Freedom of Speech having been robbed by parliamentarians,the very people elected to defend and promote this basic freedom, I can clearly foresee a time of the creation of concentration camps in Bahrain.
Three MPs in particular want to immediately legislate against peaceful public protests and to gag any critic of the government and its officers:
Khalifa Al-Dhahrani the chairman of the Council of Deputies declared that he would use bulldozers (arabic) to remove protesters cars off the road.
Mohammed Khalid wants to restrict public demonstrations of any sort to “protect” the peaceful people of Bahrain, asking if parliament would rather wait until “blood reaches the knees” (arabic) before it would do anything in this regard.
Adel Al-Mo’awdah is putting an urgent motion to “protect the people” from the “disturbances” witnessed by Bahrain, clearly alluding to the various demonstrations in support of the prisoner of conscience Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja.
To me, the events of the past few months have clearly given credence to the phrase which I have riled against before: the Bahraini Democracy Experiment, because it cannot be anything else. It clearly doesn’t work, not in its current form, and not with so many detractors hell-bent on destroying significant progress made sincerely by the king and the crown prince.
Let’s just review what’s happened over the past few weeks:
[1] some moron called Abdulhadi Al-Khawajah took it upon himself to become a living martyr, pandering to ignorant and easily excitable population, not only asked for the resignation of the prime minister, but ended his “lecture” with a prayer – a prayer – entreating God to “take” the prime minister away. To me this is the height of stupidity, if one has an important a message as to put solutions to poverty, then one should stick to that message. If you would then want to blame the leadership of the country for the economic stagnation and increase in poverty level, then by all means do so, it is fully within your right as a citizen, but know the limit and more importantly understand how best to deliver your criticism. Certainly not by lifting your hands to the sky and ask your god to kill someone.
[2] the government – as usual
– over-reacted. If it had just kept quiet it would have proved quite a number of things: (a) there is freedom of speech, (b) it is tolerant and accepting of criticism, (c) it has accepted the initiative of the crown prince to try to eradicate labour and economic problems in the country, (d) close the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights. What it did instead is close the most ancient cultural club on the island, the Al-Oruba Club which was a catalyst for so many democratic movements through the recent history of Bahrain, and make a martyr of Al-Khawajah hence like a bewildered child play right into his hands.
[3] the Minister of Labour not to be outdone, canceled scheduled meetings with the four boycotting political societies accusing them of having illicit contacts with “foreign governments” specifically accusing them of meeting with the British Ambassador. The minister’s meetings were supposed to find ways in ending the constitutional stalemate and find ways to re-integrate these societies within the political life. A few days later he (the minister) all but admitted that there was no such meeting with “foreign” powers.
[4] parliament “warned” Britain and the United States not to interfere in Bahrain’s internal affairs. That was due to the United States’ State Department voicing concern for the apprehension of Abdulhadi Al-Khawajah and the closure of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights.
[5] Transparency International brought out its corruption index which showed that Bahrain slipped from its position last year, and not a word about that was said in parliament, concerning themselves clearly with more important matters like the theft of personal freedoms and freedom of speech, rather than the ensuing catastrophe of the disappearance of capital and foreign investment due to this report.
[6] the creative approach by the crown prince which has a real potential of wrenching this country out of the doldrums of unemployment is now all but dead, completely over-shadowed by everything I discussed above. To me, everything that has happened since the Labour Reform conference seem to have taken place specifically to discredit the crown prince and his vision! I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist, but why is it that one side of the regime is trying almost single handedly to rescue this country, while the other aided and abetted by the parliament no less is trying its damnest to do the opposite?
Why? Who would benefit from all this tension that is ripping the country apart these days? The Bahraini people? The government? The “old guard”? Who?
Isn’t it time to stop these childish games and get on with the very difficult task of raising standards of living, standards of education, standards of labour and standards of thought in these islands?
Isn’t it time that the government grew up and faced the facts that we are in the 21st century and it takes a different approach to govern?
Isn’t it time for the parliament to understand that personal freedoms and freedoms of speech are not only sacrosanct but are the basis of democracy and progress?
Isn’t it time, Mr. Prime Minister, that you accept criticism from where ever that comes and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are a much bigger person than those minnows who love the glory of the 15-minutes of fame culture?
Isn’t it time to release the moronic Abdulhadi Al-Khawajah and let him bray his own symphony until people themselves tire of him?
Isn’t it time to re-open the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights and let it do the little good that it was starting to do?
nice in/out link icons “borrowed” from haitham’s blog!
