Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Opposition in Bahrain

A source sent me this: "I completely agree with your correspondent's comments and criticism about the political societies in Bahrain. However, s/he is wrong in calling the February 14 youth movement secular. It is true that they don't call for a religious state, but this is not an indication of secularism. They do not specify what they would like to replace the Al Khalifa regime with at all. What we do know is that they are aligned with Abdulhadi Al Mudarrissi, an Iraqi anti-communist Shi'ite fundamentalist. For some time, their Twitter account called him Murshid Ath-thawra, or the revolution's guide. The group later put out a statement (see second to the last para) urging people to stop using this term (when they had been using it themselves) because he told them in a phone conversation that he doesn't like it. This should disturb any secular oppositionist."