Reverence for Revolution
Much has been made of the Arab Spring uprising. The hoopla overshadows everything – the good, the bad and the ugly – for one thing; history is being rewritten before our eyes; Barely no one will notice, just as Orwell had warned us, it happens seamlessly; the few that notice have to have been in the right position, in a position from which they notice things. Non-Muslims, or Westerners, in particular, are not at that special vantage point, because they see things through a lens which paints everything that Americans have done, by and far, anyway, as “rose-colored”.
The vantage point I’m speaking from, writing this - is from the vantage point of an outsider, someone who is neither here nor there; but maybe it’s easiest when you can have one foot here and one foot there; that would be the easiest thing. Unfortunately for me, my feet are neither in the West, nor in the East. As far as physical boundaries are concerned I’m from the Arabian Peninsula, having lived here for 14 years; something I told myself many times, would not happen. Stay in Bahrain; never for too long. In the humidity of an island, beaten by the sun most of the time, drenched by the humidity all year long, it would almost seem, except for a few weeks of reprieve in ‘winter’; but this season, now it is January, and already I feel winter is ending, or never came (the fault of Global Warming, I must assume). The only reminder of winter we have is the off chance that we can turn the ACs off for a few days at a time, between the heat and the humidity or the cold nights and rainy days - when temperatures manage a slow crawl downwards, and a slow crawl upwards - almost go unnoticed this year; as I say, the weather is odd. Some of our joints ache with rheumatism, an all too common ailment in this neck of the woods.
Oh I almost forgot to mention the pollution; there is a thriving, if we can call it that, aluminum industry here, for who it will be most profitable is anybody’s guess; I like to think it is a joint ‘profitability’ being shared by a local wealthy company and some foreign investors. Anyway, irrelevant to me, except for the part about too much dirty air, and also the smell of the gas burning in the distance which wafts over the landscape; this past fall, for what it’s worth, saw a flurry of activity in the drilling sector. Wonder what that’s all about? Many foreign companies that drill the wells here, trucks lined up, we thought would head for the highway just before sunset, then turned up towards more fields ready to drill some more, in virgin areas we used to use for camping grounds (tenting) which will now be uninhabitable. There are also snakes in these mountains, and maybe scorpions that come not from Muharraq, but fly on the air currents form Saudi Arabia, it is not only birds that can fly.
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Neither here nor there; physical boundaries aside, I must mention, that socially, like many families, or even more so, having rarely seen any of my family at all in the last decade, it is not only sad, but causes one to forget her roots. Mental, emotional and physical reminders or landmarks have all but vanished. A few letters, some written in beautiful cards, a hand or mouth painted picture on the front, are some of my precious but hardly visited physical mementos, and best kept for rare occasions when I dare to remind myself that I have a part of my life that waits like a window, for one bright day when I might open the lock, or slide the pane up and greet some of the family I haven’t seen in over twenty years of marriage, some but once, or twice. I’m filled with sadness and melancholy as well as lingering hope, at the same time. Some cheer even adds some rosiness to my cheeks on occasion. But I don’t dare to go there to that window in my mind’s eye very often. I say, some day I will go to see them, not in my mind, but with my physical body; to visit, remember, cry, hopefully not sob, and reconcile.
