What is Happening in Bahrain, and Where Are Those Debating «The Regime Bombarding Its People»?!

Kadhim al-Moussawi

It is hilarious how the horrors and offenses committed in Bahrain, which violate any form of law as well as local or international customs, go unnoticed with the help of an organized media silence. A silence from an Arab media, which laments values it fails to practice, especially those values concerning human rights and democracy as well as stumping on regimes it describes as authoritarian and dictatorial.

The Arab media also promoted "Arab thinkers" who theorized over arguments - if repeated today, these arguments would sound worse than the Nazi speeches and the "thinker" Minister, Joseph Goebbels [Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany]. Where are these media outlets and Arab intellectuals, with all that is happening in Bahrain today? Haven't they heard what is really happening? Do they need someone to show them and tell them what is happening everyday? Or is it that what is happening does not concern them? Is Bahrain an Arab country, or is it outside the Arab world and concerns others and not the Arab media and its thinkers?

Many sad and shameful questions need answers from the media and its intellectuals. What is happening in Bahrain exposes these media outlets and their orientation, funders, suppliers, news providers, and debaters. It also exposes the media outlets' corrupt morals and absence of any professionalism and subjectivity.

In any case, this is not new to these media outlets or to their debaters, and I don't know what they are going to say after they read this article. What I know about them is that, they have become like the three monkeys in the well-known narratives; hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. The events, where the regime kills its own people, have suddenly stripped them of their knowledge and theories. They have no more new ideas about any other country or place, even if it happened right outside their studios or offices. Shame... Shame... It has become the title for all these media outlets, debaters, and thinkers in conference rooms titled "Who pays the piper?".

The daily arrests of political figures, show trials, gagging of people, suppression of freedoms, torture and killings in prison, travel bans, and peaceful and public protest, did not moved any debater and the "revolution's" media as they call it - not even one word was said. Isn't it really funny that these media outlets call their programs revolution? They even want to distort this term [revolution] and abolish its meaning. So are they really with the revolutions, and in what sense? Do they really believe in it or is it just for the sake of the media?

The mercenaries of these media outlets did not shed any tears over the dissolution of a political association that participated in previous elections and won half the seats in parliament before being stripped of its assets, and having its staff arrested.

What does this mean to these media outlets and its theoreticians?! Before and after this move, the government issued decisions to revoke the nationality of a large number of citizens. It also took other decisions like preventing and stripping families of any of their ordinary rights. Terrorism sentences followed, reflecting the crisis of governance, exposing the media and its mercenaries, as well as unjust procedures, which had political, social, cultural, and religious dimensions.

Until today, the Bahraini people continue with their peaceful national struggle for reform and change. They bear the unjust and brutal practices of the government as well as its oppressive and arbitrary means. And they do so with patience and determination in order to set the country on the path of national political action. However, the Bahraini authorities' lack of independent decision making forced it to sabotage those steps, move away form them, violently confront the popular movement, and sell the country to an obvious occupation force; this as well as the presence of the US 5th fleet and the British naval base.

Even the United States and the United Nations, at least verbally, condemned the Bahraini government's decisions to revoke the citizenship of the religious cleric Ayatollah Isa Qassim, the dissolution of the opposition group, the Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, and the arrest of human rights activist Nabeel Rajab. But did these shake the media and its theoreticians?

Shutting down Shiite mosques and places of worship and summoning religious clerics and detaining them in detention and investigation centers were not the last of the oppressive rulings. The deepening of sectarianism by resorting to arbitrary and repressive measures amounting to genocide and ethnic cleansing - as referred to by national and international human rights organizations - were the latest procedures.

After the worsening of the crisis and the increase in repression and abuse, the religious scholars in Bahrain issued a statement condemning the government's actions and its resounding violations. The statement [issued on August 7, 2016] read: "The increased summoning, arrests, imprisonment, threats, and degrading attacks against religious scholars, the representatives of the great religious references [marja' taqlidi or marja' dini], Imams of Friday and congregational prayers [Jumua'h and Jama'ah Imams], Religious Shiite Muslim singers [Radoud], and activists, are all aimed at breaking the will of the people from defending their country and religion.

The will of the people has not weakened throughout the past 5 years despite all sorts of grave official intimidation. It is a will the regime has not understood yet. It still lives an illusion of terrorizing and bending this will through terrorist means, which proved to be a failure all these years and led to more determination and persistence demanding just rights.

The free people of the world and some international organizations condemned the behavior of the government and its decisions that violate the most basic human rights. They also showed this condemnation through statements and remarks of its officials. All that and the Arab media still had no coverage. The events in Bahrain did not make the cut for the daily news and were not even addressed. Claiming to respect the humanity of the victims but at the same time serving as a warning to the tyrants and dictators who have dedicated their channels and mobilized their thinkers to "thwart" this revolution.

What is happening in Bahrain is a stain of shame on the governments, silent media, and its intellectuals and theorists who were exposed by these events. The events in Bahrain have forced these governments to accept the realities and irrefutable facts while exposing their deceptive debates and misleading roles.

Source: al-Akhbar, Translated by website team