[BRIEF NOTE] Is Bahrain heading towards political _and_ ethnoreligious conflict?

[rfmcdonald]

I ask my readers because of two worrisome articles.

The Inter Press Service's Suad Hamada writes, in "Foreign Labourers Targeted Throughout Bahrain", about attacks against foreign labourers whose communities--of one South Asian background or another--came under suspicion after not joining in the general strike.

Eight migrant workers died and approximately 49 sustained various injuries since Mar. 17 when the government with the support of Cooperation Council of the Arab Gulf States (GCC) peninsula shield troops started cracking down on demonstrations blocking roads in Manama - the financial capital of Bahrain. The government has also declared a three-month state of emergency to be enforced by the Bahrain Defence Force.

Most expats are not yet considering leaving the country, hoping for the situation to revert to normal. They fear losing their jobs and not finding new ones back home.

On Mar. 13 before the beginning of the attacks, the Civil Disobedience Support Committee sent a letter to foreign embassies in the country asking diplomatic missions to ask their nationals to leave immediately, while warning that the routes leading to the airport might not be safe. IPS obtained a copy of the letter.

Expatriates, mainly migrant workers from Asia, are in high demand for their skills and are valued for their low salaries - essential to prop up sustainable growth in Bahrain. Migrant workers represent almost half of the country’s population of 1.2 million. Migrant labour in the region is a huge source of remittance income in the workers’ home countries - and some embassies here seem to be taking the violent hate crimes against their nationals with a grain of salt.

Reuters, meanwhile, suggests that immigrants--many given citizenship, in marked contrasted to precedents elsewhere in the Gulf, to weaken the Shi'ite majority--are also coming under rhetorical fire.

Thousands of mostly Shi'ite Muslim Bahrainis protested on Wednesday against giving citizenship to Sunni foreigners serving in the military, whose troops have killed seven in the worst unrest since the 1990s.

[. . .]

A thorny issue for all opposition groups has been Bahrain's practice of giving citizenship to Sunni foreigners serving in the kingdom's armed forces, which they see as an attempt to alter the country's sectarian balance.

The protesters marched by the immigration authority in Manama, chanting anti-government slogans and holding up signs that read "Stop naturalization!"

"All those that are naturalized will be pro-government, and those in the police and army will follow their orders even if they are against the Bahraini people," said protester Khaled Ali.

Only half of Bahrain's population of about 1.2 million are native Bahrainis. Protesters said they only oppose settling those foreigners who are recruited to serve in the armed forces.

The opposition also complains that families of naturalized Sunnis have better access to government services such as housing, education and health.

"We want them out because they're sharing the services with original Bahrainis. We have to wait 15 years for (government) housing, and they get it immediately after arriving," said Ali.

Opposition activists estimate that up to half of Bahrain's approximately 20,000-strong national security apparatus could be made up of Sunnis from Pakistan, Jordan and Yemen.

Is Bahrain's political crisis becoming an ethnoreligious one, too?