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Restructuring city and state 117

opposition throughout the islands, particularly among tribal leaders who
perceived it as the first step towards the imposition of a colonial regime. As
the men on the spot, political agents carried out policies often at odds with
the directives of their superiors, influenced by their training and experi-
ence in Iraq. In their minds reform was neither an indigenous adaptation
to European models nor a compromise between the old principle of
non-interference and the new policy of ‘intrusion’ advocated by the
Government of India. They took upon themselves the civilising mission
of empire as a process of regeneration of state and society.
Captain Norman N. E. Bray, appointed as Political Agent in November
1918, famously lamented in an official report that ‘British prestige [in
Bahrain] rests on entirely false standards, namely on fear and not on
respect’. The subtext of his argument is an incisive critique of the aloofness
of the British ancien régime in Bahrain which had prevented local officials
from gaining the trust of the natives. In the same report he also draws some
impressionistic sketches of the local population, a testimony to the pater-
nalism and stereotyping which characterised the attitude of British agents
in the first decade of the reforms. 11 Bray’s portrayal of the indigenous
leadership is dominated by irrational psychological attributes such as fear
and pride. Moreover, he denies them an active role in any meaningful
process of change as a result of their deep-seated ignorance: ‘Very few
[among the rich and influential] can read and write. Geographical knowl-
edge is appalling, politics of most amazing conception, they cannot under-
stand the simplest measure of administration and reform, incapable of clear
statement and dull reasoning, intellectually dull and naturally stupid.’ 12
According to Bray, hostility to British authority was a dangerous local
‘disease’ which demanded the prompt intervention of the political officer,
the doctor who ‘must know accurately the medicine required for each of
his patients’. As the ‘cure’ for Bahrain’s society, Bray proposed the organ-
isation of weekly meetings with the population in the political agency and
the establishment of a special fund for ‘rewards for service’. Moving from
the figurative to the literal, Bray believed that improvement in health and
sanitation was the key means of ‘progress’ whose benefits could no longer
be denied to the indigenous population. The decaying urban landscape of
Manama, he wrote, reflected local ignorance and superstition. The
municipality, established soon after Bray wrote his account, was invested

11
Captain N. N. E. Bray, ‘Note on the Political Situation in Bahrein as Existing at the End of
1919, with Suggestions and Proposals for Improving the Situation’ in Political Agent
Bahrain to Civil Commissioner Baghdad and Deputy Political Resident Bushehr,
5 January 1920, DN 2A/4/26–27, Dickinson Papers, Middle East Centre, University
of Oxford (kindly supplied by James Onley).
12
Bray, ‘Note on the Political Situation’, p. 12.