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April 22nd, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
Friday’s protests were among the largest in recent months. Had the race been
cancelled, the turnout may well have been far smaller.
Despite the regime’s efforts to ban non-sports journalists — reporters from
Sky News, The Financial Times and Reuters, among others, were denied entry
into Bahrain — the race has also refocused international attention on the
Gulf Kingdom.
The Bahraini authorities have responded to the challenge to their rule far
more slickly than the potentates of many other Arab states, deploying a
phalanx of Western public relations firms to attempt to repair their image.
Some steps that were taken are virtually unprecedented in the Arab world.
An independent commission of enquiry headed by Cherif Bassiouni, an
Egyptian-American jurist, was appointed to examine the regime’s response to
the protests after 50 people, including five policemen, were killed.
Mr Bassiouni’s conclusions were unexpectedly hard-hitting, finding that the
security services were guilty both of torture and excessive use of force.
Accepting his report, the authorities have since installed video cameras in
interrogating chambers and appointed two Western law enforcement officers,
including John Yates of the Met, to advise on police reform.
But human rights groups say that the regime’s response has been more
superficial than substantial, noting that verdicts handed down by military
courts that sentenced a number of activists to life imprisonment had not
been overturned despite the commission’s recommendations. No officials
implicated in torture or unlawful killings have been prosecuted either.
Even more significantly, the regime has not addressed the grievances that
sparked the uprising in the first place. Protesters who joined Friday’s
rally said the Shia majority remained marginalised, shut out of jobs in
government and denied a say in how Bahrain should be governed.
“Institutional discrimination has always been here in Bahrain,” said
Ali, a banker who, like many protesters, did not want to give his last name.
“People cannot get hobs in the police, in the Bahrain Defence Force or
even at the ministry of foreign affairs — these jobs are prohibited. It’s a
direction from the government not to hire Shia, not to hire any opposition,
not to hire those who are pro-democracy.”
The government’s unwillingness to address these issues has polarised Bahrain
along sectarian lines. Whereas once they called only for reforms, many
protesters like Ali now say they want the Al Khalifas gone altogether.
“It has got worse,” he said. “We have more people fired from
their jobs, we have more people in jail, we have more people dead and more
restrictions of our freedom, than a year back. In February 2011, things were
better than they are today, so we have more justification to overthrow this
government — it’s a legitimate justification.”
That the Grand Prix has brought Bahrain’s myriad sectarian problems into
renewed relief may perversely help to boost more moderate voices in the
ruling family.
Crown Prince Salman and the reform-inclined faction he leads have been largely
eclipsed by hardliners in the family who argued that repression was the only
way of safeguarding the dynasty.
For this more intransigent bloc, headed by Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman, the
prime minister, there was always a risk that the Grand Prix would galvanise
the opposition once more, thereby undermining their policy of undertaking
only minimal reforms.
With the race going ahead, there is now an opportunity for the reformists to
win back some influence by arguing that the burgeoning street protests leave
the royal family with no choice but to make more substantial concessions.
“In a sense the race should consolidate the positions of the more
moderate sections of the royal family and society at large,” said Jasim
Husain, an economist and former MP with Bahrain’s main Shia opposition bloc,
Al Wefaq.
But even if the moderates regain the ascendancy, it may not be enough to
persuade many of the protesters to return home.
Like the reformers in the royal family, Al Wefaq has hewn to a more moderate
position, arguing that Bahrain’s crisis can still be resolved by bolstering
democracy, ending sectarian discrimination and creating a constitutional
monarchy.
But many of the protesters on the streets give such views short shrift. For
Ali, and a growing number of people like him regime change rather than
reform is the mantra of the streets.
With such views gathering traction, moderate voices in the ruling family and
the mainstream Shia opposition may find that their hopes of the Grand Prix
providing an opportunity for evolutionary rather than revolutionary change
are misplaced.
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