DancesWithCamels

Before the White House averred it intended to re-forge the Middle East through promotion of democracy and before Vali Nasr alleged that the U.S. invasion of Iraq had provided impetus for a new Shi‘i revival to sweep across the region, Bahrain was already pursuing its own unique path of political reform and had already experienced the worst sectarian conflict in its history during the mid-1990s. In 2001-2002, constitutionalism and parliamentary life in Bahrain, absent since Sheikh ‘Isa suspended it in1975, was revived, albeit in a manner not wholly satisfactory for much of the opposition which was overwhelmingly comprised of disenfranchised Shi‘a, who makeup anywhere from 60-70% of Bahrain’s population (statistics can be misleading, this group is by no means completely homogeneous). Despite the many brakes that were placed on the power of the parliament, the Sunni ruling family, Al-Khalifa, had begun to allow some form of popular sovereignty to take root and they don’t appear to be turning back. Along the way the process has experienced turbulence that a less determined regime may have already abandoned. The largest Shi‘i opposition bloc al-Wefaq (who also commands the loyalty of the largest electorate) boycotted the first parliamentary elections of 2002 in an attempt to de-legitimize election results. However al-Wefaq, for reasons of their own and after serious debate leading to a schism in the bloc, participated in the elections of 2006. Recently, al-Wefaq has led the charge in bringing pressure to bear on Cabinet Affairs Minister Sheikh Ahmed who allegedly covered up the fact that Bahrain’s population had reached a million, half of whom are foreign workers. As all cabinet ministers, Sheikh Ahmed was appointed by the King; cabinet ministers are also generally members of the ruling family and so is Sheikh Ahmed. Since their parliamentary participation, al-Wefaq has consistently taken an active role in attempting to act as a check on the unlimited power of the executive even if the current system has not provided them the means to do so with great success. However, perhaps what is even more encouraging than this is that the government is allowing this to go on even when it doesn’t have to. Since Iraq, it seems trendy to ascribe to the notion that if Sunnis and Shi‘a live in the same country they are bound to kill each other. Bahrain, while certainly experiencing sectarian antagonisms in the past, is proving that Sunni- Shi‘i relations are more complex than this. Furthermore, even if the country has a long way to go in achieving what could be called a democracy—Bahrain is beginning to display one of the most important features of any democratic system, governmental accountability. For these reasons, future developments in this small Gulf state could prove to be indicative of political progress in the Gulf as well as helping us to re-think Sunni-Shi‘i relations along a case by case basis rather than painting a Shi‘i crescent across the map of the Middle East and claiming this provides a basis for understanding what is happening in the region today.