I Was Told to Come Alone

by Souad Mekhennet

  “And how are you paying for his studies now?” I asked, assuming that the scholarship has been canceled once the father had been arrested.

  “No, it’s still going on,” she said.

  I added this to my growing pile of evidence that we in the West might be viewing the situation in Bahrain in overly black-and-white terms, given its complexity.

  Meanwhile, it was time for me to look for a permanent professional home, and I started writing for Der Spiegel on contract, returning after an absence of nearly ten years. The magazine’s editors were interested in the Bahrain story, and so in February 2012, a year after the uprising, I went back and dug deeper.

  On that trip, a colleague and I interviewed the king, asking him about imprisoned activists and torture, as well as the human rights commission he had established, chaired by Mahmoud Cherif Bassiouni, an international law expert and human rights activist. The Bassiouni Commission was set up to investigate and report on alleged abuses, including accusations that security forces had tortured prisoners, and its report amounted to a stark indictment of the government’s handling of the protests. It found that thirty-five people had died during demonstrations in 2011, including five security personnel, and that hundreds had been wounded. The government had arrested nearly three thousand people, seven hundred of whom remained behind bars.

  I decided to confront the king directly on the subject of freedom of speech.

  “Your Majesty,” I asked, “what would happen if we were to shout ‘Down with the king’?”

  The king didn’t seem offended. “They do shout it on the streets,” he replied. “As I emphasized in my speech last year, this is not a reason to imprison someone. It’s just a case of manners. But when they shout ‘Down with the king and up with Khomeini,’ that’s a problem for national unity,” he said, referring to the former Shia Ayatollah of Iran.

  I found it notable that the king had made the reference to Khomeini, especially as Bassiouni and others did not report any Iranian involvement in the demonstrations. I wanted to see for myself and spend more time in the neighborhoods where the protesters came from. At a mosque in Diraz, where one of the most influential Shia clerics preached, large portraits of Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei watched over the prayers. I began to wonder even more about the scale of Iran’s involvement in the Bahraini opposition groups and demonstrations.

  Some activist groups talked about “systematic” discrimination against Shia. My regular taxi driver, Abu Hussain, who lived in one of the Shia villages outside the capital, told me the same thing. He blamed the royal family directly. “First of all, why would they bring people to work from outside?” he said, trying to keep his voice level and friendly. “These people from Jordan, Syria, Pakistan, India, or Bangladesh.”

  I asked what jobs he was talking about.

  “In offices, banks, or in the ministries. Why don’t they take my children or the children of my neighbor? These jobs should be for real Bahrainis first.”

  “But maybe the other people are better qualified?” I suggested. Then I asked if he had a cleaning lady at home.

  “Yes, of course,” he answered.

  “Where is she from?”

  “Bangladesh.”

  “So Bahrainis should also do these kind of jobs, right? Your wife and daughters?”

  “No, no, of course not. I would never allow them to do such work,” he replied. He sounded shocked that I would consider such a thing. “This is beyond our honor. What would you say if I asked if you would do such work, or your mother?” He mentioned my mother because I’d told him she was a sayyida.

  He certainly didn’t expect to hear what came next. I told him that my mother had been a laundress and my father a cook. I explained how I had contributed to the family income since I was sixteen by working in bakeries, babysitting, cleaning floors and dishes, and cooking for and feeding elderly people in the church community where my mother worked. His face turned pale as he listened. “So when you say this is beyond your honor, it was not beyond mine, or my parents’,” I said.

  Abu Hussain raised his eyebrows in shock. He searched for words. “I am sorry,” he finally said. “I didn’t mean something bad.”

  On one of my visits, Abu Hussain took me to a house with a blue flag on top with “Al Wefaq” written on it. This was the office of Ali Salman.

  The hall inside was filled with men. Soon, Salman descended the stairs. Though I’d seen him on TV and in magazines, I didn’t immediately recognize him without his trademark white turban. Salman invited me into a separate office and asked someone to bring tea. I listened and noted down what he and his party demanded: more rights, a prime minister not named by the king but elected by the people, restricted citizenship for immigrants, and an end to discrimination against the Shia. Then he accused the government of giving Bahraini nationality to Sunni immigrants to change the country’s demographics so that the Shia would no longer constitute a majority.

  “Sheikh Ali,” I said, “I thought you were asking for reforms for all Bahrainis, right? I thought you weren’t just a party looking out for the rights of Shia.”

  He agreed that he and his party were defending the interests of all Bahrainis. But like Abu Hussain he mentioned the jobs that Pakistanis and Bangladeshis got before Bahrainis and insisted that Bahrainis should have priority when it came to employment.

  “If people in Germany had followed your argument, neither my parents nor I would have gotten citizenship,” I told him. I couldn’t understand why granting citizenship to non-Shia would bother him so much if his party truly represented the interests of all Bahrainis. I acknowledged that I didn’t live in the country and therefore might not have the full picture. When I had asked Abu Hussain in the car about some of the big business owners in Bahrain who were supposedly Shia, he had replied, “Well, these people are close to the system. That’s why they were successful.”

