People in Qatar should derive lessons from Bahrain
By : Sawsan Al Shaer
:: The leaders of the Vilayat Al Faqih (Guardian of the jurist) group in Bahrain led their people to a historical loss that they both paid for. Meanwhile, Qatar’s leaders are leading their innocent people to political suicide with it.
This Iranian backed group in Bahrain lost its national compass after it was deceived by two parties and was later defeated after both of the latter abandoned it. Our people in Qatar should derive lessons from that as there’s plenty in common between these two experiences especially that those involved in the Bahraini experience are still around and the end-result of their work is still fresh.
The first party that deceived leaders of the Iranian backed group in Bahrain was international groups which told them that they will rule the region. They told them that there is plan for the Middle East and they will govern the eastern area of the Arabian Peninsula. They offered to support them and told them that they will topple countries and they will rule them later. They of course believed them and betrayed their partners and brothers and conspired against them.
The second party was their own their media outlets, religious platforms, television channels, dailies, writers and social media users and pages as they embellished their actions for them and put them under the impression that victory is near. They only trusted their media outlets which only told them what they liked to hear and which hid half the truth from them and confused the other half.
All these media outlets cared about was making sure that people only listened to it so they kept deceiving them into thinking victory is near. They alleged that the entire world supported them and that it was important to internationalize their cause and that other countries are better than their own partners who are as deceitful as Prophet Yusuf’s brothers.
They addressed all international organizations and foreign governments and as these responded, they thought the contradicting messages conveyed absolute endless support. They then took things too far and believed that these international groups will intervene by force to impose this Iranian-backed group’s control over the Bahraini people.
Leaders in Iran and Qatar are tools for the same project. They misled an Arab Shiite Gulf group and uprooted it and now they want to uproot the Qatari people
Sawsan Al Shaer
Approach and rhetoric
Their media outlets embellished this plan with their headlines on social media pages which had the same tone as pages run by Azmi Bishara. Their operations’ room adopted the same approach and rhetoric. International parties thus put this Iranian-backed group under the impression that it will gain a lot. Ban Ki-moon was always worried about it.
Barack Obama ordered that the Bahraini people listen to it while the EU said it will not abandon it. Meanwhile, Iran trained, funded and directed the group’s members. We used to tell the latter that the solution lies in Bahrain and not with any international group. We told them that no one can force us to do something we don’t want to do but they ignored our advice and continued to internationalize the crisis.
We’re now going through this experience for the second time and it has the same approach and style. We know how the experience is managed and how the victim is dragged into drowning. We can advise well on the matter just like we advised them in Bahrain when we told them no one can protect them but they said: “I will take refuge on a mountain for protection.”
We advised them and told them their media was lying to them and that it does not have their best interest at heart but they ignored us. What happened in the end? International parties and their media outlets only dragged them deeper and the end-result was political suicide and an unfortunate end which we do not wish for our people in Qatar just like we did not wish it for that group of our people in Bahrain.
Leaders in Iran and Qatar are tools for the same project. They misled an Arab Shiite Gulf group and uprooted it and now they want to uproot the Qatari people, who are authentic Arabian Gulf people.
:: Sawsan Al Shaer is a Bahraini writer and journalist. She tweets under the handle @sawsanalshaer.
:: Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in the Column section are their own and do not reflect RiyadhVision’s point-of-view.
You must be logged in to post a comment.