April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

unmoved. The lives of Bahrainis are clearly unimportant compared to
their vested interests. The people of Bahrain are asking for the same
rights as people elsewhere in the Middle East: dignity, freedom and fair
elections.
In Libya's case, the West's wrath has been directed at Colonel
Muammar Qaddafi. True, Qaddafi is neither a democrat nor loved by his
people but the manner in which he has been targeted while ignoring the
brutality unleashed by Saudi and Bahraini troops on unarmed civilians in
Bahrain clearly exposes Western hypocrisy. Is Hamad ibn Isa al-Khalifa
of Bahrain or Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz al-Saud of Saudi Arabia any less
brutal or corrupt than Qaddafi?
Immediately after the Security Council vote, US President Barack
Obama started issuing threats: Qaddafi must immediately comply; he must
stop all attacks against civilians and he must withdraw his troops from
areas recaptured from the rebels. Obama also borrowed language from his
notorious predecessor George Bush: "these demands are not negotiable."
Obama, the president for change, has now surpassed even Bush in
resorting to raw force despite US woes in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars,
which have bankrupted the US economy.
Numerous targets were hit in the first cruise missile strikes on
Libyan cities on March 19. The date coincides with the Western crusade
launched against Iraq in 2003 resulting in 1.5 million deaths. Neither
Obama nor his British and French counterparts are likely to lose any
sleep over the killing of Arabs; they have honed their murderous skills
over hundreds of years. The latest assault on Libya is merely a
continuation of the colonial enterprise launched behind the veneer of a
Security Council resolution. The crucial question is: what right do
Western rulers have to decide who should rule in Libya or anywhere else?
There is mounting evidence that the Saudi invasion of Bahrain was
part of a larger plan involving both Raymond Davis, the CIA undercover
agent who murdered two Pakistanis at point blank range in Lahore,
Pakistan on January 27, as well as an attempt to prevent their own shaky
hold on power in Riyadh. The Saudis were permitted to invade and occupy
another country in exchange for securing the release of Davis. The
murders became a bone of contention between an irate Pakistani public
already seething under US drone attacks that have killed hundreds of
innocent people, and the US whose CIA operative shot dead two Pakistanis
in broad daylight in a busy street in Lahore. The Saudis arranged for
blood money to be paid to relatives of the deceased in exchange for
Davis's release. The much-maligned Shari`ah law was invoked to get Davis
off the hook. So, Shari`ah is OK if it facilitates the release of an
American murderer but not OK if Muslims want to apply it in their lives?
The other point is also significant. The Saudis do not want
disturbances spreading to the kingdom, at least not in any significant
way. There were demonstrations in al-Qatif on March 10 and in Riyadh and
Jeddah on March 11 but these were ruthlessly suppressed. The Saudis
would rather fight their battle for survival in the streets of Manama
than shooting Saudis in the streets of Riyadh or Jeddah. The Saudis view
any challenge to the status quo in the region as a threat to their hold
on power. Any change is also seen as benefitting Islamic Iran whose
growing influence the Saudis fear.
The uprising in Bahrain and now gathering momentum in Yemen sends
shivers down the Saudis' collective spine. They fear their grip on power
becoming loose. But it is Bahrain that worries the Saudis the most. The