Saturday, July 20, 2013

No US aid to Bahrain! Bring the US Fifth Fleet home!


The media--owned & controlled of course by the oligarchs--have a modus operandi: if we don’t report it, it didn’t happen. That’s why there’s a news blackout on the revolution (after over three years it’s way beyond an uprising) in Bahrain. Has human history ever witnessed any resistance movement quite so intransigent against all odds & such extreme regime violence, with so little recognition?  But then, it cannot be a beacon to suffering humanity if no one knows it’s going on!

Rebellion is a contagious thing (which explains the media silence) but this kind of political tenacity & fury is more than contagious. It’s fatal to the oligarchs. Spurred on even further by the only-God-knows-how-many million Egyptian protestors against the Morsi regime (but estimated up to 30 million) on June 30, the democratic opposition in Bahrain has called for protests on August 14th under the slogan “Bahrain Tamarod” (rebellion in Arabic).

The Bahrain Interior Ministry is issuing warnings against participating in “illegal demonstrations & activities that endanger security” & says they will “deal with any attempt to disturb security & stability.” Good luck with that! They’ve been issuing the same damn warnings since February 2011, backing it up with tear gas & extreme terror, but they still can’t get this revolution to crawl away like a horde of whipped puppies. It keeps coming back with a fury! This young man (led by his mama & her sisters & his sisters) stands defiantly in a miasma of tear gas in the village of Diraz, just west of Manama, the capital city. His defiant stance may be a symbol of this most extraordinary & historic struggle but photos of hundreds of thousands of Bahrainis protesting despite threats & repression truly is a beacon to suffering humanity.

The problems the Bahrain revolution against tyranny faces are immense--not least of which is the presence of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet & vicious military & police advisors from both the US & UK. So we need to stand with them in international mutiny against the media blackout & by declaring our fullest respect & solidarity & unmitigated awe at their revolutionary & emancipatory spirit. Their victory is our victory! No US aid to Bahrain!

(Photo by Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters)

1 comment:

  1. The people of Bahrain have been way too nice. When will they realize that armed resistance is the only way forward? Now the unarmed people of Bahrain are being massacred with live bullets, tanks, and planes. All forceful means have been deployed against them, including brutal Pakistani mercenaries. I call on all the free people of the world to rise up in solidarity against this injustice.

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