Bahrain Takes the Stage With a Raucous Protest
Andrea Bruce for The New York Times
Protesters gathered at Pearl Square in Bahrain on Tuesday. More Photos »
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: February 15, 2011
MANAMA, Bahrain — Thousands of protesters poured into this nation’s symbolic center, Pearl Square, late Tuesday in a raucous rally that again demonstrated the power of popular movements that are transforming the political landscape of the Middle East.
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Andrea Bruce for The New York Times
Demonstrators in Bahrain carried defaced posters of the king and the crown prince on Tuesday. More Photos »
Adam Jan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Antigovernment protesters attended the funeral of a comrade in Bahrain on Tuesday. More Photos »
In a matter of hours, this small, strategically important monarchy experienced the now familiar sequence of events that has rocked the Arab world. What started as an online call for a “Day of Rage” progressed within 24 hours to an exuberant group of demonstrators, cheering, waving flags, setting up tents and taking over the grassy traffic circle beneath the towering monument of a pearl in the heart of Manama, the capital.
The crowd grew bolder as it grew larger, and as in Tunisia and Egypt, modest concessions from the government only raised expectations among the protesters, who by day’s end were talking about tearing the whole system down, monarchy and all.
Then as momentum built up behind the protests on Tuesday, the 18 members of Parliament from the Islamic National Accord Association, the traditional opposition, announced that they were suspending participation in the legislature.
The mood of exhilaration stood in marked contrast to a day that began in sorrow and violence, when mourners who had gathered to bury a young man killed the night before by the police clashed again with the security forces.
In that melee, a second young man was killed, also by the police.
“We are going to get our demands,” said Hussein Ramadan, 32, a political activist and organizer who helped lead the crowds from the burial site to Pearl Square. “The people are angry, but we will control our anger, we will not burn a single tire or throw a single rock. We will not go home until we succeed. They want us to be violent. We will not.”
Bahrain is best known as a Persian Gulf base for the United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet and as a playground for residents of Saudi Arabia who can drive over a causeway to enjoy the nightclubs and bars of the far more permissive kingdom. Its ruler, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, is an important ally of the United States in fighting terrorism and countering Iranian influence in the region.
It is far too soon to tell where Bahrain’s popular political uprising will go. The demands are economic — people want jobs — as well as political, in that most would like to see the nation transformed from an absolute monarchy into a constitutional one. But the events here, inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, have altered the dynamics in a nation where political expression has long been tamed by harsh police tactics and prison terms.
In a rare speech to the nation, the king expressed his regret on national television over the two young men killed by the police and called for an investigation into the deaths. But in an unparalleled move he also instructed his police force to allow more than 10,000 demonstrators to claim Pearl Square as their own.
As night fell Tuesday and a cold wind blew off the Persian Gulf, thousands of demonstrators occupied the square or watched from a highway overpass, cheering. Where a day earlier the police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at any gatherings that tried to protest, no matter how small, or peaceful, people now waved the red and white flag of Bahrain, gave speeches, chanted slogans and shared food.
The police massed on the other side of a bridge leading to the square. A police helicopter never stopped circling, but took no action, to the protesters’ surprise.
By 10 p.m., many of the people headed home from the square, with many saying they had plans to return the next day. A core group planned to spend the night there in tents.
“Now the people are the real players, not the government, not the opposition,” said Matar Ibrahim Matar, 34, an opposition member of Parliament who joined the crowd gathered beneath the mammoth statue. “I don’t think anyone expected this, not the government, not us.”
Bahrain’s domestic politics have long been tangled. The king and the ruling elite are Sunni Muslims. The majority, or about 70 percent, of the local population of about 500,000, are Shiite Muslims. The Shiites claim they are discriminated against in jobs, housing and education, and their political demands are not new.
The demonstrators have asked for the release of political prisoners, the creation of a more representative and empowered Parliament, the establishment of a constitution written by the people and the formation of a new, more representative cabinet. They complain bitterly that the prime minister, Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, the king’s uncle, has been in office for 40 years.
They also want the government to stop the practice of offering citizenship to foreigners willing to come to Bahrain to serve as police officers or soldiers, a tactic they say is aimed at trying to reduce the influence of Shiites by increasing the number of Sunnis.
While the demands are standard here, what is new is the way the demonstrations have unfolded, following the script from Egypt and Tunisia. Young people organized a protest using online tools like Twitter and Facebook. They tapped into growing frustrations with economic hardship and political repression but were not aided by the traditional opposition movements.
The day began early, around 7 a.m., at the Salmaniya Medical Complex, where Ali Mushaima, 21, died the night before from a shotgun wound to his back. About 2,000 mourners lined up in a parking lot behind a truck that carried his coffin on its roof.
As soon as the procession exited the hospital grounds, a young man bolted from the crowd and charged at the police standing nearby. He threw a rock and the police fired tear gas into the crowd. They fired other weapons, too, and Fadel Matrouq, 31, was killed.
The mourners regrouped a block away and walked slowly for about 90 minutes behind the coffin to the Jidi Haffiz cemetery, a dusty expanse of sun-baked land dotted with simple graves. For more than an hour thousands of people milled peacefully around the area in a blend of politics, mourning and faith.
Mr. Mushaima’s father was escorted by both arms gently through the crowd, after his son was laid out on a white tile table, washed for burial and wrapped in a cloth decorated with golden Arabic script from the Koran. When the body was taken to the gravesite, there were as many as 10,000 people in the street, some mourning, some calling for the government to be dissolved, some chanting slogans and prayers.
Among the crowd were some people who carried protest signs stating their political demands, while others carried black, yellow and red flags that said “Ya Hussein,” referring to the most revered figure in Shiite Islam.
When the body was in the ground, people in the crowd moved toward Pearl Square, not knowing if they would arrive at their destination or be cut off by the police, again. When they made it, they rejoiced.
“The government has brought us past the tipping point,” said Abd al-Amir al-Jawri, 40, an activist who was elated as he recorded events with a video camera. “This is it.”
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