Bahrain's uprising is about power not religion

A GOOD COMMENT
Adrian Hamilton
The Independent

"Sunni. Shia. Every time the protests in Bahrain are mentioned, they are made into a battle between these two branches of Islam, as if this was a war of religions.

It's not about religion, it's about power and the desire for political change. Of course, in terms of power, it matters that 65 per cent of the population of Bahrain is Shia but 95 per cent of authority and most of the wealth belongs to the Sunni royal family and its close circle.

But to put it in terms of a religious division is not only misleading, it also plays into the hands of those in Washington, as in Riyadh, who want to see everything through the prism of the confrontation with Iran and the fear of a so-called "Shia arc" emerging through the Gulf......"