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| Picture for a migrant victim during the unrest |
Bikya Masr: Amidst the violence of Bahrain’s revolution,
an uprising broadly characterized by violent clashes between pro-democracy
protestors and government security forces, a different and equally disturbing
narrative was taking place throughout the country.
The recent Bahrain Independent CommissionInquiry (BICI) reveals the broad scope and extremely violent nature of the
ethnic pogroms which were reported to have targeted the migrant worker class
during the unrest. The stories are recounted with a cold, clinical detachment
which belies the scenes of horror described therein:
“…a
gang carrying metal bars and knives attacked a group living in a building in
Naeem…The residents who managed to escape the building were met by the group
waiting at the entrance to the building. This group beat the deceased to
death.”
“A
construction worker and Muezzin (person who performs the Islamic call to
prayer) suffered serious brain injuries after he was brutally assaulted and had
his tongue severely lacerated. Commission investigators…later visited him at
the hospital where he was still in a vegetative state.”
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| Riot Police Recruitment ads. published in Pakistani newspaper |
In addition to documenting a campaign of
government suppression, the BICI report illustrates in great detail the level
of systematic violence which was directed towards South Asian migrant workers
during the breakdown of the rule of law which accompanied the revolution.
A general reign of terror descended over
Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani expatriate communities who were targets of
widespread violence and intimidation by protestors during the unrest. While the
violence was further fueled by reports of the Bahraini government recruiting
mercenaries from South Asian countries that the primary victims were Bahraini
residents, clearly identifiable as members of the large expatriate working
class, seems indicative of a deep-seated resentment and xenophobia towards them
from the broader society.
This resentment found grotesquely violent
expression during the events of the revolution and raises grave questions about
the long term safety of working-class expat populations in countries facing the
revolutionary upheavals of the Arab Spring.
Far from the bustling souks and glittering
high-rises of central Manama lie the impoverished, waste-strewn shantytowns
which are home to the majority of Bahrain’s labor class, expatriates from South
Asia and the Philippines who by some estimates make up as much as 40% of the
country’s population.
Inhabited by the construction workers,
drivers, store-clerks, cleaners, and domestic servants who take the jobs
refused by native Bahrainis, these camps as a rule lack proper sanitation and
social infrastructure and are often subject to raids and demolition by the
local authorities when deemed to be too close to “proper” residential areas and
too far from the barren deserts where they are tolerated.
Cut off from public life by officially
enforced physical separation, the enormous economic disparity between
themselves and other Bahrainis and the racial and linguistic differences which
prevent them from having a voice with which to speak to authority, the labor
class exists in near-complete isolation from mainstream society.
Indeed, the corrosive attitude of Bahraini
officialdom towards foreign workers was encapsulated in the words of former
Minister of Labor Dr. Majeed Al Alawi speaking at a GCC conference in 2010,
“Foreign workers pose a threat to our existence…in some areas of the Gulf you
cannot tell whether you are in an Arab country or an Asian one…we cannot call
this diversity because no nation on earth would accept this erosion of its own
culture on its own land.”
Tellingly, no similar warnings were made
about the threat of the large Western expatriate population potentially
“eroding” Bahraini culture.
This poisonous official attitude towards a
huge percentage of the population of Bahrain has inevitably trickled down to
the general population as well. Segregated from and contemptuous of their
imported help, most of the interaction Bahrainis have with their labor class
comes through the context of the structural violence of the kafala system, a
form of modern indentured servitude where workers livelihood is placed entirely
at the mercy of their Bahraini “sponsor”.
Any question of human rights and equality
under the law is extraneous to the de facto caste system which prevails
throughout the country. It is in this atmosphere that migrant workers have
become a convenient target for the frustrations of the rest of society.
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights has
worked in earnest to catalogue an archive of human rights abuses; however a
culture of fear among indentured workers prevents the vast majority from being
able to speak openly about abuse.
The day to day of lives of the official
underclass in Bahrain is often characterized by acts of casual violence and
maltreatment from their employers as well as from the population at-large. Even
South Asian expatriates from the professional class who have lived for
generations in Bahrain are subject to the same environment of fear and violence
based on their ethnic background.
Andrew Gardner, in his book “City of
Strangers” describes the pervasive attitude of contempt and terror which
characterizes the nature of the relationship between Bahrainis and their
foreign cohabitants. In the words of one working professional of Indian
descent, “Walking down the street, if I see five or six Bahraini guys coming
towards me I take the other road…I hate to say this but they have no respect
for our lives.”
This atmosphere of malice and antipathy
translated into mass, systematic violence during the revolution when the
breakdown of the rule of law resulted in attacks against migrants on a scale unprecedented
in recent history.
