The late Bahraini artist Mohammed Isa Allayah (1919, 2002) narrated this incident which is filled with signs dating back to the thirties of the twentieth century, and represents one type of the dialogues of the Bahraini 'intelligentsia' elites in that period. The story revolves in Baghdad, while traveling to make gramophone records, and «its heroes»  are two of the most prominent singers of a folk music that was known as the «sawt» in Bahrain and the Persian Gulf area: Mohammed bin Faris (1895 -1947) and his student Dhahi bin Walid (1898 -1941).

 Allayah narrates: «While we were in Baghdad, we went to the market, Mohammed bin Faris bought a watermelon and asked Dhahi to carry it. Dhahi rejected saying: “you and me are equal”, as of the same position. Just like that he threw the orders of his master who assisted him in his singing career.




Dhahi was a slave owned by Mohammed bin Faris, who belongs to the royal family, Al Khalifa. His father was brought from Mecca in 1889 after being bought by the wife of the ruler of Bahrain at that time, Aisha bint Mohammed Al Khalifa (died in 1947).  Mohammed bin Faris did not like his slave response, in the end he is a Sheikh and a son of a Sheikh. Dhahi did not only disobey his master’s orders; but he developed a different identity that smashes the patriarchy or the supposed hierarchy between slave and master: “You and me are equal”! This Led, as narrated by Allayah, to altercation between them.


This incident reflects one of the contradictions of our society in Bahrain in the twentieth century in the presence of slave class.

  Unfortunately for Dhahi, a legend much celebrated by the literature of the lefties in Bahrain as a model for the crushed rebellious class on the relations of domination, that after a century of this incident, we still – we the generation of the new millennium - ask the from same «hierarchical» position from the royal family for “them and us to be equal”.




Dhahi’s intellect didn’t help him back then, nor the general atmosphere to formulate such request in the following manifestation: 'citizenship'. But we did. We, the generation of the human rights blogs, and facebook and twitter, and the era of nation-building! The tax paid by Dhahi as a result of his persistent disobedience and his rivalry with his master in the "sawt" music industry, was depriving him of singing.

  Aisha Al Khalifa threatened him “you will be returned to the place where your father was bought  if you did not stop”, as narrated by one of the elders of the royal family, the late poet Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa. And based on that, we, rebels of the moment, pay today the tax as follows: “returning” reactionary in time ... to the middle Ages!




I previously had the chance to rebuild the biography of the master “Mohammed bin Faris” and the slave “Dhahi Bin Walid” in a particular file prepared at the request of one of the cultural periodicals. I consider myself lucky because I was able to test tactics of power between the two descended: one of a dominant race, and the other of a submissive race through the initiation being fought by the young men and women of my country since 14th of February 2011. The moment they dared to speak out in the face of the ruling family: “We are not slaves, but citizens”, in other words:” We and you and your family are equal”. Big words on a family used to monopolize public property, and live on the reactionary system of privileges. 

 

It was not devoid of significance that I received a call from the editor of the magazine days after demonstrators seized the ”Pearl roundabout”, to inform me about the decision to postpone publishing the biography of Dhahi because “ the overall atmosphere is inappropriate”. It would not be appropriate until national safety law is  imposed, which lawyers say is worse than martial law, as it allowed the master to restore his superior position in the system of slavery; at that time only it would be published! 

This “inappropriate general atmosphere” from the time of Dhahi became appropriate today for “Manama, to be the capital of Arab culture”. A decree in the Parliament was stopped twice to pass a law criminalizing discrimination on the basis of race or belief. And until my departure from my country in April 2011, security forces were asking people about their beliefs, and punishing them accordingly!

  The government insists that people are «different» at the time they insisted that they are “equal”.




And based on the reaction of the son of the ruling family bin Faris to his African-born slave, will be the reaction to the rebels of February 14th,  who dared to 'mess up' relations of domination: anything you couldn’t imagine will happen!

 All cultural legalities will be cancelled and only the legality of loyalty to the ruling family will be set. And the oldest Bahraini literary entity which is Authors and Writers Family Society (founded in 1969) will be re-inoculated as a punishment for its positions taken during the protests. A new pro-government Administration has been imposed, and was forced to change its name.

I never imagined that one day I will watch the razing of mosques and places of worship belonging to an ethnicity in my country in the context of transcendence on a political position. 

I'm not religious, nor tempted by the religious identity or life, but I realize the power of symbols in the life of groups. And I realize that in similar circumstances 1,200 people were killed in India, at the moment of the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992, and 24 people were killed in Egypt in 2011, in the Maspero events after demolition parts of the church. Among that , 40 mosques were demolished in Bahrain since March 2011 amid the astonishing silence of those hypocrites whose consciousnesses were shook by the Danish cartoons or the veil of France!

The report of the royal BICI (Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry) in November 2011 proved that the army demolished mosques, and the deliberate contempt of the police to the protesters beliefs with disgraceful comments. All this happened and still is, repeatedly  in the  "capital of Arab culture". A Capital that could not even, until this time, be built on the principle of the “equality” demanded by one of her sons about a century ago.