State of the nation: Bahrain 2013

Dear nation;

I've decided to gift you this update on the state of our nation at the end of 2013. Normally I don't do this, because you're not worth the time and effort. But after my heavy Christmas celebrations, I've run out of Johnnie Walker and as I'm still waiting for Sheikh Nasser to come back from The Ritz-Carlton with another case of whiskey, I decided to put pen to paper for your benefit.

NB: I won't mention onions or any onion related news in this update.

Firstly, me.

Going by the awards I've won and the number of times other AlKhalifa have hailed me for my vision, hard work and restraint in not stealing absolutely everything that I could have stolen, my assessment is I've had a very good year. Right up there with Mandela, Gandhi or King Abdullah.

My main achievement, and there have been many, too many to actually list here, is that I have made sure there is no sectarian divide anymore. Everyone in Bahrain is treated equally, from the most privileged loyal Sunni families to the poorest, neglected Shiia terrorists in their dilapidated third-world villages.

Secondly, you, the so called citizens.

Sadly the news is not so good for you, people. You let us down. Here are just a few highlights of how terrible you have been this year: 

There was the time you brought shame on the country, and me, by almost drowning to death after a little rain. Is it too much to ask of you to take precautionary steps to be better prepared next year? Look at Hamad for example, he bought a yacht for exactly this reason. That and also to host Lebanese singers so they can't escape when he gets all handsy and rapey.

Then there was the national dialogue. We're up to session number 5,623 and still no resolution found for this Shiia-made crisis. It's exactly this sort of lack of progress or development that makes me convinced that the leadership of this country is best left in the hands of the royal AlKhalifa family. Lack of progress or development is what we do best.

We released our latest and most honourable report on the progress of the BICI report. Of course I didn't get the time to read it, or, to be honest, the actual BICI report, but none the less your reaction, filled with scepticism and derision at our reforms, was the most disappointing aspect to me. It was as if the report lacked substance. So, as a solution I propose the following: If you feel the follow up report doesn’t have enough hailing or praising statements, then just let us know and we'll fix that for next year's report.

You also brought shame on us by heading to an empty block of land to pray in a non-existent Barbaghi mosque. If it’s not there, then we’ve demolished it. Besides, pretending it’s there is a bit like claiming that a foreign force is interfering in your affairs but you don’t have evidence you can show or touch as proof. Pathetic.

You also lost my respect when you mistook me telling my torturer friends that the law won’t apply to them. To quote me, accurately, and in context like that was unfair. BTW that reminds me I must ban all cameras and recording devices from future 6abala gatherings.

And finally when I rightly won the “Statesman Award” from Asian Business Leadership Forum, I showed how modesty and honest hard work can get you accolades. I didn’t see anyone else win anything for Bahrain. Your laziness will wreck our island paradise. Please try harder. I won’t be around forever, though it does feel like it.

Now, a quick word on shameful international agencies:

For saying that certain corrupt business people, some of them our beloved expats, have implicated me in approving bribes to do with the Alba bribery fiasco. Don’t these people understand that what happens in a bribe-exchange stays in a bribe-exchange? Thankfully this investigation had the same fate as all our investigations into police shootings and killings of civilians. So we can all rest easy.

Shame on international media for making out that Iran and the USA are now able to communicate reasonably about their differences without violence or name calling. This, to my disappointment, discredited my claim that you cannot reason with the Shiia as they’re all blood-hungry terrorists.

On the government side, we did everything perfectly.

Need I remind you of how recently our navy skilfully captured a weapons cache of Iranian-made explosives, Syrian bomb detonators, Kalashnikovs, C-4 explosives, Claymores, hand grenades, a PK machine gun ? It reminds me of a certain terrorist farm we identified just a few years ago: http://www.alwasatnews.com/mobile/news-217311.html

Finally, special thanks to Sameera Rajab. She’s my best minister of state, or would be the best if I had no other ministers of state. I especially appreciated her attributing a few Quranic verses to Arab sayings. https://twitter.com/NawalAtteya/status/416887945111433216

What’s the difference anyway, “Mi casa es su casa” as the Arab saying goes.

I hope 2014 ends the same way 2013 did for me: Like Teflon. No scandals stick.

Bahrain – “though small in size, great with the ladies” A reply to another vacuous article on Khalifa Bin Salman (see the rubbish here http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1069864)

Every December since 1971, the PM has felt as if the entire country celebrates his greatness, and in December 2014, he will celebrate his thousands year as PM of Bahrain, give or take a few years. He’s had his fair share of ups and downs, but his experiences have left him fiercely loyal to himself. His feeling for Bahrain is summed up in a few eloquent words said by himself, Prime Minister, HRH Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa "though small in size, we are entirely above the law". 


