Is a bastardisation of the translation of an Arabic idiom which is better transcribed in English as “Cleaner than a white thobe” at least – thobe being the Arabian traditional male garment – which might have taken away the derogatory insinuation given by the use of the word “dress”. This Arabic proverb is akin to [...]

One of the main grievances people of Bahrain have is the iniquitous distribution of the electoral districts. We find that in the 2006 elections for instance, the Northern Governate contains a total of 91,874 voters electing nine members of parliament; while in the Southern Governate, the voters there number only 16,571 but they get to [...]

Divine intervention couldn’t have come at a more fortuitous time for the government to start to re-impose another heinous State Security Law, the very one which Bahrain suffered from for 30 years and was the main cause of the dissolution of the 1973 parliament and suspending parliamentary life in this country until it was rescinded [...]

Skepticism is the feeling du jour as far as reporting about Bahrain is concerned, it seems. Here’s how the Economist covered it:
Wefaq must now deal with one of the trickiest sectarian issues raised by its supporters: a widespread rumour that the government is handing out passports to Sunnis from other countries in an attempt to [...]

It’s that time again.. I’m in the airport awaiting my flight to Jordan and it suddenly hit me that I didn’t announce the traditional Mahmood’s Den Scapegoat of the Moment! Silly me.
Alrighty then… I don’t think there is anything nor anyone more deserving of very valid blame other than…
The Parliament!
If I were to be generous, [...]

If you’re in Bahrain, you must have felt the tension over the past few months. This tension could in large part be attributed to the Bandargate scandal in which some members of the government and royal family have been implicated in disseminating sectarian strife; a conspiracy which has kept the Bahraini political and apolitical scenes [...]

You know how much I love the GDN, right? And hold it at the highest regards? Yes, I’m being sarcastic here, but even with that, I am really surprised by a few changes in their reportage I have witnessed over the last few weeks; one might even use the adjective “daring” to describe some of [...]

For the third week running, parliament abrogates its basic responsibility to oversee the operation of the executive branch by completely negating both the Constitution and Parliamentary Bylines. [audio clip]
I feel that this “experiment” might have reached an impasse now. I don’t foresee an effective way forward other than going back to the drawing board and [...]

Whenever I’m away, the first thing I do when I wake up is check the news back home. It continuously brings me back to our own version of surreal reality.
Yesterday’s news hit the mark quite squarely, thank you very much; our illustrious parliament dropped the second impeachment proceedings [translate] against a sitting minister. Of course, [...]

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read in the papers over the last couple of days that MP Salah Ali of Al-Menbar (Muslim Brotherhood) political bloc is spearheading a campaign to open the Bandargate scandal and issue forth a “truth and reconciliation” effort to treat and then close this folder and move on as [...]