"One of their members Abdullah Hashem, who is also on the NUA’s leadership committee, was a founding member of a leftist, Arab nationalist group called Wa’ad." A Bahraini source told me this about Hashim (she does not want to be identified):
"
"
I know Abdullah Hashim very well. He was with... in college. He went to Cairo University. At that time, the Arab leftist movement was strong. He was part of al jabha al shaabiya and most of... was part of jabhat al tahrir. He was one of their leaders. ... told me that he was the most outspoken and radical of them all. He had memorized every single word of Lenin's 9or was it Marx? I forgot who she told me) book and he would stand on a podium and recite it all by heart. He loved the limelight. ....said that she never trusted him. During the 90's when we were still under emergency rule, he was very active against the government. He was one of the few Bahrainis brave enough to go on the BBC to speak against the government. After King Hamad came, political societies were legalized (parties are still banned) and Al Jabha al Shaabiya became Waad and Jabhat al tahrir became al minbar al dimoqrati. I don't know the details but Abdullah Hashim never got the leadership position that he wanted with Waad. So instead he broke away from the society with a group of people and formed his own society which of course he headed. He is smart of course. He realized that leftist societies don't have a huge following in bahrain, and since Waad was aligned with Al Wefaq (they have the same goals after all) he decided to align himself with the salafis in Bahrain. He began actively defending salafis in Bahrain and accused members of Al Qaeda. His rationale was that Bahrain could only be secular if we counteracted the power of the religious shia with the salafis. Of course he had to portray himself as religious, which he most definitely isn't. The members of his society became really uncomfortable with his strong support of salafis so at their next election they elected some one else as head of the society. So of course he left and formed another society. Now, he is part of Al Fateh's national unity group which is simply hilarious. He is supposedly against an elected parliament. So there you have it - he hated the Bahraini government his entire life and now all of a sudden he is one of its greatest supporters. Anyways i wanted to share this story with you in case you are wondering why a secular leftist was supporting the Bahraini government. Of course, I know you are familiar with those ex-leftists who have now completely switched sides because you keep posting about them in your blog. I just wanted you to know that we have some of them in Bahrain too."
