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LET IT BAHRAIN
Reflections from Manama
Tired of the Saudi desert after a month of looking at nothing but sand, I was more than happy to jump on a C-130 cargo plane and head off to Bahrain for a five days of rest and relaxation. Of course, in order to get the military to pay for the trip, I also had to attend a "conference" that dealt with "official business." Mostly, we sat on Bahrain's white sandy beaches, the warm waters of the Persian Gulf lapping at our toes, arguing about whether Madeleine Albright could beat up Colin Powell. Once again, thank you to the taxpayers.
Bahrain is a small island nation that sits just off Saudi Arabia's coast in the central Persian Gulf. The region's huge oil resources were first discovered in Bahrain, but its economy is now one of the poorest in the Middle East; once its bigger neighbors also discovered oil, little Bahrain was left to fend for itself. Still, Bahrain is known throughout the Arab world as having one of the region's more liberal cultures, especially compared to the strict Muslim culture of neighboring Saudi Arabia. In fact, a causeway connects Bahrain with the Saudi mainland, providing vacationing Saudis easy access to Bahrain's tolerance for alcohol and other Western pleasures.
I had been to Bahrain once before, more than a year ago, and I was eager to head out into downtown Manama, the capital, and experience the blending of Middle Eastern and Western culture that Bahrain is known for. A group of friends and I borrowed a van from the hotel and set off in search of a good Thai restaurant that we'd heard of. As we maneuvered through the narrow streets, refusing to admit that we were hopelessly lost (people in the military are NEVER lost), we saw a group of vans speeding towards us. Young Arab-looking men hung out of the vans' windows, shouting and waving flags and pumping their fists, their heads wrapped in red and white checkered scarves. The drivers of the vans honked their horns and flashed their headlights, causing pedestrians to take cover.
We all froze with fear. I had seen this image on CNN and the nightly news hundreds of times: angry young Arab men, throwing rocks and waving rifles in the air, burning American flags while shouting anti-U.S. slogans. That the U.S. and Great Britain had just bombed Baghdad the night before for the first time in two years made the tension even more palpable. All over the papers that morning had been loud denunciations of the bombings from every corner of the globe, most notably from Iraq. Although the Bahrainis have no love for the Iraqi regime (Iraq tried to fire a missile at Bahrain in the early days of the Gulf War), we had been warned to be on our guard while in Bahrain for possible terrorist reprisals against Americans. We sat in our van and waited for the first Molotov cocktail to be thrown, waited to be peppered by the first burst of automatic rifle fire.
What silly Americans we were, terribly conditioned to by a generation of anti-Arab sentiments in the American press. Of course, no bombs exploded and no one fired any rifles. These exuberant young men in the oncoming vans weren't terrorists. Far from it, they were revelers, celebrating what will perhaps be regarded as the greatest day in the history of Bahrain. As the vans sped by, we saw that the young men weren't wielding rifles or burning pictures of President Bush. Instead, they were waving Bahraini flags and holding up pictures of Bahrain's leader, His Highness the Amir, who had just let his people take their first major leap towards democracy.
To be sure, the bombing of Baghdad figured prominently in the day's news. But the lead article in all the papers that morning had nothing to do with diplomacy and destruction. Rather, everyone in Bahrain was talking that day about the National Action Charter, which 99% of the voters in Bahrain, all newly enfranchised, had just approved. The implications of the charter are sweeping, instantly transforming Bahrain into a constitutional monarchy and abolishing many of the political oppressions of the old regime. The people in Bahrain couldn't have been happier as they stood proudly on the world's stage. Leaders from dozens of countries, both from within and outside the Arab world, have expressed their congratulations to Bahrain for boldly taking its first steps towards democracy. In downtown Manama, people celebrated in the streets, including the young men that I had mistaken for terrorists.
I immediately felt ashamed for my mistake. My typical American self-centrism led me to believe that people everywhere are hyper-concerned about the United States and how its actions figure into the world's business. Indeed, U.S. actions anger enough people that the terrorist threat is real. But in reality, I suppose most people could give a flying falafel about the United States and how it screws up the world or makes it a better place (we do plenty of both). Certainly, the people of Bahrain now have more important things to worry about than the ongoing power struggle between its neighbor to the north and the United States.
My friends and I ended up finding the Thai restaurant. After dinner, we went back to the lounge in our hotel and sipped Japanese beers while listening to a Filipino band play Jamaican music for a crowd of mostly Americans and Germans being served by Indian waiters. No one spoke of politics or bombings or much of anything. Anyway, the two Saudi businessmen sitting in the corner were probably too drunk to speak, having tossed their traditional headdresses on the floor as they slugged double bourbons and enjoyed some of Bahrain's cultural, and now political, freedom.
The international community has rightfully congratulated Bahrain for its progress towards democracy. But I wonder how closely the people of Bahrain will try to protect their new political freedom. I don't know what sort of political or cultural struggles the people of Bahrain endured before the passage of the National Action Charter, but any level of hardship necessarily leads to a jealous guarding of what's been achieved. Indeed, my assignment to this part of the world is a direct consequence of U. S. desires to jealously protect its hard-won freedom; once we consolidate our freedoms, perhaps we develop a paranoid sense that those freedoms are constantly threatened. My reaction to the young revelers in the van certainly confirms those suspicions. Ironic, I suppose, that your own freedom ultimately makes you afraid of someone else's.
--Jeremy Neuner is on assignment in Saudi Arabia.
By Jeremy Neuner
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