VIDEO: OUR FAILURE WITH BAHRAIN

 
I stand by everything I have said in the past about Al Jazeera, however, once in awhile there comes something to be shared. There may be undertones and other Zionist media tricks in here, but also is a story we have not heard much at all of here in the West.

Mesmerizing, well filmed, interviews, extremely graphic in places, definitely not for the squeamish or the young.  The film moves compellingly and swiftly, well paced. Recommended viewing.

August 8, 2011
KABOBfest

Bahrain: An island kingdom in the Arabian Gulf where the Shia Muslim majority are ruled by a family from the Sunni minority. Where people fighting for democratic rights broke the barriers of fear, only to find themselves alone and crushed.

This is their story and Al Jazeera is their witness ~ the only TV journalists who remained to follow their journey of hope to the carnage that followed. 

This is the Arab revolution that was abandoned by the Arabs, forsaken by the West and forgotten by the world.

If there is anything you should be watching right now, it should be this documentary. Putting together information and occurrences that otherwise seemed either fragmented or diluted by events taking place in other parts of the Arab world, Shouting in the Dark chillingly captures the rise and collapse of the Bahraini movements for political reform and revolution.

The images are striking and painful to endure at times. They are mostly, however, shameful ~ it is embarrassing to watch the sort of abuses and violations of basic human dignity that took place in Bahrain during and following the uprisings.

It is embarrassing because I personally felt as a member of the international community that cheered on the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia ~ that continues to cheer on the people of Syria, Yemen and Libya ~ a sort of collusion with the crushing of the uprisings.

Truth is, from the get go there was little international support for the Bahrainis. Restrictive media coverage allowed for little information to come out of Bahrain beyond activists, state television and general reports. Whatever information was received was sometimes deemed, at best, questionable.

AJE itself focused more on events in Egypt, Syria, Yemen and Libya ~ and received much criticism for its lack of focus on Bahrain (there was coverage, but nowhere near the enthusiasm of Egypt and Tunisia). The irony of “forgotten by the world” is that AJE seems to forget that it, itself, was part of that same global amnesia.

For other Arabs and many Muslims, it became hard to get beyond the sectarianism that seemed to characterize the uprising, even though Sunni and Shi’a marched hand in hand with another. It is unquestionable that the source of the problem is sectarianism ~ after all, the minority sect  does rule the majority sect and there are some unequal laws for the two populations ~ and thus unsurprising that the uprising would have, at least in part, some quantum of sectarian identity.

Nevertheless, the movements were characterized as external forces trying to impose their ideologies and agendas in Bahrain, coalescing with the fear of the rise of the infamous ‘Shi’a Crescent. Salmaniyya Hospital, in particular, became the terrifying “front” for an Iranian Shi’a Revolutionary takeover of the Gulf. Many seemed to believe some form of this propaganda, in one way or another.

And many who openly supported uprisings elsewhere, took on tones of caution and “pragmatism” when it came to Bahrain. We had to “wait for more information” before rushing to any judgment.

The truth is that the aspirations of so many Bahrainis were crushed because of not only the violent repression by the Khalifa family, a military coalition of GCC forces and the silence of American and European governments, but also because we as an international [online] community failed to demand of our countries, march to embassies, march in solidarity for the people of Bahrain. 

If not for their desires of reforms and democracy, than at least government accountability for human rights violations. Yes our attention was consumed with Syria and no doubt did it (as it does now) deserve our attention ~ but that particular time nevertheless points at at least a modicum of our general culpability in the collapse of the Bahraini revolutionary movements.

If we can pat ourselves on the back for marching in solidarity with Egyptians, for re-tweeting the voices of Tunisians, sharing videos of torture by Syrian government officials ~ then we, too, must face our failures.