Squaring the Circle: Bahrain's Pearl Roundabout

Abstract

From 14 February – 16 March 2011 Bahrain's Pearl Roundabout was the site of some of the most significant anti-government demonstrations in Bahrain's history. On 18 March 2011 the roundabout was razed to the ground, and within an afternoon, the space and symbol of the uprising were apparently erased. This paper traces representations, appropriations and symbolism of the Pearl Roundabout tracing its history from creation through to its after-life, while touching on issues of public space, both real and virtual, as the once insignificant Pearl Roundabout is renamed and recast, making it the unwitting symbol of a movement.

Keywords::

• Arab Uprisings
• Bahrain
• Gulf Cooperation Council
• images
• memory
• monuments
• Pearl Roundabout
• public space
• social media

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Ahlam Oun for granting permission to allow her photographs to be printed with this article.

Notes

¹ J. Habermas (1989) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, Burger, T. (trans.) (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press) (published in German in 1962).

² Ibid., p. 176.

³ C. Mouffe (2006) For an Agonistic Public Sphere, in: L. Tonder & L. Thomassen (eds) Radical Democracy: Politics Between Abundance and Lack, pp. 126–132 (Manchester: Manchester University Press).

⁴ R. Musil (1987) Monuments, in: Posthumous Papers of a Living Author, Worsman, P. (trans.) (Np: Eridanos Press), p. 61.

⁵ S. Khalaf (2000) Poetics and Politics of Newly Invented Traditions in the Gulf: Camel Racing in the United Arab Emirates, Ethnology, 39(3), pp. 243–261, p. 243.

⁶ Bahrain's aptly named website, http://staging.bahrain.com/home.aspx

⁷ Sheyma BuAli's series of photographs of ‘Gulf Ads on Black Cabs:’ http://humanette.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/gulf-ads-on-black-cabs.html

⁸http://www.investinginculture.bh/

⁹ For more examples of this, please see this USA Today insert on Bahrain from 2008 http://www.unitedworld-usa.com/pdf/bahrain.pdf

¹⁰ For a brief history of political struggle in Bahrain, see O. El Shehabi (2012) Political Movements in Bahrain: Past, Present and Future, Jadaliyya. Available at http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/4363/political-movements-in-bahrain_past-present-and-fu, accessed March 1, 2012 and A. H. Khalaf (1998) Contentious Politics in Bahrain: From Ethnic to National and Vice Versa. Available at http://www.smi.uib.no/pao/khalaf.html, accessed October 4, 2013.

¹¹ For the latest list of banned books in Bahrain, see http://www.sampsoniaway.org/blog/2012/06/06/banned-books-from-bahrain/, accessed October 4, 2013.

¹² See article from Bahrain Center for Human Rights, http://www.bahrainrights.org/en/node/3105 on the banning of the diaries of Charles Belgrave, British advisor to the Bahraini ruling family (1926–57), and an author who is considered to have written one of the most significant historical books that documents a major stage of the history of Bahrain. Other books banned include the Bahraini government-funded study by anthropologist Fuad I. Khuri (1980) Tribe and State in Bahrain (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

¹³ On October 30, Bahrain's government placed a blanket ban on all protests and gatherings; see I. Black (2012) Bahrain Bans All Opposition Rallies, The Guardian, October 30, 2012. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/30/bahrain-opposition-protests-ban, accessed October 4, 2013.

¹⁴ For more on privatization and prestige projects, see A. Shehabi (2012) Bahrain's Flashy Crony Capitalism Cannot Last, The Guardian, May 20, 2012. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/20/bahrain-flashy-crony-capitalism, accessed October 4, 2013. Also M. O. Jones (2011) Sexing up a City: Neoliberalism, Public Space and Protest in Bahrain. Available at http://www.marcowenjones.hostbyet2.com/?p = 107, accessed October 4, 2013.

¹⁵ T. Reisz (2011) Bahrain: A Roundabout Way to Signify Nothing, Huffington Post, April 5, 2011. Available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/todd-reisz/bahrain-roundabout_b_844276.html, accessed October 4, 2013.