Comments
Concentration camps: a natural progression
Hi M,
Quick correction:
[quote]some moron called Abdulhadi Al-Khawajah took it upon himself to become a living martyr, pandering to ignorant and easily excitable population, not only asked for the resignation of the prime minister, but ended his “lecture” with a prayer – a prayer – entreating God to “take” the prime minister away.[/quote]
This is a mistake. And sorry to say this Mahmood, but you’ve been reading too much Alayam and Akhbar Alkhaleej which are drumming up the case that Khawaja was threatening to kill the PM at worst or in your case, claiming he made a prayer calling for the death of the PM. Sometimes, even Mahmood gets too easily taken on the bandwagon. In fact, Khawaja said no such direct thing. You can view what he said here: [url]http://www.bchr.net/bchr.net.wmv[/url].
Yes, he did call for the resignation of the PM. And yes he did identify him as the root of all corruption in the country. All he did was echo was most of the people of Bahrain feel and say behind closed doors. His only crime was to say it in a public forum in a direct and honest manner. I gotta say, I dunno how he had the guts to. But since he is a human rights activist then he knows too well that freedom of expression is a basic human right.
[quote]To me, the events of the past few months have clearly given credence to the phrase which I have riled against before: the Bahraini Democracy Experiment, because it cannot be anything else. It clearly doesn’t work, not in its current form, and not with so many detractors hell-bent on destroying significant progress made [b]sincerely[/b] by the king and the crown prince. [/quote]
Of course it is not going to work, if it is based on deception. And you still call this “sincere” democratic reform?? The King ammends the constitution at his own free will, sends his troops to shoot down and gas protestors on peaceful marches (like the one on Iraq and last night), birngs in tens of thousands of mercenaries in the defence and police forces and gives them Bahraini citizenship, no efforts to end the anti-shia discrimination, alters muncipal borders to affect distribution of votes, gives us a puppet-parliament that is not representative and incapable of legislating. These are the sincere democratic reforms you are talking about. This is a democracy with amputated limbs. And you talk to me about a bunch of rat-arsed MPs that are all BARK and no BITE.
Now we have prisoners of conscience and one seriously ill 21 year old with a bullet wound to the side of his head. The situation is out of control. People are on the streets shouting dangerous slogans, and the government isnt tolerating it anymore. The masses are finally moving, and the King has two choices; Back down to the demands of the people or hit them hard aka State security style. And it seems to be verging on the latter. But for how long can you carry on suppressing people?
What people are saying in demonstrations:
شعارات تنؠيا خليÙ?Ù‡ كامله
عبد الهادينعيÙ?Ù‡… هيهات يا خليÙ?Ø©
– ØÂÂكومة يا ØÂÂكومة.. اهنتيكلّ الأمة.
– نهضتنا نهضة رائدة.. ضد الØÂÂكومة الÙ?اسدة
– قدّÙ?مْ يا لله استقالة… خليÙ?Ø© يا خليÙ?Ø©.
– وزعتم الجنسية.. تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
– عمالة أجنبية.. تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
– تمييز وطائÙ?ية… تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
– وجودكم بلية.. تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
– قد ضاق كل صدري… تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
– وملّ كل صبري… تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
– Ù?سادكم مستشري.. تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
– هيا استقلْ بالÙ?وري.. تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
– قالها عبد الهادي… تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
– Ù?لترÙ?عوا الأيادي… تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
– وليصرخ المنادي.. تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
الشعب Ù?يانتكاسه.. تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
هيا سمعواراده.. تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
ØÂÂكومة التعاسه.. تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
ØÂÂرية مزعومة.. تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
سياسة ملغومة.. تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
لا دينلاهويه.. تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
لا عيشة هنيه.. تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
هل هذه ØÂÂرية.. تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
خوÙ?ا على ألبلادي.. تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
ولا لكم شرعيه.. تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
لا عدل لرعيه.. تنؠيا خليÙ?Ø©
Re: Concentration camps: a natural progression
What crap Insurgent, you obviously didn’t watch this movie otherwise you would have known that it’s only a trailer for the full “poverty” movie they did. Complete with cheesy music!
I on the other hand have had first hand accounts of people who actually did attend the meeting, unlike you. And that moron Abdulhadi did say a prayer, and not only that, specified that he wants Allah to take Shaikh Khalifa’s soul after his short “du’a”.
So get your facts right before accusing me of the things you have.
Now to more important things:
1. I now agree with you that the parliament and almost all parliamentarians within it are incompetent and the last thing on their minds is the protection of human rights, freedom of expression, and personal freedoms. What they are concerned with is brownnosing and nothing else. They have had two years and they couldn’t bring any proposal into law and I don’t expect that they will be able to in the next two years.
