A GOOD PIECE
By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
"There's a specter haunting the Persian Gulf: democracy.
This Tuesday, no less than 20% of the population of Bahrain poured into the Lulu (Pearl) roundabout in Manama in its biggest anti-feudal monarchy demonstration intimately connected to the great 2011 Arab revolt. A whole cross-section of Bahraini society - teachers, lawyers, engineers, their wives and children - rolled along in a wide, unbroken column of red and white, the colors of the national flag.
This Wednesday, there were reasons to believe the revolt was finally hitting the holy grail, ie, the House of Saud, as 100 youngsters hit the streets of Hafar al-Batin, in northeast Saudi Arabia, calling for the end of its drenched-in-oil feudal monarchy. What's extraordinary is that this happened as "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques" Saudi King Abdullah, 85, was returning home after three months following surgery in the US and convalescence in Morocco - amid massive regime propaganda, complete with Orientalist touches such as men in white robes doing traditional Bedouin sword dances on special carpets.....
International banking center Bahrain - with a gross domestic product per capita just under $20,000 - is also very high, alongside Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, in the scale of wealthy oligarchies based on slave labor, the proverbial "large pool of migrant workers providing cheap labor". It has spent a fortune promoting itself as "Business Friendly Bahrain". Last week it was more like "Bullet-friendly Bahrain".
The great 2011 Arab revolt, for all its specific reasons in different countries, is definitely not about religion (as Mubarak, Gaddafi and Hamad have claimed) - but essentially working class unrest directly provoked by the global crisis of capitalism.
Clash of civilizations, end of history, Islamophobia and other silly concepts are dead and buried. People want their social rights, and to navigate the waters of political democracy and social democracy. In this sense the Arab street is now the vanguard of the whole world. If the al-Khalifa don't get it, they are bound to go down."
Asia Times
"There's a specter haunting the Persian Gulf: democracy.
This Tuesday, no less than 20% of the population of Bahrain poured into the Lulu (Pearl) roundabout in Manama in its biggest anti-feudal monarchy demonstration intimately connected to the great 2011 Arab revolt. A whole cross-section of Bahraini society - teachers, lawyers, engineers, their wives and children - rolled along in a wide, unbroken column of red and white, the colors of the national flag.
This Wednesday, there were reasons to believe the revolt was finally hitting the holy grail, ie, the House of Saud, as 100 youngsters hit the streets of Hafar al-Batin, in northeast Saudi Arabia, calling for the end of its drenched-in-oil feudal monarchy. What's extraordinary is that this happened as "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques" Saudi King Abdullah, 85, was returning home after three months following surgery in the US and convalescence in Morocco - amid massive regime propaganda, complete with Orientalist touches such as men in white robes doing traditional Bedouin sword dances on special carpets.....
International banking center Bahrain - with a gross domestic product per capita just under $20,000 - is also very high, alongside Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, in the scale of wealthy oligarchies based on slave labor, the proverbial "large pool of migrant workers providing cheap labor". It has spent a fortune promoting itself as "Business Friendly Bahrain". Last week it was more like "Bullet-friendly Bahrain".
The great 2011 Arab revolt, for all its specific reasons in different countries, is definitely not about religion (as Mubarak, Gaddafi and Hamad have claimed) - but essentially working class unrest directly provoked by the global crisis of capitalism.
Clash of civilizations, end of history, Islamophobia and other silly concepts are dead and buried. People want their social rights, and to navigate the waters of political democracy and social democracy. In this sense the Arab street is now the vanguard of the whole world. If the al-Khalifa don't get it, they are bound to go down."
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