¹⁶ There were efforts in 2012 by the Ministry of Culture to revive Bab El Bahrain as a ‘public square;’ see M. McEwan (2012) Urban Design Serves as Tool of Repression in Bahrain. Available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mitch-mcewen/urban-design-serves-as-tool_b_1599789.html, accessed October 4, 2013.

¹⁷ Tahrir Square, or Midan Tahrir, is also a roundabout, but one with a long history of protest, seen as a symbol of liberation, and in a part of the city with a pedestrian culture. See further the article by Nezar Al Sayyad (2011) Cairo's Roundabout Revolution, The New York Times, April 13, 2011. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/opinion/14alsayyad.html?pagewanted = all&_r = 0, accessed October 4, 2013.

¹⁸ The demonstration was held to mark the 10th anniversary of the National Action Charter.

¹⁹ See further J. Kinninmont (2012) Bahrain: Beyond the Impasse (London: Chatham House, July), p. 8: ‘People of various religious and political persuasions attended the first rally, held in the largest mosque in Bahrain. The mosque is Sunni and the term ‘Al Fateh’—the Conqueror—is a reference to the first Al Khalifa ruler of Bahrain. TGONU reportedly includes Shia, Christian and Jewish members, though probably very few.’

²⁰ 'Mass Sackings' in Bahrain Crackdown, Al Jazeera, May 14, 2011. Available at http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/2011514104251715508.html, accessed October 4, 2013.

²¹ See Bahrain Oil Company Fires Almost 300 Over Anti-Government Protests, The Guardian, May 11, 2011. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/11/bahrain-oil-company-fires-300-protests, accessed October 4, 2013. The video is available at http://youtu.be/jpzrH-Tcxaw, accessed September 16, 2011.

²² A reference to Umar ibn al-Khattab, ? historical figure, one of the most powerful caliphs in Islamic history, though remembered differently among various Islamic sects. Viewed negatively in Shi'a literature, the naming of the junction as ‘Al Farooq’ is seen as a sectarian dig to the largely Shi'a population.

²³ For more information about the February 14^th Coalition, please see this interview on Jadaliyya: http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/4777/bahrains-revolutionaries-speak_an-exclusive-interv, accessed October 4, 2013.

²⁴ The id for new satellite Lulu TV is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = OnUdT6DMGeM

²⁵ H. Lefebvre (1991) The Production of Space (Malden, MA: Blackwell), pp. 68–168.

²⁶ P. Virilio (1997) Open Sky (London: Verso), p. 40: ‘… we will see industrial production of a personality split, an instantaneous cloning of living man, the technological recreation of our most ancient myths: the myth of the double, of an electroergonomic double whose presence is spectral—another way of saying a ghost or the living dead.’

²⁷ I thank Sophia Al Marri for this reference.

²⁸ M. Foucault (1977) Nietzsche, Genealogy, History, in: D. Bouchard (ed.) Language, Counter Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews, pp. 139–164 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).

²⁹ R. Barthes (1982) Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (New York: Hill and Wang), p. 91.

³⁰ Accessed October 18, 2012.

³¹ Freedom House, Freedom on The Net 2012. Available at http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2012, accessed October 6, 2012.

³² Ibid.

³³ As reported by Bahrain Watch, a research and activist group, showing the Bahraini government has spent more than $US32 million in PR fees since February 2011.

³⁴ Here are two great blogposts from M. O. Jones, http://www.marcowenjones.hostbyet2.com/?p = 512#comment-2356, accessed October 4, 2013; and Email: @chanadbh http://chanad.posterous.com/detournement-in-bahrain-revolutionary-arts-cr

³⁵ On the Shiite practice of temporary marriage, see further S. Haeri (1989) Law of Desire: Temporary Marriage in Iran (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press).

³⁶ J. Baudrillard (2005) War Porn, in: The Conspiracy of Art (Cambridge, MA: Semiotext(e)/MIT Press), p. 207.