Bahrain’s Re-Reform Movement

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The tiny state of Bahrain was thrust into the international spotlight this month when its regime violently suppressed pro-democracy protests. Although seemingly an extension of Tunisia’s and Egypt’s opposition movements, protests are not new in Bahrain, nor are clashes between demonstrators and police. The popular protests that began on February 14 have deep local roots and reflect frustration with a political system that promised more democratic reform than most others in the Middle East but has largely failed to deliver.

Bahrain has a highly developed civil society compared to other Gulf countries. It is historically a relatively cosmopolitan trade hub and was the first of the Gulf monarchies to discover oil, in 1932, giving it an economic head start. Its formal education system developed relatively early -- its first modern school for boys opened in 1919 and its (and the Gulf region’s) first girls’ school was founded in 1928. Education expanded further in the 1930s, as oil-funded state institutions developed. In 1935, the country became the center of the British Empire’s administration in the Gulf -- a position it retained until its independence in 1971. The empire’s bureaucratic apparatus contributed to the growth of an educated, professional class.

Bahrain’s strong civil society fostered a tradition of political activism. The principles of elected representation are not new there. Municipal elections to fill half the seats on local councils began earlier in 1926. (Neighbouring Saudi Arabia did not follow suit until 2005 and has since indefinitely postponed elections.) The principles of protest are not new to Bahrainis, either; demonstrations date back to the 1920s and probably earlier, although older records are scarcer. Modern labor activism in the country began in earnest in the 1930s, at the Bahrain Oil Company, where striking workers called for access to better education and fairer courts, as well as pay raises and improved working conditions. By the 1950s, as Arab nationalism spread through the region, Bahrain’s opposition demanded independence from Britain. Support for the opposition came from across all of Bahrain’s classes, regions, and religious sects.

The country eventually won independence in 1971, when a new British administration, worried about the costs of empire and the risks of unrest, decided to withdraw from all its territories east of the Suez Canal. The process of decolonization in the Gulf was very different from the violent independence revolutions in the rest of the Middle East and in Africa, which brought about regimes such as Gamal Abdel Nasser’s in Egypt and Muammar al-Gaddafi’s in Libya. The British imperial presence in the Gulf was always informal; its role was “protector” of the small sheikhdoms that needed a larger ally to guarantee their security. The Gulf’s ruling elites generally stayed in power and were reluctant to see the British leave. Indeed, the British agreed to delay withdrawing from Bahrain until Iran formally dropped its longstanding territorial claim to the island. Meanwhile, concerned with internal legitimacy, the emir of Bahrain, Isa bin Salman al-Khalifa, announced that he would establish an elected parliament. To lay the groundwork, he set up a constitutional assembly, two-thirds of which was elected, to help devise the country’s first constitution.

In 1973, a popularly elected parliament was duly established, although a royal decree prevented women from voting. In an effusive guidebook from early 1975, James Belgrave, the son of Charles Belgrave, a British adviser and a force behind Bahrain’s throne for three decades, wrote that the constitution and parliament were “the culmination of half a century of steady evolutionary development” and that Bahrain’s international reputation was strengthened by its new democratic system.

Yet the parliament lasted only two years. Most of the 30 members were leftists or independents who began to push for land reform and question the U.S. military presence, which was established at the request of the regime to counter Iranian influence after the British left. Members of parliament also wanted to limit the royal family’s spending (just as oil revenue was surging after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war) and opposed the emir’s proposed law allowing him to detain prisoners for three years without trial. In August 1975, the emir dissolved the parliament by royal decree.

For the next 25 years, most opposition groups were united in their calls for the restoration of the parliament under a constitutional monarchy. There were exceptions, notably the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain, an underground inspired by the 1979 revolution in Iran, which was group accused of plotting a coup in 1981. Bahrain went through particular unrest in the 1990s, as the country’s economy faltered. In 1992 and 1994, opposition activists tried to petition the king to restore the parliament and give women the vote. But they made no progress, and unrest spread to the streets, where it was met by a heavy-handed government response.