2. I have said that the government is at fault here. Where in the world would a single person like Abdulhadi derail a whole strategic direction of a nation? Why is this even allowed to happen? Had the govenrment been mature about the whole issue they would have just ignored him and his actions, as he should have been, rather than make a mountain off a mole hill. And I am not sure that a few tens of people from Muharraq coming to the prime minister’s court, pledging alegiance and throwing flowers and roses at him and his motorcade actually works in this day and age, it is just muy cheesy.
3. We have crossed swords so many times about the issue of sincerety before that I’m not going to raise it once again. I believe that there is sincerety on the part of the king and the crown prince, you do not. You would be satisfied with nothing less than a turbanned one at the helm, and I will die fighting against that. So let’s leave it at that.
4. As for the resignation of the PM. He’s been in that position for about 35 years, we should all write to the Guinness Book of Records and give them citations to list him in their editions as the longest serving prime minister in the world, he could possibly be that too. If I were him, after 35 years on the job I would have qualified for a hefty pension, so it would be time for me to move aside and enjoy what’s left of my life and enjoy gardening and photography! But I’m not him.
Mohammed Khaled? Pass me the flamethrower
I like the way Mohammed Khaled is leading demands for demonstrations to be curtailed because they lead to ‘disorder’. This from the man who led the hordes of screaming fanatics to demonstrate against Big Brother and incited the rampage against Nancy Ajram. Didn’t he say something about burning his bisht if he ever reversed his stance? Someone hand me the flamethrower.
Another indication of the direction things are going – the esteemed Minister of Labour feels publicly able to slap down the Crown Prince, saying Shaikh Salman “will not hold any dialogue with the Quartret because he has been charged with the economy dossier.” Who’s Majeed Al Alawi to tell the Crown Prince what he can and can’t do?
[Modified by: Longest beard in Bahrain (longest_beard_in_bahrain) on October 29, 2004 05:01 PM]
I’ll Huff and I’ll Puff…
I have no problems about burning Mohammed Khalid’s bisht, a long as he’s in it! Ok, well maybe not him, but definitely his turd-loaded motions.
As for Goldilocks, our ministerial musical chair champion, that’s rather ballsy to snuff the CP. I’ll admit that I’m probably watching the flight patterns of swallows here, but something tells me that Majid Al Alawi probably has someone behind him who has a bite to go along with his yelps. If not, let me be the first to congratulate him on his new post as ambassador to Timbuktu.
In all seriousness, I normally wouldn’t care about these windbags and their stupidity. But this is starting to get a bit worrisome.
I didn’t know about Abdul Hadi praying for the PM’s demise (mostly since I avoid the establishment publications) and it seems that is factual. That’s just plain wrong. He should have been taken to the woodshed for that, by the BCHR and the BAHRAINI PEOPLE. He should have been dealt with long before the Drive-Through Justice System did.
Look, regardless of how malicious the PM may be, he doesn’t sit at his office for 34 years without knowing a thing or two about political survival (actually it’s 38 years if you consider that he’s performed the same functions under less glamourous titles since 1966). The effects of their policies and decisions have had detrimental effects to many segments of the Bahraini population. Mahmood’s right, this is a parliamentary EXPERIMENT, and when push comes to shove, our esteemed MPs know who’s signing their payslips. Yet, as an experiment it needs to be given time and the necessary adjustments made to make it work. It will not suffice to keep charging into city hall for every little thing, and certainly not to chant for someone’s death. There’s a responsibility that comes with freedoms and both the government and the people showed rashness; but like I’ve said before, this is what passes for excitement on a small desert island.
Bahrainis need a voice that will speak for them, their rights, their hopes and aspirations. It would be a sad sad day if that voice was taken away because its’ breath was stinking.
Concentration camps: a natural progression
Re. Democracy Experiment – Mahmood, you’ve hit on the concept Trotsky called Dual Power (Dvoevlast’e in Russian). One of the few areas where I agree with the murderous bastard. In order to be competent at running anything AFTER a revolution, the revolutionaries have to have some experience at running something of substance BEFORE the revolution. Unfortunately most people with legislative and managerial experience are not in the revolutionary camp. Throwing bombs is not a really good training program for running a government (unless it’s the Ministry of Defense, but even then Trotsky had to go back to the Tsarist rank system after the true Commies mucked up the chain of command). It’s one of several reasons that the US Revolution was so spectacularly peaceful (relative to the French or Russian bloodbaths) after the British left – we were so far from London we had to govern ourselves even before 1776, and each state had legislatures before the Revolution. The French had no such training, and look what they did with their Revolution. (Another reason for the failure in France was that the French had to figure out what to do with the physically co-existing old government and nobility, while the US’s enemies were back in London. Once the killing starts, it’s hard to stop).
