Page 212 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

192 Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf

Organising Manama as a modern capital
The government supervised the infrastructural development of Manama
under the directives of the Department of Land Registration (Idarah
al-Tabu) and of Public Works (Idarah al-Ashghal), which until 1957
were controlled by Belgrave. Changes in the built environment,
European influence and technological innovation were already apparent
in 1937, as clearly suggested by the advisor:
a person returning to the country [after ten years] would notice [in Manama] the
wider streets, better buildings, and a decrease in straw huts, trees, gardens and
more vegetation, large shops selling European goods, motor traffic, European
dress worn by natives, increasing use of machinery, partly owing to the installation
of electric power, knowledge of English language, and a far greater interest taken in
outside world affairs. 1
Manama’s modern outlook in the wake of the oil boom is testimony to the
progress made by municipal government in the 1920s and early 1930s. Yet,
in spite of the continuous efforts of the municipality and of the Department
of Public Works, Manama did not grow organically in the following decades.
The reorganisation of the inner city was sketchy and capricious at best. While
the government modernised the waterfront and the port facilities, the old
markets and the residential neighbourhoods became extremely congested
with few open spaces left for construction. On the outskirts of the town, the
Department of Land Registration and the municipality encouraged the
permanent settlement of barasti communities. Only in 1968 was a commit-
tee appointed to devise a master plan for the city, although Belgrave had been
2
pressing the municipality in that direction well before World War II. This
plan was enforced with mixed results after independence in 1971.

Mapping state intervention: the port and the inner city

Developments which affected Manama’s waterfront were the most tangi-
ble manifestation of the control exerted by the government over the
political, economic and social modernisation of Bahrain. The maritime
landscape, however, did not enforce the visual separation between the
new city and the old town. The architecture of the old neighbourhoods
and of barasti conglomerates blended in organically with the new port
1
‘Administrative Report for the Years 1926–1937’ in The Bahrain Government Annual
Reports, 1924–1970, vol. II, p. 56.
2
Interview with anonymous informant, Manama, 5 April 2004; MMBM, 10 Sha‘ban 1359/
13 September 1940, R/15/2/1925 IOR; ‘Annual Report for the Year 1368’ in The Bahrain
Government Annual Reports, 1924–1970, vol. IV, p. 33; J. W. Cummins, ‘Report of an
Inquiry into the Working of the System of Government in Bahrain and the Structure of

the Bahrain Civil Service’, 1957, Part I, FO 371/126897 PRO.