  Then I asked Ali Salman about family law for Shia women. Bahrain technically has three courts: a civil court, a Sunni court, and a Shia court; it also has two sets of family laws, one for Sunnis and one for Shia. If a Shia woman marries at a Shia court, she cannot get a divorce as easily, even if her husband beats her. Al Wefaq had argued against changing this. I told him I couldn’t understand how he and his political party, which opposed discrimination so loudly, had voted to take away the rights of Shia women.

  He said this was a religious matter, not a political one.

  “But Sheikh Ali, if on one hand you argue that there shouldn’t be any discrimination against anyone, how can you allow Shia women to be discriminated against?”

  “That’s not the most important thing, not even for Shia women,” he said. “What is important is that the prime minister can be chosen by the people and doesn’t stay in power for over forty years, like now.” (The prime minister, Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, was the uncle of the king and had been in office since 1970.) He didn’t seem concerned about the growing influence of religious leaders in Bahrain.

  I left the meeting with more questions than answers. I wondered if I was the only journalist working for a Western media organization who found Ali Salman’s views questionable for someone who was widely considered a “democrat.” Was the Bahraini opposition movement about democratic values, or was it simply about sectarian power? Ali Salman was a cleric as well as a political leader, and his religious authority added greatly to his power. I remembered how, after the fall of Saddam, whole neighborhoods in Baghdad had become sectarian enclaves as residents became more religiously observant, and how women—who had been more or less independent and had access to all kinds of jobs—were suddenly forced to cover up, to change their lives, and to give up most of their freedoms. There was something else Iraq had taught me. When there was a growing overlap between sectarianism and politics on one side of the divide, the other side would grow more extreme in response.

  “Isn’t he a great leader?” Abu Hussain asked when I got back into the car. “He would make a great prime
minister, don’t you think?”

  I put on my big sunglasses. I’d hoped to avoid another political debate, but he’d asked for it. Besides, I thought Abu Hussain and men like him should be challenged from time to time. I told him about my experience in Iraq and that I didn’t think religious or sectarian political parties or leaders like Ali Salman would work in multicultural and multiethnic countries. “It doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be reforms or discussions about human rights,” I told him, but I wasn’t certain that Al Wefaq could gain the trust of all Bahrainis or would represent the interests of all.

  “But that doesn’t matter,” Abu Hussain answered. “Democracy means that the majority will win and has the right to rule over the minority, like in the West.”

  But what about a constitution that protected the rights of other groups as well? My conversations with Al Wefaq members and Abu Hussain made it clear to me that while Bahrainis and Westerners both talked about “democracy,” each side used the word to mean something different.

  While the media and politicians concentrated mainly on Al Wefaq and the government, less was said about the unhealthy effect the conflict might have on Sunnis. One afternoon, I went to the small town of Busaiteen to interview four students I’d met at the University of Bahrain, along with their friends. They were all Sunni, and they were angry at their government and the West.

  The government was “too soft on those Shia terrorists,” a student named Adel told me. He called the protesters terrorists because they used Molotov cocktails and burned tires and had beaten up some of his fellow students.

  I asked if he understood the Shias’ demands for more rights.

  “Look, we all know in the Gulf that people from the royal family have more privileges than others,” his friend Muhammad answered. “It doesn’t matter if you’re Shia or Sunni.”

  “So then why are you unhappy about the protests?” I asked. “Aren’t those some of the demands being made?”

  They all shook their heads. “No, no, that’s just an excuse to win the West over. What they really want is to turn Bahrain into a new Iraq,” Adel said. “They want a sectarian war.”

  I asked why they were angry at the West.

  “Because your governments are turning a blind eye to how radical and violent most of those people are,” a student named Khaled said. “Instead, you’re supporting them.”

  “What support do you mean?”

  “All these comments from human rights organizations and politicians about how Shia protesters were treated. Why are there no such comments about the violence they are using? Aren’t these double standards?”

  Adel broke in: “To us and others here, this looks like a Western conspiracy to weaken Sunnis and give Iran more influence in the region,” he said.

  I spent almost two hours with them and could hear the anger and fear mixed into their arguments. I wondered how things were at the university, or if they had Shia friends.

  “We never grew up asking if one was Shia or Sunni or Christian or whatever,” Adel answered. Then he looked down and took a deep breath. “But now both sides keep to themselves.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we don’t trust each other anymore.”

  Since I had first come to Bahrain, most of the protesters had agreed on one demand: that the prime minister should step down. I asked his office for an interview but didn’t expect much. Instead, I followed up with one of the Al Wefaq members I’d met several times before, at the Friday sermons in Diraz.

  This man had become one of the most reliable sources I’d met in Bahrain. I often went to him to double-check information and for deeper discussions about where the country was going. He asked not to be named for various reasons. “Let’s meet at Costa Coffee Shop on Boudaya Road,” he said.

  I thought I would visit some nearby villages before the meeting. I wore the sequined abaya I’d gotten in Zarqa over a T-shirt, jeans, and a black Pakistani scarf.

  After Abu Hussain and I had finished our tour through the villages, he drove me to the coffee shop, a renowned opposition-group hangout.