When one’s family are far away, or even a short plane trip away, but seen rarely, or when the time has long passed when one should have gone home and didn’t until one of his significant family, a father, an uncle, or a sister has died, or even grown up, married had children and then grand-children, one wonders what has happened to his humanity; why has he changed so much, that even a phone call seems to be a burden? For a while absence does make the heart grow fonder, but too long of an absence will make close relationships not stale, but at peril of being unrecoverable, a distance which can’t be crossed no matter how many miles are flown, gifts purchased, memories reviewed, or turned over like a garden of delicate or dying flowers, which can’t even be called mulch. There will be nothing. The problem is that he has changed, and they have changed drastically as well, but differently; they have changed of course physically; they look older, fatter or thinner, less handsome, or tired and worn, not lively and happy as they were in their youth; which can perhaps be partly blamed on the human condition of age and force of gravity; but they have changed recognizably on the inside, too; the spring of their youth full of dreams and hopes replaced with the cynical realization of reality growing old under occupation, never having been freed, until it was too late or even impossible, from the tyranny of the mind above all, but also imprisonment, torture and physical taxing of body, and mental taxing of mind, some raw emotions which won’t find expression except in callous disregard for others; wealth, property, family position, religion, and the social order, even ceasefire, are all equally permissible targets of their anger, equal to disdain and pilfering. What do they care for the other; his condition or his children? What do they care for his religion or peace of mind or his property? Where has he been all this time? Didn’t he leave us? Didn’t we raise him, and he abandoned his parents? Didn’t his previous friends spend their youth in a cell? Or suffer tortures? Didn’t his father die without a son to bury him, because he was the only son? And he never came, even after ten years, to place flowers, or holy water on the grave (which he wouldn’t have done, if it was forbidden, even if his mother ordered him to). Blame the government, but you didn’t come; in twenty-five years, you saw your parents twice, once in a foreign country, once, just before you decided to emigrate to the west and never return; he didn’t know how things would turn out. But it doesn’t matter; excuses are not enough to an old woman. Nor can he make reparations or even promise that if he were young again he would come back more often to visit; they know, it was not ever possible for him to stay. Life was not completely his to do what he wanted in all things; that was the condition of many, many young men and their families, and others who left Libya in the 80s and 90s and swore they couldn’t return, wouldn’t return. Until the dictator was removed, the video was on television, and it was true that finally Gaddafi was gone for good.
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The Arab Spring didn’t succeed in Bahrain, there will be no Shiites Intifada, not this year, not last year, and I hope not ever. I like the status quo in Bahrain, except for the anger of the Shiites which is hurting the country; unfortunately it can’t be avoided; they are people who have a land, but don’t want to go there, so they prefer to stay here; but not civilly and quietly like so many other ‘foreigners’; they want us to believe that this is their homeland; from Iran, they come, they also travel – Lebanon, Syria, they are hired mercenaries, they fight in other peoples countries, kill Sunnis in Syria, in Lebanon, kill people even here, in Bahrain, or mutilate and cause panic and fear. I know, I have seen and even felt it.
Despite the anger of some of their more ‘orthodox’ members, the larger community of Shiites is not to blame, or one doesn’t know, maybe the numbers are not self-evident; its possible that even a thousand protestors here or there doesn’t justify the calls for reform we hear in the papers and in the world media. Bahraini television for the most part, broadcasts the government line; but this time, the government line is the more rational; it is obvious to those of us living here that the Shiites are an extremist element that wants to stop at nothing to take down the government, a legitimate government, despite their claims, and replace it with something far more sinister; who would then protect the citizens and residents of this country from their ‘reform’?
I’m not a politician, nor have I studied politics, I just know life. We have seen extremism in the media, enough to know that it isn’t always propaganda; sometimes extremism is a real deal. We can peer into the souls of the living dead; people who have no conscience, no feelings of remorse, no shame, nor disgust at their actions, only blank stares; their eyes are mirrors into souls which have nothing but hate for the other; nothing but what they have had driven into their brains, seared into their hearts of hate for the other. It is like seeing a monster; a human but remorseless, angry beast raised in darkness. Sometimes, the most shocking thing is that their children, often marked with scars on their childish faces, scars which are not the result of battles with an enemy or torture by brutal rival gangs, but the result of parenting in the school of extremism - whether it is their actual parents, though quite possible, or the parenting of significant others or done to themselves - reveals in all cases mental disease, or illness. This disease is the self induced and socially fostered hatred of Sunnis. Hating Americans or others comes with the territory, too. But they reserve their most wounded, angry, occultist sentiments and hate for other Muslims; the Muslims who they have hated for Millennia, since the Shiite sect created by Abdullah bin Salul, came into being; the remnants of a Fatimid dynasty which disappeared long ago, and was followed by another equally extremist religious autocracy; a Persian dominated religious authority and outlook. One of their cornerstones of belief is their detest for the Arab race and the largely Sunni Muslim religion of the Arabs.
