Page 183 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

‘Disorder’, political sociability and the urban public sphere 163

reciprocity of rights and duties. Divers working under the al-salafiyyah
system could resort to the courts for arbitration while they became liable
to prosecution if they refused to comply with their obligations. The
mobilisation of the workforce also opened up new avenues of participa-
tion. After the troubles of 1926 the government was forced to reinstate the
Majlis al-Salifah, the old diving council which had been abolished in 1924,
and to appoint a leading diver to oversee the interests of the community.
Divers could also scrutinise the accounts of their masters and contest sale
prices, although it seems that they were seldom able to exercise these new
rights. The majority of them were in fact illiterate and the leaders of the
industry continued to negotiate deals in secret. 34
The gradual employment of workers in the oil industry from 1936 led to
the virtual disappearance of pearl diving. With it vanished the old order of
Manama as well as that of Muharraq, al-Hidd and al-Budayya‘, the tradi-
tional centres of pearl production. The divers’ protests of the 1920s and
1930s combined elements of old and new, marking a crucial stage in the
transition to the oil era. This combination is epitomised by the public
ceremony organised in Muharraq for the punishment of the ringleaders of
the 1932 riot. Prisoners locked in cages were exhibited to large crowds in
the main square, with policemen and municipal guards lined up to pay
their respects to Belgrave and to the rulers. Following the tradition of
public flogging for criminal offenders, one by one the prisoners were laid
on the ground, beaten with a heavy cane and then sent off to their boat
captains to dive. Yet the governor of Muharraq, deputising for Shaykh
Hamad, delivered a long speech which defended their punishment on the
grounds that their attack upon the police station during the riot was an
outrage against a ‘sacred’ institution of government. 35 For the first time a
public event was orchestrated as the showcase of the disciplinary powers
of the reforms and as a platform for the new rhetoric of state centralisation.

‘Ashura’ as a public performance
Unlike pearl divers, Shi‘i mourners constituted a critical mass of public
actors who resided in the inner city and continued to mobilise as a
cohesive group after the discovery of oil. Since the first public perform-
ance of ‘ashura’ in 1891, Manama’s houses of mourning became key

34
R/15/1/349 IOR: Political Agent Bahrain to Political Resident Bushehr, 1 and 9 January
1927; ‘Note by Belgrave on Pearl Fisheries’, c. 1931. ‘Administrative Report for the Years
1926–1937’ in The Bahrain Government Annual Reports, 1924–1970, vol. II, p. 49.
35
Belgrave Diaries, 29 May 1932, AWDU.