‘Bahrainis must revolt against Al Khalifa regime to get freedom

‘Bahrainis must revolt against Al Khalifa regime to get freedom
15 February, 2012 – PressTV

Video HERE (if you can get past the network interference)

Bahraini anti-regime protesters have kept the popular uprising against the Al Khalifa dynasty alive for a whole year, despite continued crackdown by the regime that is supported by the US and Saudi Arabia.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Colin Cavell, a former Assistant Professor at the University of Bahrain, from Austin, to further discuss the issue.

The video offers the opinions of two additional guests: Jamal Wakim who is the professor at the Lebanese International University and Jafar al-Hasabi, a Bahraini political activist from London

Press TV: Mr. Cavell, would you say that despite the fact that we know that these demonstrations have been taking place for a whole year now, that they’ve been continuing, that however, the regime has been successful in stopping these protests from moving any more, rather from forcing it to undergo changes.

Would you say that the protesters do have the upper hand or is it the regime that has the upper hand?

Cavell: The regime has not stopped the protests; they have not stopped the will of the people!

The people are very united; they have lost their fear of the regime!

And as I’ve said many times before, directly to the US State Department, they need to realize that the situation is not going to go away.

The State Department thinks that this will be like the 90s, and that things will quiet down eventually.

No, the people have had enough of a 228-year monarchy and autocratic dictatorship and they want change.

But I leave that to the Bahraini people to decide.

My purpose here is to tell the US government, we need to live up to democratic values. We need to quit supporting monarchical dictatorship, and we need to quit ignoring democratic activists in the streets.

Especially, when they have a vast majority of the population of Bahrain!

Press TV: Mr. Cavell, that brings to the question of how much control the Bahraini rulers have in this situation. Would you agree with this interpretation or this analysis that the Bahraini rulers are listening to each and every order that’s coming from Riyadh and they themselves are in a very weak position?

Cavell: Well, first of all, the Al Khalifas have no desire to enact reforms. Yes they are a satrap or an appendage of Saudi Arabia.

But to add to professor Wakin’s analysis, it’s also the US that is keeping the Saudi monarch in power, as well as the Bahraini monarch in power.

And this goes back to a deal made between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Abdul Aziz back in 1945, in the Great Bitter Lake in Egypt, where they said, we will support this one family in Saudi Arabia, and we’ll have cheap access, easy access to oil in the region.

And we have utilized that model ever since, supporting the Saudi monarch, supporting the Al Khalifas in Bahrain, supporting the other five members of the [P]GCC monarchs.

We have to quit supporting despotic tyrants. We should live up to our democratic values instead of just kowtowing to these monarchs, because it’s betraying who we are as democratic republic.

Press TV: Mr. Cavell, speaking about how the West is getting involved in this, first of all, I would like to put that question to you as well, the question of how far the United States or Saudi Arabia are willing to in their support for Bahrain.

For instance when we look at the situation in the region, in Yemen for instance or in Tunisia or Egypt, these were rulers that were supported initially by the United States, but later on the United States had to concede to that the best way for these rulers to step down.

Do you think that they’re looking for maybe a similar situation in Bahrain?

Cavell: Yes I do think so. It would be up to the people of Bahrain to convince the United States government, that they should abandon their ties with the Al Khalifa monarchy.

If the average American citizen knew the type of despotic tyrannical regimes we are supporting in the Gulf, they would be outraged and they would call our leaders treasonous.

It would be similar to the treason label we appended to Benedict Arnold during our revolution, for betraying the continental army and supporting King George of England.

That is what we’re doing; we’re supporting the most tyrannical dictatorships.

US policies can change, but it will take the united effort of the Bahraini people to show them that things will not go back to normal, and that is what I’ve been saying all along.

The situation has gone so far that the State Department folks need to wake up, because they’re like the king of Bahrain!

They’re living in palaces compared to the average workers of Bahrain. They don’t understand the strife and hardships they’re feeling. They don’t understand the teargas, the jailing, the torture, the beatings, the killings!

The US State Department needs to wake up and quit saying that the Khalifa’s are soft monarchy, or that they are benevolent, or it’s not as bad as some of the other countries.

Because the Bahraini uprising is, percentage wise, the largest uprising of all the Arab uprisings. More than half the population is on the street, and that is a fact!

Press TV: Mr. Cavell, would you agree with Mr. Waking who told us that, maybe the prospects for this anti-dictatorship movement in Bahrain are not very good at least in the near future. If these demonstrators are asking for the regime to go, what are the prospects?

Cavell: Well, Professor Wakim has a good point, that given the US support for the regime and the Saudi support for the regime, it will be very difficult for the people of Bahrain to oust their current dictatorship.

However, they have a choice to make. Because the dictatorship knows that as long as there is an opposition that is larger than a minority government, they will have to deal with that.

And that means, brining in expatriates, giving them citizenship, it means further punishment and punitive measures against the majority of democratic opposition, most of who is Shia.

So, they are faced with an existential challenge, either they quit down now, and get decimated in their ranks or they utilize the momentum that they have now and rise up and seek liberty and freedom. …source