Bahrain may not be the biggest, the most honest or the least criminal country in the world – but most of you who live here are routinely robbed by him, and he doesn't care what your religion is; Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddism, Sikh, Bahai, Judaism or other. Money is money. To go with all this tolerance and warmth which he lacks, over the last three years, international media has systematically exposed his family as the corrupt little demigods they are. Happily, well-known media houses around the globe have taken it upon themselves to air all his dirty laundry, and in all respects show the Al-Khalifa family to be ruthless criminals. To add credibility to their reports, they write the truth in plain words which lacks the obfuscation these ruthless tyrants so adore.


A minuscule part of this society called for the continuation of  Al-Khalifa tribal rule, the oppression of an entire sect  while mouthing baseless allegations of terrorism. What the west is slow in exposing are these terrorists who idolize Saudi radicals, because they are blinded by the thirst for oil. Some claim NGOs such as Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYCHR) and Bahrain Watch to name a few survive on undeclared funding, even if this were so, it would be dwarfed by what the Al-Khalifa thievery has yielded that tribe over its long and inglorious history in Bahrain. Add to that the brutal force used by its police on residents to force them into submission.


Meanwhile, western governments sympathize with criminal Al-Khalifa and encourage business whilst paying lip-service to Human Rights issues, thus alienating all right-minded people. Self exiled activists such Saeed Alshehabi, Said Yousif, Ali Abdulemam and Abdul Raouf Alsheyab are just four people the government would love to jail. Supporters of the regime claim that they are “some of who have been convicted of terrorism” but only a fool would give any credence to a judicial system installed by the ruling family for no other purpose other than to serve and protect its own interests.  


The government of Bahrain provides free housing, health and education for each citizen – this is only right and fair given the natural recourse underpinning the economy belong to the whole of the nation, not just the one family. BUT open your mouth to complain about or expose the hypocrisy and unjust practices of the government, and the only house you’ll get for free is a jail cell in Dry Dock, with a serve of regular beatings thrown in. 

The PM has been in power for over 40 years, yet his main legacy is a lot of empty words and a treasure chest full of broken promises, self-congratulatory awards and the people’s rightful wealth.

Take as an example these words of his, on making the security pact with Saudi Arabia in 1981 “I see the security pact as a frame on a nice picture. We must protect this nice picture and put security around it to protect our development. Before, as we developed ourselves from nothing, security was in the hearts of the people. Now we feel that we must protect ourselves from the outside, so we must put a frame around – a strong frame – to allow us to continue what we have been working on for many years”. 

The nice picture alluded to is the opulence of and privileged life he and the rest of the Al-Khalifa clan live in. The frame is clearly the brutal, sometimes lethal, force used to quell any resistance to the status of the mighty Al-Khalifas. The peace and stability is the peace and stability needed to continue their criminal ways in sucking the wealth out of the country and its people without remorse or interruption.

As we approach the third year of ongoing disruption perhaps it is time to take on the Prime Minister’s role in the mess that Bahrain finds itself now. Is giving up the power he’s held onto for such an astonishingly long time worth the lives that have been ruined, on both sides of this toxic divide? Knowing what I know of him, I have little doubt that any price, no matter how high, but paid by others, is worth it to him.

The contempt he feels for the people exposing his “wise rule” as nothing more than glorified highway robbery is palpable in the many statements he makes about “security”, “legitimate leadership” and of course all his beacons of human rights he seemingly maintains out of the goodness of his heart.

Recently, Obama signed a deal with Iran, Cameron visited China and Biden went to Japan – it’s time for those blinded by loyalty in Bahrain to see that the world is moving on, they can either come along for the ride or stay stagnant and wallow in their wild claims that Bahrain’s misery is a result of some agenda of the world’s super powers, and not the natural side-effect of power concentrated in the hand of a few, to the detriment of the many.


Lets' not forget that Shaikh Khalifa in 1981 said, “American foreign policy is not new to us. We have good relations with the US, and so we know US foreign policy. We cannot be the one, out of so many countries, to say the US is the reason for this or that. But I must say that the US is a country that could participate in bringing peace in the region. I am sure the US has a role to play to maintain peace in the region”... I say to old man Khalifa: You have the biggest role in bringing peace; in so much as you have been the biggest obstacle to it in Bahrain. Move on Khalfo.


In December 2013 after being congratulated for being presented with the Statesman Award in the Asian Leadership Forum (one of tens of meaningless international accolades), the Prime Minister of Bahrain continued to indulge in self-congratulatory behaviour, which, to add salt to the wound, is entirely without merit, just like all his appointments and promotions.

As we enter a new era, I hope the people of Bahrain will get a better deal than the one given to them by these rotten pirates of the seas. God knows they've earned it.