Bahrainis Scoff at Sham Elections, Want End of Minority Regime

By: Kayhan Int’l 

The Persian Gulf Island state of Bahrain, ruled by the US-UK backed repressive and unrepresentative Aal-e Khalifa minority, has been constantly in the news ever since the eruption of the peaceful protests in February 2011 of the long suppressed majority that brought hopes of emancipation to the people before they were brutally crushed by the rulers – fearful of ending up as refugees in the West.

Of late, the repression has intensified, because of the mourning months of Muharram and Safar for Prophet Muhammad’s (SAWA) grandson, the Martyr of Karbala, Imam Husain (AS), whose immortal epic inspires Muslims aspiring for social justice and rejuvenation of spiritual values. 

Yet the regime despite its claim to be Muslim, feels no inhibition in desecrating and destroying the insignias and banners relating to the Prophet’s grandson, whose ideals of human dignity, liberty and reform inspired even non-Muslims like India’s Father of the freedom struggle against British rule, M.K. Gandhi.

Now news comes that Sheikh Hamad bin Issa, who since 2002 has been styling himself king – a title none of his sires dared to take ever since Bahrain was seized from a weakened Qajarid Iran with the help of the British colonialists by the Aal-e Khalifa pirates of the Khor Abdullah waterway between Iraq and Kuwait fleeing for their lives from the Ottoman navy – is holding a sham parliamentary elections, in which the majority community cannot field any candidates who should all be loyal servants of the court in Manama. 

What a mockery of democracy and humanitarian values by a ruler and his regime whose criminal record against humanity, besides random arrests, revoking of citizenship, torture, sham trials and murder, includes imprisonment of at least three thousand prominent peaceful protestors, among whom are members of the forcibly disbanded al-Wefaq Party which used to have the majority of seats in the illegally dissolved parliament, and its leader, Hojjat alIslam Sheikh Ali Salman. 

In spite of this state terrorism, the regime and its atrocious officials are darlings of the supposedly democratic West, because the Aal-e Khalifas are known for their dalliance with the Zionists and their providing of military bases to the British and the Americans to keep the Persian Gulf region perpetually tense. These days the western media is going out of its way to praise what it calls the progress of Bahrain, the opening of casinos and night clubs, the free flow of wine, and the holding of parliamentary polls, no matter if most people do not cast vote. 

The self-styled investigative journalists and human rights advocates who never miss an opportunity to paint in the bleakest of colours the elected government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria as a minority Alawite regime, turn a blind eye to the minority Aal-e Khalifa regime.

They keep mum on how ophthalmologist Dr. Bashar and his late father, President Hafez al-Assad – in contrast to the now defunct Saddam of the Ba’th minority regime who had brutalized Iraq’s majority in the manner the Aal-e Khalifa continue to do in Bahrain and the minority Wahhabi cult does in Saudi Arabia – never imposed their Alawite ideology on Syria. Instead the Assads have showed full respect for the Hanafi state law of the Syrian Sunni majority that governs Syria and could be called the key factor drawing pubic and military support for the government’s campaign to defeat the elaborate Takfiri terrorist plot, hatched and funded by several rich and powerful countries in a bid to sow sectarian dissensions.

The Zionist-controlled western media in its eagerness to praise the sham polls for the rubber-stamp parliament, scheduled for November 24, has also plugged its ears to the voices all around, albeit in low tones but clearly heard in the bazaars of Bahrain, about friends and relatives languishing in the dungeons.
Bahrainis say with one voice: There will be no legitimacy for the bicameral parliament, whose upper house composed of members nominated by the ruler, wields executive power, while the lower house, although supposedly elected, has no say in running the affairs of the country. 

"There’s none that will have credibility or the trust of the mainstream,” says Seyyed al-Wadaei, at the London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy. 

He points out: There are no political leaders, they are all behind bars or in exile. The regime wants total surrender from the people, since an elected assembly with executive powers for reforms poses the biggest threat to the Aal-e Khalifas.

The time for reforms, however, has long passed and the missed opportunities by the regime that resorted to brute force against peaceful protests, means complete overhaul of the tribal system, even if the overthrow requires armed campaign.

The people of Bahrain have a date with destiny and no degree of suppression or military backing from the US, UK, and the fast declining Saudis, will save the Aal-e Khalifa regime, which as activists point out has become more repressive, with no independent media and the threat of imprisonment facing those who speak out.