Analýza sociálních a politických příčin nepokojů v Bahrajnu na jaře roku 2011

Abstract

This article attempts to explain causes and events that led to the 2011 Bahraini protests at the Pearl Roundabout. In this article, I argue that the most common explanation – i.e.: the Sunni-Shiite rivalry – has to be understood in a wider historical and geopolitical context that has been determining the actions of the regime. Where the opposition calls for domestic democratic reforms, the regime thinks in the framework of an Arab-Irani/Sunni-Shiite strife over the dominance in the Persian Gulf and treats its Shiite majority as possible “Iranian agents”, even though it is unable to prese nt any real evidence proving the alleged Iranian infl uence on the Bahraini opposition since the late 1990s. This article is based on secondary literature and media as well as on government statistics and reports by human rights NGOs, together with US diplomatic cables. The article briefl y explains the history of Bahrain, the characteristics of the current regime, signifi cant changes in the demography in the last ten years, caused by the policy of “political naturalization” (at-tajnis as-siyyasi), and the sequence of events that caused the tension of the late 2005s, which developed into the political and social eruption of 2011.