(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - The Coalition of Youth of the February 14th Revolution in a statement called on Bahraini people to start returning to the square in the early hours of Wednesday.
We talked with Jamal Wakim, professor of the Lebanese International University, to further discuss the Bahraini revolution.
What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.
Q: Mr. Wakim, one year on when we are looking at the Bahrain revolution. Let us just have first your view on what do you think the Bahraini movement has achieved up to now? Where has it come?
Wakim: First, after one year of protests in Bahrain, the most important step achieved by the opposition there is to break the silence against a ruthless rule by the Al Khalifa that lasted for nearly two centuries and that is treating the island as a private [field].
So when I hear from some friends in Bahrain, how they are treated; how they are denied any access, they live in an island and they are denied any access to the beach, to the sea because the whole island became like a private [field] for the Al Khalifa for their resorts on the beach.
So this is one sign or one dimension of how bad these people are treated. They are denied of any political rights, of any human rights, of any labor rights.
So that is why people who are living in extreme poverty, who are denied of any rights, they are now rising; it has been one year now, that they are rising for their rights.
They are not quelled by the government and this is more than enough for the time being to prepare for reforms, for a regime change in Bahrain.
Q: The question now would be how long can the regime continue with its current strategy. Right now we have not been seeing any political reforms for instance, what we have been seeing though is arrests and allegations of torture, the crackdown that has been supported by Saudi Arabia.
How long can this strategy continue?
Wakim: As long as Saudi Arabia is willing to support the Al Khalifa regime; because had it been for the regime itself, it would have crumbled long ago; but it is the Saudi dynasty that is ruling Saudi Arabia, that is insisting on Al Khalifa not to give in to any pressure by the people, by the Bahraini people, not to accept any reforms and order because they fear that the rebellion will move on to their territory, to Saudi Arabia itself where we have even a worse dynasty ruling over the country.
So, that is why the Saudis intervened militarily to crackdown on the demonstrations and several victims fell down, and they are still supporting and subsidizing the Al Khalifa regime in order to live up to the economic crisis that was the cause of the demonstrations of the protests on one hand; but that were magnified by these protests.
So the Al Khalifa are subsidized by the Saudis financially; they are supported militarily in order to reject any reform in the political system.
Q: Mr. Wakim, would you say that without the support of Saudi Arabia, the United States and other Arab allies that Bahrain could not have survived this?
Wakim: You mean without the support of the Americans?
Q: Yes, the United States and Saudi Arabia?
Wakim: Yes, definitely. The United States is supporting both Al Khalifa and Al Saud to remain in power, because it is an integral part of their geopolitical interest in the region, ever since Franklin Delano Roosevelt -as my colleague from Austin stated- because the interests, the American and Saudi interests are interrelated ever since due to petroleum, due to geopolitical factors.
Especially now when we are witnessing the formation of a multi-polar system where we have China, Russia, Europe and Iran rising to prominence as either world powers or regional powers.
So the United States is interested in keeping its hegemony over the Middle East on one hand and over oil mainly.
Q: Mr. Wakim, one question would be can the Bahraini demonstrators get what they want without any kind of support from the international community at least in the shape of political pressure on the Bahraini rulers?
Wakim: I believe that the prospects of the Bahraini revolution are not that promising in the near future because we have the backing of the United States, of Saudi Arabia and other [P]GCC [Persian Gulf Cooperation Council] countries to Al Khalifa while the Bahraini people are not having any support from any part in the world.
I believe that the United States will not accept any compromise similar to what happened in Egypt or in Yemen because they fear that any democratic rule in Bahrain will slip the island away from American hegemony.
And for some rightwing Americans in the American administration, they accuse these Bahraini protesters of trying to put Bahrain under the umbrella of Iran.
So this is how complicated matters are for the Bahraini revolution, too bad.
I do not think that it will achieve any fruitful results any soon. The Bahrainis will have to keep fighting on until they acquire support from other people maybe in order to quell and to enforce their will on the Al Khalifa.
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