Ayoon Wa Azan (My Objection Is Only to the Methods)

My topic today is Bahrain, but first I want to make two introductions. First, I support Iran having a nuclear weapon, and call on the Arab countries to follow suit, and I also support Hezbollah against Israel. For this reason, I hope that no Bahraini dissident, whose allegiance is to Iran, will come and accuse me that I am against the Oppressed […]. The second introduction involves accents. Consider the English word Shibboleth, which is a custom, principle, or belief distinguishing a group of people. It refers to a word pronounced by a person in his own accent and pronounced by another with a different one. The word Shibboleth derives from an account in the Hebrew Bible, i.e. yet another myth, which speaks about the Ephraimites, whose dialect lacked a ‘sh’ sound, and the Gileadites, whose dialect did include such a sound. The Gileadites guarded the fords across the Jordan River to prevent the Ephraimites from entering their territory. So whenever they saw a man attempting to cross the river they asked him whether he was an Ephraimite, and if he denied it, they asked him to say the word shibboleth. Whenever a man could not pronounce the sound sh, they would realize he was lying and kill him. The above resembles the difference in the pronunciation of the classical Arabic reflex ǧīm between the Egyptians and the Levantines. In truth, people of Upper Egypt pronounce ǧīm like the Levantines do, so it is possible to distinguish them from the people of Cairo, the Nile Delta and Alexandria. Egyptians also say ‘tamatem’ for tomato, while the Lebanese call it ‘Banadoura’ and the Palestinians call it ‘Bandoura’. So it is enough to place a tomato in front of a checkpoint in Lebanon, for example, to verify whether a person is Lebanese or Palestinians. The introduction has run long before I even reached Bahrain: After four visits since March 2011, I am now convinced that the opposition, specifically Al-Wefaq, wants to overthrow the regime. What bears witness to this is the daily incitement seen in the Iranian and Iraqi media, including Al-Ittijah television network owned by the Hezbollah Brigades in Iraq, against Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait – but not against Iran, of course. The above will not make me alter the opinion I have formed and recorded in everything I have written on Bahrain, which is that the opposition has legitimate demands, but that I have objections only to its methods, and not the demands per se. Today, I want to add my objection to its foreign allegiance, with a dissident going on a hunger strike until an Iranian-style regime is established in his country and other dissidents who want to cancel the Grand Prix in Bahrain as if this would achieve their demands. For this reason, I propose to all dissidents, including their leader Sheikh Ali Salman and their Supreme Guide Sheikh Isa Qassim, a Gulf version of the shibboleth test. Every Bahraini dissident who says the Arab Gulf, and not the Persian Gulf, publicly and explicitly, or in front of a television camera or a microphone, would thereby prove that his allegiance lies with Bahrain, not Iran. On my last visit to Bahrain a month ago, I found among the dissidents some who are embarrassed to use the term the Arab Gulf, because they are pro-Iranian and want to drive Bahrain down from its satisfactory position as the least oil-rich country in the GCC, to the level of backwardness, violence and poverty they have in Iran, a country which, although it lies on top of a sea of oil, still imports gasoline. It is for this reason that they seem to have the gall to seek to sabotage Bahrain’s economy publicly, throw Molotov cocktails at the police, and attempt to block the Grand Prix race, lying every time they open their mouths to breathe. I heard the Bahraini opposition during both visits, with the protesters chanting for the downfall of the regime, but I never heard them chanting for democracy. Of course, when they see a foreign journalist, they start talking about democracy and the rights of minorities, a talk that the journalist believes because he is a ‘hotshot’ and lives away from our countries. But personally, I know Bahrain too well, and no dissident or loyalist can fool me. In the subsequent two visits, I saw, at night, kids carrying stones waiting for official cars to pelt. I saw no one with Molotov cocktails, but I saw in all Manama’s newspapers as I left the country, a picture of a burnt police car, and two wounded policemen in a hospital. Once again, I say that the Bahraini opposition has legitimate demands, but illegal subversive methods are pursued to achieve them. Meanwhile, the Iranian incitement is explicit and loud, and cannot be denied. I thus wait to hear the opposition leaders to say out loud “the Arab Gulf” to exonerate themselves from having allegiance to foreign entities, which I can prove with enough evidence to convince a Swiss, and not a Bahraini, judge.