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Bahrain Muzzled but not Latuff
With the world's attention focused on the Arab Spring, one uprising seems to have been swept under the proverbial carpet. Bahrainis rose up on Valentine's Day this year, just three days after the toppling of Mubarak, with the modest hope of convincing their ruling family to institute reforms which would improve governance in the tiny Gulf island. The reaction was a catastrophic one. The Al-Khalifa government, the hosts of the US 5th Fleet, used brute force to quell the protests, leading to several deaths in the ranks of the demonstrators. For the following weeks, anger at the gov't reaction swelled their numbers and they effectively controlled the Manama's central circle, Pearl Roundabout. With every death and injury, the protesters' demands intensified and their calls became more pressing, with some calling for the end of Al-Khalifa rule. In the interest of space, I will not belabor everyone with the details. For that, I defer to the best account of this bloody episode in Gulf history--a documentary aired on Al-Jazeera English called "Shouting in the Dark" (which has caused a firestorm in the halls of power in Manama prompting complaints from Bahrain to Qatar). The video already has registered 220,000 views online in just the first week!Unfortunately, because of Bahrain's strategic location as an anchor in the Saudi-US frontline against Iran, the citizens' legitimate call for freedom required "special" considerations! Saudi Arabia's concern that the uprising would trickle into its territory made it imperative to end the Bahrain uprising without any concessions to the predominantly (but not exclusively) Shiite protesters for fear of copycats in the Saudi easter provinces. This resulted in the effective burial of the Bahraini plight in Arab media. Once Saudi troops entered Bahrain, the headlines from the island state disappeared and everyone was muzzled. The few expatriate Bahrainis who dare to speak out face overwhelming risks. A few are active in some initiatives such as trying to get a television station off the ground to broadcast their cause. But the majority are silent but not defeated.Throughout the maelstrom, one voice was unequivocal throughout. Now a recognizable name throughout the Arab world for his valiant efforts in solidarity with the people of Palestine, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and across the world, Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff took note of Bahrain and took no prisoners. Dubbed the cartoonist of the Egyptian revolution, Latuff's cartoons for Bahrain were also held aloft at protests in Pearl Roundabout during the uprising. Due to the crackdown on all those who organized, participated in, or sympathized with the protests, much of this criticism is being drowned in a government-sponsored campaign of sectarianism leading to the erasure of all evidence of this movement. For this reason, I wanted to consolidate all of Latuff's cartoons on Bahrain in a single post. The complete collection is below. They can be divided into two themes, those depicting national unity in the ranks of the reform movement (first two) and those using King Al-Khalifa as a motif of division, violence, and complicity. Voila.........Lest we forget......
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