D4net Netwerk voor Dromers, Denkers, Durvers en Doeners

Dyab Abou Jahjah, 31 August 2011
Thoughts on the Arab revolution from an Arab nationalist.
They called us crazy, naïve, radical, foolish, relics of another time, irrational, but we always believed and preached the Arab revolution. We always believed that our Arab peoples are oppressed and that they want to liberate themselves. We refused to accept the racist statements made by western orientalists and by all kinds of self-hating Arabs that somehow the Arab person is inclined towards absolutism and is not interested in freedom. We refused to accept the preaching of both right wing pundits and Muslim extremists that Islam and democracy are not compatible. And we refused to accept the poisoned gift of democracy imported on an American tank and we exposed it as invasion and occupation. We always believed that like every person on earth our people want dignity and freedom, and that these values are universal. We also always believed that our culture that is Islamic in essence is compatible with democracy as much as the Jewish or Christian cultures are, with the necessary adjustments and tact.

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by JoulesBurn on June 27, 2011 

The small archipelago nation of Bahrain can't seem to stay out of the news lately, as the government continues its containment of civil protests that it perceives as a threat to its rule. The majority (60-70%) Shi'a population has observed the examples of regime-change elsewhere in the Middle East and were demonstrating publicly about their treatment under the Sunni monarchy. The Bahrain military has escalated its armed repression of these demonstrations, and Saudi Arabia eventually sent troops there. Iran expressed its sincere displeasure with that, recalling its ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The United States, which has a strategic military presence on Bahrain and a strategic petroleum interest in Saudi Arabia, has expressed its displeasure to everybody involved except the protesters.

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Seyla Benhabib, Yale University

“Freedom is a great, great adventure,
but it is not without risks…
There are many unknowns.”
Fathi Ben Haj Yathia (Tunisian author
and former political prisoner),
New York Times, February 21, 2011

The courageous crowds of the Arab world, from Tunis to Tahrir Square, from Yemen and Bahrain and now to Benghazi and Tripoli, have won our hearts and minds. This winter of discontent in the United States and in Europe is not yet over: the Arab Spring has not chased away the cold winds of cruel attacks by conservative politicians upon the most materially vulnerable in the United States, nor has the rise of a politely disguised neo-nationalism in Germany and France, which are trying to impose their austerity measures on all of wage earners of the European Union, come to an end
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MANAMA, Bahrain — In the final hours before government forces rolled out their brutal crackdown on Bahrain’s pro-reform protesters last month, a senior U.S. diplomat worked feverishly to broker an agreement that could have led to negotiations between the ruling royal family and the opposition.

A demonstrator steps on an ostrich egg with a drawing of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah on March 17, 2011 in front of the Saudi Arabia Embassy in Ankara as he attends a demonstration in support of mainly-Shiite demonstrators in Bahrain and denouncing the intervention by Saudi troops. (Adem Altan/AFP/Getty Images)

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By Pepe Escobar

You invade Bahrain. We take out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. This, in short, is the essence of a deal struck between the Barack Obama administration and the House of Saud. Two diplomatic sources at the United Nations independently confirmed that Washington, via Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, gave the go-ahead for Saudi Arabia to invade Bahrain and crush the pro-democracy movement in their neighbor in exchange for a "yes"

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THE harrowing attacks on Pakistani nationals in Bahrain, including the murder of at least one policeman, has perhaps for the first time drawn attention to the for-hire security personnel who travel from Pakistan to defend the Bahraini kingdom and its ruling class. The role Pakistani nationals play in the Bahraini security apparatus was further underlined on Sunday as reports emerged that as many as 1,000 men are being recruited by the army-run Fauji and Bahria foundations for the Bahrain National Guard.

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By Robert Fisk in Bahrain

  "Massacre – i  t's a massacre," the doctors were shouting. Three dead. Four dead. One man was carried past me on a stretcher in the emergency room, blood  spurting on to the floor from a massive bullet wound in his thigh.

A few feet away, six nurses were fightin  g for the life of a pale-faced, bearded man with blood oozing out of his chest. "I have to take him to theatre now," a doctor screamed. "There is no time – he's dying!

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Professor Juan Cole

What is at stake for Americans in the Bahrain unrest?

1. Bahrain is a major center for the refining of crude petroleum, refining some 270,000 barrels a day. This amount is not large, but given tight petroleum supplies and a price of over $100 a barrel for Brent Crude, an outage there would certainly put up world prices.

2. Bahrain hosts a naval base for the US Fifth Fleet, important to the US security architecture for the Persian Gulf (the Arabs say Arabian Gulf). Nearly 2/3s of the world’s proven petroleum reserves and 45% of the world’s natural gas reserves are in the Gulf region.

3. Bahrain is an important finance center.

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The politics of a small Persian Gulf kingdom do not usually reverberate far beyond its borders. But an accumulation of social tensions and rights violations in Bahrain gives its coming election a rare international importance, say Christopher M Davidson & Kristian Coates-Ulrichsen.
The rulers of Bahrain are having to become used to greater scrutiny of the way they govern their tiny Persian Gulf kingdom. The approach of a parliamentary election on 23 October 2010 is one reason for a flurry of reports and articles about the country’s political life. But what this closer look has uncovered - including hundreds of dissenters behind bars, and widespread accounts of torture - should be of interest to far more than political analysts.

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