  “Why Costa Coffee Shop?” I asked my source when I met him there. He told me that the owner was a supporter of Al Wefaq and the protest movement.

  “So does it mean you guys are boycotting other coffee shops? And vice versa?”

  He confirmed that this was the situation.

  “If you all hate each other so much, how will this country ever be one?” I asked him. “How will the wounds heal?”

  “With time,” he answered. “Insha’Allah.”

  I told him that this didn’t seem to have worked in Iraq. “Now here, the sectarian divide is getting bigger,” I said. “Don’t people see what is going on in the region, more divisions everywhere?”

  A group of men came over to greet my source. When they left, he told me that they were all working as stringers or translators for media outlets.

  “Are they activists?” I asked.

  “Yes, all supporters of the party and the protests, thank God,” he answered.

  “Are they also working with Western media?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  This was a shrewd move by the opposition, I thought. If the international press relied on stringers or translators who had already chosen a side, it would be easy to lose context.

  Our coffees had just arrived when my phone rang. I recognized the number of the prime minister’s media adviser.

  I apologized and asked if I could take the call, saying it might be important. The media adviser asked where I was.

  “I am at Costa Coffee Shop at … wait a second, what’s this road called again?” I asked my source. He told me the name and I spoke after him.

  “Costa Coffee? Boudaya Road? What are you doing there?” the media adviser asked. I could hear sarcasm in his voice.

  I understood that this meeting point of opposition figures was known not only to the opposition but to the rest of the country as well.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter now,” the media adviser said. “Do you have a car?”

  “Yes. I’ve got my taxi with me.”

  “Okay. Come now to the prime minister’s office. But now!”

  “Why?”

  “Didn’t you say you wanted an interview with him? So come now. Your friends at Costa Coffee will surely wait for you.”

  My source began to giggle when he overheard where I was going. “So you are going to the prime minister’s office? I won’t ask specifically who you’re going to see, but are you aware that you are in jeans and sneakers? I can’t wait to read the interview.” He laughed.

  I looked down at my clothes. They were covered in dust. I’d just spent hours in the sun in villages with guys who had proudly shown me their Molotov cocktails.

  In the car, I searched for whatever perfume, powder, or lip gloss I could find in my backpack. Abu Hussain was absorbed by his own problems. “And what shall I do?” he wailed.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What shall I do if they arrest you?”

  “Arrest me? Why should they arrest me?”

  “Well, he is the prime minister, and a very strong man. If you talk to him the way you did with Sheikh Ali or the way you do with me, they might arrest you.”

  “Abu Hussain, I think I’ve met more dangerous people than the prime minister.”

  Somebody was waiting at the gate for me. Abu Hussain said that he would wait close by and that I should call him when the meeting was over.

  The man who accompanied me to the prime minister’s office looked a little surprised when he saw my clothes. The media adviser waited in front of a door with some guards.

  I apologized for my appearance. “It’s not like you gave me any chance to get back to the hotel and get dressed,” I told him.

  “No worries, we won’t take pictures of this meeting.”

  They’d scheduled fifteen minutes for the interview. The prime minister was very self-assured, with a proud, disciplined posture. I’
d heard many people attack him, and I expected him to be arrogant and unlikable. Instead, he came across during the interview as serious and not afraid to engage in a tough discussion; he was respectful to me, but less so toward the protesters. He called the demonstrators “terrorists” supported by Iran and spoke about how the shah of Iran had once tried to lay claim to Bahrain. The prime minister himself had met with him and warned about interference. He said that Bahrain’s main problem wasn’t the Sunni-Shia divide, but an Arab-Persian split that had persisted for many years.

  “This is all Iran’s interference,” he said, noting that his government had asked the Iranian ambassador to leave Bahrain.

  I asked if he thought it was time for him to step down after all these years. His media adviser, seated behind him, blanched. The prime minister said that this was up to the king. “My duty was and remains to protect this country, and I will do this until the last day of my life. Believe me, if my position alone were the reason for the unrest, then I would have already stepped down from my office last year. But this is just a further excuse from the opposition.”

  I challenged him about the human rights abuses. He acknowledged that the government had made “mistakes” but said they would all be investigated. When we stood up to say good-bye, the media adviser didn’t look happy. The prime minister, however, told me he’d enjoyed the “challenging debate.”

  I didn’t depart with much optimism. The interviews with Ali Salman and the prime minister left the impression that these were two characters who weren’t willing to compromise to find a solution.

  At about the time of my interview, news broke that Abdulhadi al-Khawaja was on a hunger strike. Al-Khawaja, one of the presidents of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, a nongovernmental organization, had recently been arrested for calling for the overthrow of the government.

  Al-Khawaja has two daughters, Maryam and Zainab, who used social media as a platform for their activism, and they were frequent guests on international TV and radio programs throughout the uprising. The women were dual citizens of Bahrain and Denmark and had studied in the United States on scholarships. They spoke fluent English with American accents. They covered their hair with colored veils, wore jeans, and talked about democracy and human rights. They were ready-made media darlings with a touching narrative and the right cause.