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226 Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf

Many of these similarities with other cities of the Middle East and India
can be explained by the incorporation of Bahrain into the ‘global’ net-
works of nationalist awakening which shaped the colonial and postcolo-
nial worlds. For instance, urban residents drew inspiration from India to
stage strikes as a form of modern political protest. The award of the British
mandates in the Arab Middle East in 1920 created another momentous
imperial connection. Over the following decades this would become
central to the popularisation of Arab nationalism as the Arab residents
of Manama increasingly identified with the anti-British and anti-Zionist
struggles unfolding in Palestine, Egypt and Iraq. After World War II, the
threat posed by grass-roots mobilisation in Bahrain’s capital city forced
the government to adopt Arabism as an instrument of statecraft. This
served to consolidate the position of the Al Khalifah family as the elites of
the new state, particularly to counter Iranian claims on the islands.
Ironically, while Belgrave and the ruling family started to promote the
Arab character of Manama in public policy and discourse in the early
1950s, Arab nationalism posed the most formidable challenge to the
survival of the regime.
State-led Arabisation gathered momentum after the suppression of the
nationalist movement in 1957 and embraced many aspects of urban life:
from the strict supervision of the curricula of educational institutions,
particularly the Iranian school, to the establishment of a censorship board
7
which vetted films from India and Iran. During the 1960s the Arabisation
of Manama paralleled the expansion and centralisation of the state
bureaucracy and the consolidation of the Al Khalifah family in the appa-
ratus of government. While key posts in technical departments such as
Customs and Public Works continued to be held by British expatriates,
the influence of the imperial order decreased, reflecting the progressive
devolution of authority to the indigenous administration. After 1957 the
position of Charles Belgrave was taken over by a British secretary to the
government who was far less influential than the advisor. Although still in
charge of coordinating administrative affairs, he exercised authority as a
member of the Administrative Council, a body established in 1956 which
included several Al Khalifah shaykhs and a handful of merchants. The
announcement of the British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf in 1968
and the declaration of Bahrain’s independence three years later left the Al
Khalifah family in charge of the state administration. 8

7
Political Resident Bahrain to Political Agent Bahrain, 19 March 1958, FO 371/132911 PRO.
8
Lawson, Bahrain: The Modernization of Autocracy, pp. 68–71, 73–8. On the circumstances
surrounding the British withdrawal from the Gulf and Bahrain see Balfour-Paul, The End of
Empire, pp. 118–36.