Why are Pakistan’s urban (fake) liberals neglecting the Bahrain uprising?

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Fake Civil Society of Bahrain

U.S. follows two paths on unrest in Iran and Bahrain – by Mark Landler and David E. Sanger

Editor’s Note: While the Pakistan urban chattering elites were going ga ga over the “Revolution” in Egypt just a week ago, they are conspicuously silent about the brutal crackdown against the protestors in Bahrain.  Is it because the Pro-democracy protestors who are rising up against a brutal monarchy are mainly Shia and their monarchal oppressors are Sunni? Is it because the monarchy is employing anti-Shia expats from Pakistan and other Gulf nations to brutally crack down on the protestors.

This is hardly surprising though.  After all, the Pakistani urban elite chattering class is the same one that welcomed the formalization of the Military-Mullah alliance in Egypt, just as they did in their own country on numerous occassions and against the electoral aspirations of the average Pakistani.  This is the same elite chattering class that vociferously supported the cause of compromised bureaucrats and Jihadi-friendly Judges and marched in solidarity with the Jamaat Islami and the Taliban to further their interests at the cost of the country and its nascent democracy.

For them, the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is now part of the Constitution making process in Egypt does not cause any concern; neither does the massacre of Shia Muslims in Bahrain.  After all, they rarely bother to investigate the role of the Muslim Brotherhood and its shadowy Islamist supporters (which include Said Ramadan and Mawdodi) who laid down the theocratic foundations that were formalized in the Objectives Resolution.  Nor are they bothered by the continual massacres of Shias in Pakistan; especially in D.I. Khan, Quetta and Parachinar.

This is what eminent human rights activist, Nicholas Kristoff has to say in his Blood Runs through the Streets of Bahrain

“King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa initially pulled the police back, but early on Thursday morning he sent in the riot police, who went in with guns blazing. Bahrain television has claimed that the protesters were armed with swords and threatening security. That’s preposterous. I was on the roundabout earlier that night and saw many thousands of people, including large numbers of women and children, even babies. Many were asleep.

I was not there at the time of the attack, but afterward, at the main hospital (one of at least three to receive casualties), I saw the effects. More than 600 people were treated with injuries, overwhelmingly men but including small numbers of women and children.”

Moving words by an acclaimed human rights activist that have so far been ignored amongst the elite chattering class of Pakistan.  We have included one picture from AP; others pictures and videos are available via simple google searches.

Read on.

Bahrain Blowback

By GRAHAM E. FULLER | GLOBAL VIEWPOINT , New York Times
Published: February 16, 2011

WASHINGTON — Where’s the next place to blow in the Arab revolution? Candidates are many, but there’s one whose geopolitical impact vastly exceeds its diminutive size — the island of Bahrain.

This is a place run by an oppressive and corrupt little regime, long coddled by Washington because the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet is headquartered there. The future of the base is far from secure if the regime falls.

A few hard facts about the island that should give pause for thought:

First, Bahrain is a Shiite island. You won’t see it described that way, but it is — 70 percent of the population, more than the percentage of Shiites in Iraq. And like Iraq under Saddam Hussein, these Arab Shiites have been systematically discriminated against, repressed, and denied meaningful roles by a Sunni tribal government determined to maintain its solid grip on the country. The emergence of real democracy, as in Iraq, will push the country over into the Shiite column — sending shivers down the spines of other Gulf rulers, and especially in Riyadh.

Appearances are deceiving. Go to Bahrain and on the surface you won’t feel the same heavy hand that dominates so many other Arab authoritarian states. The island is liberal in its social freedoms. Expats feel at home — you can get a drink, go to nightclubs, go to the beach, party.

But if you look behind the Western and elite-populated high-rises you’ll encounter the Shiite ghettoes — poor and neglected, with high unemployment, walls smeared with anti-regime graffiti.

A Bahraini protester shows a pictures of a man who was injured by riot police in Manama. Photo: AP

Free market? Sure, except the regime imports politically neutered laborers from passive, apolitical states that need the money: Filipinos, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans and other South Asians who won’t make waves or they’re on the next plane out.

The regime also imports its thugs. The ranks of the police are heavily staffed with expat police who often speak no Arabic, have no attachments to the country and who will beat, jail, torture and shoot Bahraini protestors with impunity.

Like other Shiite populations, clerics figure heavily among the leaders. But many are liberal and open, reflecting the culturally open character of the island. Most Bahraini Shiites would look to Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq rather than to Iran for religious guidance.

Typically, however, just like most other tyrants across the region, the al-Khalifa regime in Bahrain will whip up anti-Shiite, anti-Iranian fears to gain Western backing — and they usually get it.

It’s not just that the majority is Shiite. From a Saudi perspective, the Bahraini Shiites maintain close family and cultural ties with Shiite families across the water in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Shiite minority, probably even more oppressed, is already restive and would be responsive to Shiite political unrest nearby. This is Riyadh’s ultimate nightmare — a further strengthening of Shiite political power in this oil-rich region.

The Sunni minority of Bahrain is in a difficult position. The Sunnis worry about the rise of the Shiite majority that makes up the oppressed class. But liberal Sunnis are also highly discontent with the al-Khalifa regime and seek political reform. Many work with the Shiite leadership to attain secular reforms, but the regime has repressed them as well and fans fear of Shiites to help keep them in line.

There has been relatively little actual blood shed — at least compared to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and other neighboring states — in the decades-long story of Shiite resistance to the authoritarian ruling family. If the al-Khalifa thugs are let loose, that could change quickly. The temperature is rising.

Washington is now faced again with another hard choice — the legacy of shortsighted decisions made over decades: Continue to go with local repressive regimes out of a misguided sense of “American interests”? Hold on to unpopular military bases at all costs — thereby deepening local anger and perhaps giving Iran ultimately a greater voice in events?

Or should it quietly drop support for this repressive regime, allow events to take their course and accept that long-overdue change is coming? How long can we hold on to another ugly status quo? It’s really about how bad the change will get the longer we wait.

Graham E. Fuller, former vice-chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, is adjunct professor of history at Simon Fraser University. His latest book is “A World Without Islam.”

Source

Video: 18/2/2011 Bahrain army opens fire on protesters

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