Bahrain 10 years on
From Deena Jawhar, Middle East International www.meionline.com
Deena Jawhar recalls the radical change of course that was promised when King Hamad assumed power and how it quickly veered away from expectations
Bahrain 10 years on
From Deena Jawhar, Middle East International www.meionline.com
Deena Jawhar recalls the radical change of course that was promised when King Hamad assumed power and how it quickly veered away from expectations
Bahrain has been bracing itself for the celebration of King Hamad’s 10th anniversary on the throne. Greater pomp and ceremony than ever were planned for this year’s 17 December festivities, with a huge and diverse array of events lined up to mark the occasion, all held under a specially produced official logo proclaiming “Ten Bright Years”.
The opposition has meanwhile been preparing for an annual commemoration of its own – that of ‘Martyr’s Day’, which is held in remembrance of lives lost during the so-called ‘black chapter’ of the 1990s. Rain was forecast to be the guest of honour at both parties, but no downpour can temper the political heatwave on the island that is generated by the friction between the two each year.
The official celebrations and opposition commemorations may offer very different verdicts on King Hamad’s decade in power, but none would deny that Bahrain has changed.
Upon the death of his father, Sheikh Issa, in 1999, the country was nursing itself from a sporadic popular uprising that had lasted for the most part of a decade, and was suffocating under the shackles of a police state whose jails were crowded with political detainees. Issa had sternly rejected the path of political participation in 1975 when he dissolved the elected parliament, abandoned the democratic clauses of the constitution and introduced draconian state security legislation. By the time Hamad took over as emir, 25 years of despotic rule had taken its toll on people and there was a growing sense in high places that the situation had become unsustainable.
Soon afterwards, Hamad, a well-groomed Sandhurst-educated courtier, initiated a project that was intended to herald a radical shift in the political management of the country. Bahrain was to become a “modern, democratic, constitutional monarchy” akin to the UK and other European countries. The new emir took a series of courageous measures, releasing all political prisoners overnight and declaring an amnesty for all exiles who had fled or been banished from the country over the years. He toured the downtrodden villages for the first time, places where his predecessors had rarely set foot and would have been unwelcome. Hamad was elevated by his people – literally: the convoy he was in was lifted by the hordes of people who greeted him, an unprecedented sight. This outreach set high expectations and was reciprocated with goodwill by the opposition. Even the sternest sceptics who may have thought this too good to be true could only stand back and observe. In a national referendum, 98.4% of Bahrainis voted in favour of political change and the restoration of the 1973 constitution.
A year later, the emir announced that henceforth this tiny state was to be a ‘kingdom’ and crowned himself ‘king’. The new title was supposed to be better suited to the head of a modern constitutional monarchy. But it proved to be apt in a quite different sense: for the Arabic root of the word for king, malik, denotes not only the status of a sovereign but also the concepts of control and ownership. Hamad went on to promulgate a constitution, written up behind closed doors, which contained major amendments to the original 1973 constitution. The most important of these were provisions to curb the powers of the elected parliament by giving equal authority to a hand-picked shoura council, and requiring two-thirds of the combined votes of both bodies to pass any law, making that almost impossible if they are not in agreement. This was the first major blow to expectations of reform, and was considered a fundamental reversal. It remains the opposition’s major grievance.
The process of overcoming the legacy of the recent past remains unfinished business in other respects too. As part of the opposition’s counter events, a South African-styled Truth and Reconciliation Committee was inaugurated on 14 December with the objective of documenting human rights abuses in the 1990s, bringing perpetrators to justice and securing compensation for victims of torture. King Hamad had sought to draw a line under that period with a royal decree issued in 2002 granting security officers and state officials impunity from prosecution for violations allegedly committed prior to 2001. Yet it has become a custom on National Day for the families and supporters of those who were killed during the 1990s to visit their grave sites on what has come to be dubbed ‘Martyr’s Day’. The challenge remains of addressing that legacy to unite the country in celebration of the king’s accession to power.
Old habits
Squaring tribalism with democracy can be like squeezing an elephant down a plughole. King Hamad has in the ensuing years been criticised for running Bahrain less like a state than as an ‘estate’. This features a patrimonial style of leadership in which the king bestows bounty on his people through the device of the royal makrama (personal favour), out of a contrived benevolence rather than from a sense of rights or of responsibilities of the state. These gifts to the people are paid for by public money. The king’s makrama outlays have stretched from housing loans to a water fountain, and are normally initiated by individuals or groups who pay visits to his majlis to make such requests, hardly a modern and impartial approach to national reform.
The blurring of the distinction between public and private funds has also been evident elsewhere. Under King Hamad’s reign, enormous personal royal wealth is believed to have been amassed: on the back of the oil boom (the 2007 national budget was based on $40/barrel when the actual price averaged $53/barrel); from sales of unregulated and unregistered land (including an estimated 100 square kilometres reclaimed from the sea); or from the stakes held in the majority of the big commercial real estate developments. The Royal Court alone has an estimated annual budget of over $300 million (equivalent to that of the Ministry of Health), according to private sources, and is not subject to parliamentary accountability. Yet any criticism of the king is an offence. This endemic corruption and obscuring of property rights are serious questions not yet addressed in the king’s reform project.
Under Hamad’s reign, his family members have occupied increasing numbers of key decision making-posts in government, prompting the opposition to accuse him of “Khalifising the state apparatus.” He assigned his son with the task of managing the country’s economy. The number of cabinet ministers has been increased to 23, including only five Shi’i ministers and 11 from the ruling family (in the past the cabinet consisted of five Sunnis, five Shi’a and five Al Khalifa ministers). In the most sensitive departments such as the defence forces, domestic security or interior, Shi’a are absent from key posts and seriously under-represented at all levels. Yet the government denies any sectarian discrimination. Tied within this is the accusation, which has become a perceived reality, that the government has been manipulating Bahrain’s demographic make-up through the politically motivated naturalisation of foreign nationals and extended voting rights to citizens of Saudi Arabia during the last elections.
One of the major achievements most often hailed of the king’s reform project is the relative freedom of expression that is now permitted. Yet there are more than 1,000 censored websites (including those of the political opposition), and the ruling family’s influence and control of the press through ownership, funding and soft coercion on newspaper editors has led to increasing levels of self-censorship by journalists. In a recent case, the publication of journalist Ali Saleh’s articles in al-Bilad newspaper was suspended after he criticised the king’s reform project. Other journalists received verbal warnings not to do the same.
So, the press has, for the most part, been gushing with praise for the king and his achievements in the build-up to the 10th anniversary, with a conspicuous absence of constructive self-reflection on Hamad’s political and economic progress to date, or how closely today’s Bahrain resembles the constitutional monarchy he promised decade ago.
