The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Dear Mr. President,

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. Remember that song? It could be Bahrain’s national anthem. Bahrain’s people have struggled for freedom and justice for 19 months, but they’ve been ignored and forgotten by the American media, left behind by the Arab Spring you hijacked in Libya. You want allies who will buy our weapons and do our bidding and peaceful protesters like the Bahrainis are too unpredictable. Look at Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood now in control. But, well, Libya didn’t turn out so hot either, did it, Mr. President? Bahrain, though, is a case study in hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, speak-no-evil diplomacy. An important ally, Bahrain, anti-Iran, home of the Fifth Fleet, oil-rich and the protesters are mostly Shi’a, so their almost daily non-violent demonstrations that are met with brutal violence—tear gas, bullets, batons, arrests and torture—have drawn hardly a peep from the White House. Early on you urged King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa to “get out in front of the curve” but he didn’t and when the protesters were gaining too much popular support, Saudi Arabia sent tanks and 1,000 troops and the UAE sent another 500 police to help the regime crush the revolt. Not a peep out of the White House. When the Saudi Army demolished Pearl Square, not a peep, and when snipers on rooftops killed 50 in one day, not a peep. When people were arrested and tortured, not a peep, and when doctors were arrested for treating the injured, not a peep. When some doctors were sent to prison, a plaintive, “we argued for leniency.” So much for American diplomacy and foreign policy. There is no prospect of help for these people, no international pressure or support, no recognition of their plight, and yet the protests continue daily and so does the regime’s brutality. They are on the wrong side of America’s black and white world, maybe on no side, so their revolution will not be televised. For all your talk of aspirations and democracy, your foreign policy remains power, privilege and access to resources—in the Middle East that means oil. You turn your back, turn a blind eye on Bahrain. You are really no different than Mubarak, Bashar al Assad or King bin Isa Al Khalifa. Clinton decries Russia’s arm sales to Syria. What about ours to Bahrain? When I think of warmongers and tyrants I think of you, Mr. President, but when I think of men of peace, the immortals like Jesus, Ghandi, and King, you are not among them. You are a sham and you will never be immortal.