On 19 March 2011, Fareed Maqbul, a
Bangladeshi laborer living in Bahrain, was found dead. Forensic analysis showed
that he had received several fractures to the skull and face resulting in
severe hemorrhaging of the brain in addition to numerous broken bones and lost
teeth.
The BICI report on his death cited witnesses
who saw Maqbul walking alone in Manama when he was attacked by a group of
individuals carrying wooden planks and sharp objects. After being brutally
beaten, he was struck by a vehicle while trying to escape and was discovered
later on the street.
Maqbul’s horrific death was but one of many
violent episodes described in excruciating detail in the BICI’s findings. In
total, four expatriate laborers were murdered and 88 were injured in mob
lynching by protestors during the unrest.
Far from being spontaneous acts of violence
amid an atmosphere of chaos, the report makes allegations of a systematic and
co-ordinated campaign of terror against expatriate communities. A report
submitted to the commission by the Ministry of Foreign affairs alleges that
“gangs set up road blocks and check points, where they stopped motorists and
pulled them out of their cars, beating foreigners.
Stores operated by foreign nationals were
threatened to close or face retribution.” Over 2000 expatriates fleeing their
homes sought refuge at the Pakistani embassy after attacks by protestors on
their neighborhoods. In one instance, 40 South Asians were locked in a
restaurant which protestors then attempted to set on fire before being stopped
by intervention from community religious leaders including a Shia imam.
Mosques known to be utilized by migrant
workers were targeted by mobs for vandalism and destruction. One individual who
worked at a mosque reported being unable to leave it for 14 days out of fear
for his life after protestors cut down palm trees to block the surrounding
streets and vandalized the building.
One of the prominent justifications for
violence against migrants cited in the BICI report was the perception that
foreigners had taken jobs which should belong to Bahrainis; never mind that the
type of work done by migrants is mostly of the poorly paid, highly dangerous
sort at which the overwhelming majority of Bahrainis would balk.
This attitude of general contempt and hatred
for the undifferentiated foreign “other” is a dangerous and precarious
situation for a country with a large migrant population. Deep seated xenophobia
is perpetually capable of erupting in acts of spectacular and horrific violence
as occurred during the revolution and recent events have shown that Bahrain is
far from being stable or at peace today.
None of this should suggest that Bahrain’s
uprising was fundamentally unjust or that many of its revolutionaries were not
heroic in their struggles; quite the opposite. The Bahraini people were an
inspiration to the people of the Arab world and beyond in their fight for
democracy.
The foreign intervention and subsequent legal
suppression by the government was an unjust denial of their fundamental rights
and is worthy of full throated condemnation from the international community.
What is troubling is the extent of the desire to violently extinguish the most
underprivileged people in Bahraini society which was revealed during the
revolution.
Migrant workers in Bahrain have not been
alone in being targeted for violence during the Arab spring. Well documented
attacks against black Libyans following the fall of the Gaddafi regime have
also been reported and seem indicative of a powerful current of suppressed rage
towards minority communities. Discriminatory legal structures such as the
kafala system and the multi-tiered visa process which gives different levels of
rights to individuals based on nationality are the foundation of xenophobic
attitudes of racial superiority in these countries.
When the entire social structure is
formulated to ostracize and demean those of “lesser” races, it is little wonder
that individual citizens will also hold violently racist views towards those to
whom they have been taught they are intrinsically above.
The Bahrain Commission Report’s
recommendation to alleviate the xenophobic attitudes which violently surfaced
during the revolution is simply “to introduce more education to promote
tolerance and respect for the rule of law”. Scarcely three lines in the report
are given to addressing the social dysfunctions which resulted in so much
bloodshed.
While education in and of itself is
undoubtedly important, it is not enough to uproot the fundamental sickness at
the heart of the problem.
The seething hatred which led an angry mob to
cut out the tongue of a Muslim muezzin for the crime of being a South Asian
migrant is at heart derived from the institutionalized racial hierarchy which
continues to be enforced in Bahraini society.
Until the government of Bahrain takes serious
steps to dismantle the de facto caste hierarchy of the kafala system and begins
making even minimum investments to improve the social conditions of its foreign
workers the attitude of racial superiority and hatred which characterized the
pogroms of the revolution will continue to fester.
Structural violence built into the legal and
social structure of society inevitably begets the type of physical violence
which occurred against migrants in Bahrain during the revolution. If there is
to be a legitimate and holistic healing process in Bahrain it must stop
effectively treating 40% of its residents as human chattel and start taking
seriously the issue of the basic human rights of its migrant worker class.
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