Page 247 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

Conclusion 227

It was in 1971 that Manama officially became the capital of an Arab

state. In the lengthy negotiations which preceded the declaration of inde-

pendence, the future of the city aroused strong emotions throughout the

Arab world, partly as a result of renewed claims to the islands on the part

of Iran. This strong emotional appeal is echoed in a report of the Gulf

correspondent of the Egyptian Gazette published in April 1970:

An Arab arriving in Manama is soon overwhelmed by feelings which prompt him

to seek to discover their motives. Such tumultuous feelings would remain with him

all through his stay in the Arab emirate [Bahrain]. They might have their apparent

justification, for an Arab would react to Bahraini Arab society with surprising

speed, and would appear to have turned into part and parcel of that society without

any sense of being a stranger. 9

As in the 1950s, Egypt continued to provide impetus to Arab nationalist

fervour. From the late 1960s, the Egyptian national anthem was played in

the cinemas of Manama before film screenings. Schools were closed in

1971 to mourn the death of President Nasser, while the state radio broad-
cast tributes to the Arab leader.
In the 1960s, the locus of political mobilisation against the government

shifted from the old quarters, ma’tams and mosques to the modern milieu

of the classroom. In March 1965, the students of the secondary and
technical schools of Manama ignited a new wave of protests following
demonstrations in Muharraq. In the words of the Political Agent Anthony
Parsons, writing a few months after his arrival in Bahrain, these youths
were no longer self-declared Arab nationalists but longed for ‘the para-
phernalia of independence and progress: a national assembly, trade
10
unions, elections and political newspapers’. These demands continued
to trigger widespread student protests until 1972, supported by intellec-
tuals and poets such as Qasim al-Haddad who became the new conscience
of the movement.
By the mid 1960s, the political landscape of Manama mirrored the
explosive economic and demographic situation of Bahrain. Between
1941 and 1965 the islands’ population had doubled. The great advance
in the provision of state education also produced increasing numbers of
secondary-school leavers who were ready to enter the job market.
Moreover, three decades of oil development and decreasing oil reserves
had worsened labour conflict. While the oil industry stabilised employ-
ment in the early 1960s, in 1965 foreign labourers still represented
9
‘Bahrain on the Road to Independence’, The Egyptian Gazette, 8 April 1970, FCO 8/1369
PRO.
10
‘Annual Review of Bahrain Affairs, 1965’ in Political Agent Bahrain to Political Resident
Bahrain, 2 January 1966, FO 371/185327 PRO.