From Angry Arab chief Bahrain correspondent: "This is old - keep meaning to send it to you. http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/4364/(un)historic-errors_bahrain-one-year-on
Did you read it? Its a good one. I agree with most of the criticisms in the
article. However I do want to point out that I disagree with these two
lines:
The opposition in Bahrain, to the detriment of its
democratic credentials, has only managed to speak of enfranchisement in the most
limited and unsophisticated manner, for Bahrainis and “citizens.” Such terms,
typical of Gulf nationalist discourses that reek of this type of dated, and
often chauvinist exclusivism, have been made thoroughly meaningless by the
events of the last year.
There is no notion of muwatana in Bahrain like it exists
in say the UAE or Qatar. I dunno if you've been to any khaleeji country but if
you do you'll notice that the citizens always refer themselves to muwatineen
with pride. Citizenship in there is something that is privileged - almost
another type of classism (it even even crazier in Kuwait where they have
different levels of citizenship but I've never been there so I can't comment).
In Bahrain this pride doesn't exist - you won't hear any bahraini say with
pride - I am a 'muwatin'/citizen (I use the arabic word because there's a
specific way its used in the Gulf that I can't translate properly). You don't
get any privileges for being a citizen so there's nothing to be stuck up about.
In fact, the people who get the privilges are the western expats - free car,
free house, free private schooling for their kids. We aren't really part of
this Gulf nationalist discourse as she calls it.
I of course agree with her that the way the laborers are
treated in Bahrain is horrible - it is not a political thing. But you can
compound this with the problem that there is a lot of unemployment in Bahrain,
and its not like qatar, kuwait and the Uae where they don't have enough people.
The government wants to dilute the numbers of bahrainis in the workplace to
weaken the labor movement (though expats have participated in the movement
previously but as you can imagine, many are too scared to do
anything).
And of course we have the problem of the government
bringing in arabs from certain tribes in yemen, syria and jordan (latest is
anbar province in Iraq) to change the demographics of the courtry. That being
said the constant reference to mitjanseen always made me uncomfortable. When
you talk to someone, they will say no we are only talking about those that the
government brings in from outside and hands them bahraini citizenship without
them having to go through the law as it is written. But still, this nuance is
important and there's a fine line between what's right and racism. (Of course
there are people who have lived in bahrain for god knows how many years and they
still haven't gotten citizenship or just have, not to mention the children of
bahraini women who are married to nonbahrainis but thats another issue all
together) I do of course believe that the citizenship laws of bahrain should be
relaxed - you shouldn't have to wait 20 years to finally be able to apply.
What I think is important though is that the laws are fair and based on
criteria that have nothing to do with your sect, religion, race or national
origin.
Either way this article is great and I agree - blogger
@chanadbh was the first one who said it: feb14 made a big mistake when they
didn't join forces with the laborers. Yes of course there are differences - the
protests focused on political change but there is a commonality between us when
you speak of rights - esp. labor rights.
Anyways we live and we learn. Tell your jadaliyya
friends to translate the article. I think its something everyone should be
reading."
