State oppression versus struggle for freedom
“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.” Martin Luther King Jr said in his speech in Memphis, Tennessee, April 3, 1968.
Abdulhadi Abdulla Hubail Alkhawaja, the prominent Bahraini human rights activist, who now enters day 19 of his hunger strike against the regime of Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, continues to make Luther King Jr proud. Alkhawaja is serving a life sentence for having refused to bend his back.
The painful act of protest is not voluntary, some say. His jaws have been broken during custody: he can’t chew. IV tubes, used to deliver fluid into a patient’s body, have stopped working: his veins have shrunk due to weakness, according to his doctor.
While propagators of free speech and democracy stand by silently and watch, Alkhawja and 6 fellow humans, who stood up against oppression, continue to suffer. Why?
It all started on February 14, 2011. Buoyed by the success in Egypt and Tunisia, Bahrainis gathered at the Pearl Square in Manama. They wanted a constitutional monarchy in Bahrain, where people could choose their representatives. Irrespective of religion, sect or race, Bahrain stood united. Almost 80-85 percent of employees in Bahrain went on strike on February 20.
Their demands were rebuffed; dozens of protestors were shot dead at point blank range, thousands captured and tortured. Houses of the opposition leaders were raided at night without warrants, their women made to stand in night clothing. People were ridiculed at checkpoints for their religious believes. Doctors who had treated the injured protesters at Manama’s Sulaimaniya Medical Complex were jailed, threatened and tortured for treating the wounded. Forces of the state persecuted the injured on their hospital beds, all behind closed doors, far from the eye of the media.
State propaganda went into an overdrive: what was an uprising against tyranny and injustice was turned into a sectarian conflict. Western PR mercenaries, funded by the state, were hired to carry out the dirty work on social media. Fake accounts on social platforms were created that labeled the people of Bahrain as terrorists. Muslims were pitted against one another. And sadly, it worked; it always has.
Bahrain state television played its part. The protestors were branded terrorists and enemies of the state, bounties announced for anyone who brought in intelligence. The initial wave of opposition was brutally crushed. Men in power, heading states and regimes, watched while their bank accounts continued to roll in with petro-dollars.
Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry was initiated by the king under increasing pressure from human rights organisations. Or, maybe it was a shameless act of tokenism.
Nevertheless, the government of Bahrain was found guilty on all of the following accounts:
1) Violation of human rights, which includes: use of force by government actors, manner of arrests, treatment of persons in custody, prosecution for expression and association and assembly, enforced disappearances.
2) Other human rights issues: demolition of religious structures, treatment of public and private sector employment, dismissals of students and suspensions of scholarships.
Atrocities committed are beyond the scope of a single article. Perpetrators of the aforementioned violations remain at large. In stark contrast, medics in Bahrain now treat injured protestors underground. Dead bodies of teenagers continue to appear and activists continue to be harassed with tear gas grenades being fired into their homes.
Bahrain has been left helpless by the world media, its attention now firmly focused on neighbouring Syria. The king of Bahrain openly calls for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to listen to his men, to stop torturing and killing his own people. How cruel is irony?
United States of Arabia and Saudi Arabia take turns in taking each other to bed; in the issue of Bahrain, the Saudis lulled NATO and its master, the US, to royal beds, littered with crumbled Saudi Riyals. No attention will be spared. Saudis will continue to forcefully ‘preach’ and spread their brand of Islam and Hamad will continue to be a puppet dancing on Arabian tunes. Meanwhile, dollars continue to roll in.
While the Pearl roundabout – the sign of hope and freedom – has long been destroyed, hope prevails. Bahrain continues to shout in the dark, hoping against hope to be heard. But they will not give up. Brave men like Alkhawaja will give their lives to fuel the cause; the people have woken up, they have nothing more to fear.
Jim Morrison once said, “Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.”
Bahrain is free.
The writer is an IBA graduate and freelance journalist. He can be reached at hasan.askari@khi.iba.edu.pk