Bahrain: Workers Lead The Way
Our guest author today is Heba F. El-Shazli, regional program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the AFL-CIO’s American Center for International Labor Solidarity. Currently she is a visiting professor of international studies and modern languages at the Virginia Military Institute. The views expressed here are her own.
Bahrain has been rocked by turmoil since Feb. 14 – with protesters calling for political reforms from Pearl Square’s “towering monument of a pearl,” in the heart of Manama, Bahrain’s capital city. It is the country’s Tahrir Square, its own seat of Liberation. In contrast to Egypt, though, Bahrain’s path to freedom been slower and more violent. On Feb. 17, the government brutally attacked protesters, killing four and injuring dozens. The next day, security forces opened fire on a crowd of thousands marching in funeral processions for the previous day’s victims.