All this is a long-winded way to say: give it time. Also, any voluntary civil organizations help train people to work together (e.g. Kiwanis, Lions, etc.) No matter how much I make fun of them, they do give people practice at using Robert’s Rules of Order. Many Protestant Christian churches in the US also run their boards of trustees in a parliamentary manner. Do mosques have such a lay board that determines the budget and affairs of the building and congregation? Any local Chambers of Commerce, or anything else in Bahrain that can be used to foster the spirit of cooperation?
De Toqueville remarked at the American propensity for forming voluntary societies. We still do, and it helps democracy in many unnoticed ways.
John
Concentration camps: a natural progression
Insurgent,
although i agree – partially – with what you’ve said and claimed, i don’t think that asking the PM to resign is going to make anything better. Besides, asking for the resignation of the PM is like demanding a change of the political system which i think is against even the 1973 constitution.
Another issue is the demonstations. I think what is done by some group of people is far from a practice of free speech, if someone in the UK for example demanded changing the kingdom to lets say a democratic republic he/she will be faced with serious charges n can go to gail for a very long time, if in the US people were rallying for a Nazism, communism or independance from the United states they won’t be handled by the police with ease. Lets be realistic here, what those people are demanding is changing the system of governing. Overthrowing a goverment or trying to is something really serious in any country. I think these people are damagin their case by acting like this.
My advice is to take things peacefully and to use the democratic means currently available in Bahrain to make change really happen instead of destabalizing the country and taking down with it buisnesses and the economy which depends largly on foreign investments. Investors don’t want to invest in an unstable country that lacks security. It may take time to achieve what you want to achieve but in the long run you’ll achieve more with reason than with aggression and fury.
Salam
Yousifooo
Concentration camps: a natural progression
[quote]if in the US people were rallying for a Nazism, communism or independence from the United states they won’t be handled by the police with ease.[/quote]
If I as a US citizen want to stand on the street corner and chant/hold signs George Bush is an “ASSWIPE” or John Kerry is a “TRAITOR” nothing will done to me by any so called “authorities”. Same for supporting Nazism, Communism etc. It is my right to do so and my right to make an ass out of myself in the process. Free speech does not allow me to yell “FIRE” in a movie theater where there is no fire and it does not allow me to threaten to kill someone. Both are crimes. If I want to support the National Nazi, Communist Workers or the Socialist party that is my right. In fact you will find in various places Communist, Nazi’s and Socialist running for public office. (note:I do not support any of these)
Acts of civil disobedience in the US (like blocking the roads) can be met with tear gas or handcuffs or both. (perhaps worse) Depends on the situation. Sometimes NOTHING is done to the protesters/demonstrators. Most of the time normal Americans chose to voice their protest at the ballot box in local, state or national elections. At various times in US history acts of Civil Disobedience have been the spark for large scale social and legal reforms. Often a heavy price was paid by those committing those acts.
Concentration camps: a natural progression
Thanks Mahmood. I agree with you 100% on all of the points you’ve stated.
After what happened last night, it seems that the Ministry of Interior also shares the opinions of these three joker MPs. The goons didn’t use bulldozers, but instead needlessly fired off about 20 canisters of tear gas at peaceful protesters.
I completely agree that it was stupid of Khawaja to pray for the PM to be “taken away”, and as I have stated many times on my blog, I don’t think the demonstrators should be demanding the PM’s resignation. However, seeing first hand the way the retard riot police handled the situation last night, I can understand why so many people hate the government with such strong feelings. And what happened yesterday was relatively peaceful compared to what I heard used to happen in the 90s, and what you told me about how things were in the 60s and 70s.
The biggest loss of all of this, as you have said, is that the real issue of labour reforms have been sidelined. I hope that the Crown Prince has the determination to keep it going.
Double Standards
You know what I dont understand – is the the fact that a few months back, Bahraini protestors were marching up to the US Embassy angry at the US position in the Arab-Israeli issue, angry at what they were doing in Iraq. They hurled their anger and abuse directly at the US Government.
This last weekend, they went up to the US Embassy again protesting the lack of freedom of speech in Bahrain. They were indirectly looking to the US Government for support.
Errrmmm .. are we playing musical enemies?? Or do we just have the memory of a pea? And if so, how the hell will anyone take the short sighted, fickle Bahrain public opinion seriously??
Concentration camps: a natural progression
Just read this in the GDN. This gives me some hope for the 2006 elections!!
I do hope they stick to their word and boycott the elections… but I’m not holding my breath.