In My Opinion

Vol XXVII NO. 1 Sunday 21 March 2004

BY AMIRA AL HUSSAINI

What does a father do when his son goes on a rampage at home? How would he behave when the spoilt brat breaks his favourite vase, burns his prized book collection or digs up the flower bed?

Should he pat him on the back and apologise to him for being a bad father and for cheating on his mother?

Or should he deal with him using fist and leg or any other sharp object that comes to hand?

Or maybe he could reason with him to see what made the little boy have a tantrum in the first place. After all, everyone knows that boys cannot think, let alone plot for anything.

Those boys who went on a rampage on Wednesday, terrorising restaurant patrons and destroying public property, are mere puppets in the hands of bigger shark who are playing a game too big to be digested in one go.

The problem is that there are too many players at the moment and if we don't have a confession session and sit all together around a table, we will never know who is behind what is making Bahrain take one step forward and two steps backwards.

Reform and change take time. A child learns to crawl, then sit, then stand, then walk and when he finally gains his balance, he can conquer heights - only if he has the courage to do so and leaves all his phobias and insecurities behind.

Those people behind Wednesday's events are not freedom fighters. They cannot be calling for more political rights for Bahrainis because if they had anything logical to call for, there are civil ways and channels for making their voice heard.

That is how a 'democracy' works and not by burning cars, trespassing on public property and terrorising women and their children.