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The Bahraini government is the first to build on promises. It is the first nation to have begun implementation of its plan in accordance with humanitarian and international standards; the Bahraini government’s 2030 vision is working towards the future welfare of the state and all citizens and peoples living in the country. If the citizens are reasonably happy, content, free and able to pursue their dreams, within the permitted and in all cases reasonable boundaries of law and order, society will find that peace is possible, differences must not always mean division, or schism. Cooperation between different peoples, differing but reasonable groups, and all religions or sects can meet and work together without fear or contempt or injustice done to anyone. It is reasonable to suggest that the government tries to implement most if not all of what it envisions. But none of the dreams or pursuits of free people will have a chance if hatred festers and grows and seeks an outlet in rage-induced, hate-filled attacks on society; or the other, and especially for no just cause and for no alternative vision of freedom, but a hope of anarchy, or the delusional hopes of conquering free people and enslaving them and installing a puppet government, or a corrupt regime which never belonged in this country. Their own vision is a lie, perpetrated on a free population, to assuage their own demented version of history, and their own self inflicted state of “hopelessness” and a “masochistic” political-religious ideology.
His family plans to finally leave Bahrain, move to Libya, build a house on some land he has recently purchased, maybe do a little farming, and begin afresh. At least his youngest children can experience life as it should be; in a real family, with real relatives; but it will take patience. Their extended family or Libyan society is not as welcoming as it should or could be.
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Political reform is not new in Bahrain. From many decades, Bahrain has seen social movements, the progress of women, in particular, and also economic advancement. The Kingdom was an emirate, ruled by a prince, until after the death of Issa bin Al-Khalifa, the late father of the present King. After some years as the ruler, the emir, Hamad bin Issa Al-Khalifa was made King of Bahrain in a ceremony. This was so that the government could be a democracy instead of the entity it was previously, which also was not bad. In retrospect, many good things have happened before and since the Kingdom and rule of King Hamad, as he is fondly called by many of the Bahraini citizens and others. This is true for every modern society.
Two generations before, in the decades preceding this new reign, the government opened schools, girls schools were also included in the progress of the island state towards inclusion in the modern world, technological advancements, business studies, teachers colleges, and so much have paved the way for even further studies in other fields of study and further advancements built on the previous technologies and the groundbreaking structures introduced in the previous generations, which saw many of today’s grandmothers here as young women in intermediate or high schools working diligently towards degrees and then continuing onto higher learning. They became doctors, teachers, engineers, business women, politicians, etc; all with professional qualifications, and later came the experience to formulate changes which benefit the young women today. The present generation also hope and strive to further their own dreams and aspirations, to contribute to the future success of their country whether they are citizens of this country or non-citizens, but equal participants in many spheres and having an important stake nonetheless in the future of the Kingdom.
He hopes that Libya, his homeland, will also be able to modernize many of the failing or fallen infrastructures, and move into a new phase of globalization and modern politics. What the people decide and which course of action the new Government takes will have an important initial impact, which might steer the course for future endeavors, understanding, political reform, or the kind of leadership which emerges for the next phase in rebuilding the country, or rejuvenation. Ghaddafi’s rule did a lot to dismantle progress it had originally made. Many things his government did to punish its people for their very existence and their sacred beliefs. He was not a Muslim by any stretch of the imagination. His ignoble end was well-deserved and proof of his people’s hatred of him. The camp which supported Ghaddafi to the end must now also cooperate and help in the restoration and growth of a new and different society based on freedom of religion, freedom of expression, human rights and social cohesion, etc. Already this is starting to happen. People are returning to claim a share of their country, their future as one nation.
