Becoming the Enemy
Americans of a certain age will recall comic strip character Pogo’s observation that, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” That was published on the first Earth Day in 1970, but the phrase was immediately applied to the Vietnam War and almost any other event where humans are their own worst enemies. More recent candidates might be the invasion of Iraq, Abu Ghraib prison, and U.S. torture of terrorist suspects.
I am reminded of this by watching the Sunni monarchies in the Persian Gulf adopt the tactics of their adversaries in their attempts to deal with the Arab Spring. In the past few days, Bahrain has sentenced 21 activists to long prison terms. All but one of those tried and sentenced were Shia Muslims, who are a majority of the Bahraini population. Bahrain is governed by a Sunni king and royal family. Shias have long been treated as second class citizens.
Any effort to introduce significant political reform has tended to be viewed by the Sunni minority as a potential threat to its privileged position. More important, the reform movement is portrayed as a plot by Iran, Bahrain’s much larger Shia neighbor, to destabilize the government and expand its control over the Gulf.
This potent combination of religious and geopolitical enmity – amplified by regime propaganda of the crudest sort – has produced a perfect storm of hysteria, even among otherwise sensible citizens of the country. Conspiracy theories abound and rumors spread at lightning speed.
In the course of this process, Bahrain has permitted Saudi Arabia to send troops across the short causeway that connects the two countries in the name of Gulf Cooperation Council solidarity. Five of the six members of the GCC – Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, and Oman – are ruled by Sunni monarchs (Oman’s ruler is Ibadi, a form of Islam that is neither Sunni nor Shia), and all of them have significant non-Sunni populations within their boundaries. Saudi Arabia, the largest and most powerful of the GCC members, has a substantial Shia population in its Eastern Province. That happens to be where the bulk of Saudi oil is located. It is also immediately adjacent to Bahrain.
Saudi Arabia was appalled at the U.S. invasion of Iraq, not because they had any particular love for Saddam Hussein but because it would result in the toppling of a regime that was at least nominally Sunni. Indeed, the U.S. invasion and occupation resulted in the formation of a (majority) Shia government. Saudi Arabia has refused to send an ambassador to Baghdad, on the grounds that the Shia government is too close to the Shia leadership in Iran. The fact that the Iraqi government has generally resisted Iranian influence and is opposed to the concept of theocratic rule is dismissed as irrelevant. In the Saudi view, Shia equals Iran, full stop.
Saudi alarm about growing Iranian influence in the Middle East, and in the Gulf in particular, has led it into uncharted territory in its foreign policy. Saudi Arabia has extended hospitality to exiled former Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who was recently convicted by a Tunisian court and sentenced in absentia to thirty-five years and a hefty fine for corruption.
Saudi Arabia urged the United States in the strongest possible language to intervene on behalf of President Mubarak of Egypt, and U.S. failure to do so created a serious diplomatic rift with its long time U.S. ally and protector. That rift has been exacerbated by the uprising in Bahrain. Saudi Arabia’s unprecedented decision to send troops to reinforce Bahrain’s all-Sunni security forces in cracking down on the protests was a measure of their concern that the Arab Spring was spreading to the Gulf and that Bahrain, left to itself, might compromise.
Bahrain has not compromised. Instead, the tactics it has employed remind me very much of the repression that has been going on in Iran since the Green Movement uprisings after the disputed election of June 2009. Bahrain, like Iran, has flooded the streets with loyal troops and supporters. It has used violence repeatedly against non-violent protesters; arrested large numbers of suspected oppositionists; interrogated and sometimes tortured political prisoners when they failed to provide the desired confessions. Bahrain has gone further: it has demolished the iconic Pearl Roundabout, where protesters congregated – the equivalent of Egypt turning Tahrir Square into a construction site — and bulldozed Shia mosques.
Bahrain has taken the position that raising questions about the existing government is tantamount to treason, and eight activists were recently condemned to life in prison for proposing, for example, a constitutional instead of an absolute monarchy. Iran has carried this to a new extreme, claiming that the Supreme Leader is divinely appointed and therefore any suggestion that he and his government are less than perfect is “warring against God.” Bahrain has made no such claim, but the results of its arrests and prosecutions scarcely differ from the Iranian model.
In the face of popular calls for more freedom and dignity, all the dictators in the Middle East have accused outside forces of manipulating the situation. Mubarak claimed that invidious forces had put hallucinogenic drugs into the milk and Nescafe of the protesters. President Assad originally claimed that the protests in southern Syria were the work of Israel; now he just speaks of saboteurs and drugged protesters. Col. Qaddhafi of Libya insists that people were fed drugs by Al-Qaeda. Iran sees the hand of the United States and the West behind the reformists, and meetings between Iranian and Western academics at international conferences have routinely been cited as evidence of subversion in interrogations and indictments.
The one common thread that seemingly unites all of these Leaders for Life is the belief that their people could never independently contemplate changes to the existing form of government that the rulers have imposed and enforced for more than a generation.
Historically, revolutionary movements fail more often than they succeed. That may turn out to be the case with the explosion of uprisings in the Middle East over the past six months. Already we can see some of the initial enthusiasm in Egypt and Tunisia, for example, subsiding in the face of political, economic and social realities. Moreover, repression often works.
But the underlying rationale for the demonstrations and protests is real, not drug-induced. And it will be there even after the dust has settled on this round. The catechism of personal liberty and reform may yield to the doctrine of coercion and stability. But a marker is being laid down.
In the mid-19th century, the ruling monarchs of Europe were confronted by a similar set of demands. For the most part, the old order survived. However, there are no absolute monarchs today in Europe.
The counter-revolutionaries in Iran, Saudi Arabia and the GCC are correct to be alarmed, but they should be aware that the real threat to them comes not from ambitious outsiders – who are real, even if less powerful and efficient than supposed – but from their own people. A wise ruler would understand that winning the first round says nothing about the eventual outcome, and would listen to the authentic voice of change.
8 months ago • 32 notes
