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of by the Administration. 109 One of his earliest known attempts to have his ‘voice

heard’ was during a visit that was carried out by six British Members of Parliament

(MPs) to Bahrain in early 1953. The incident was noted in HV Mapp’s memoir and

he sympathised with Al-Bakir’s demand for a trade union. The MPs were on a tour

of the Middle East organised by Lebanese MP and businessman Emile Bustani.

Mapp considered the visit to be a ‘flop’ as he unsuccessfully attempted to arrange a

meeting between the MPs and Al-Bakir. 110

It is unclear why Al-Bakir chose to adopt the idea of establishing trade unions

in Bahrain, which later turned into an early formal demand by his Movement. He

had recently worked as a self-employed merchant and was not part of any labour

force. A possible explanation is that trade unions offered a form of unification

between Sunnis and Shi’ites under the flag of improving working conditions. Most

importantly a trade union can be exploited as a political entity able to paralyse the

state through strikes, if political demands were not met. The threat of strikes and its

implementation as a weapon against the Administration became a feature of the

Bahraini nationalist movement of the mid-twentieth century, as this thesis will

describe.

The visit of the six British MPs to Bahrain started on 20 January 1953.

Barbara Castle mentioned it in her memoir. It consisted of three Labour MPs: Castle,

John Freeman, and Jimmie Johnson; and three Torie MPs: Burney Drayton, Stephen

109 A trade union could be defined as ‘a continuous association of wage-earners for the purpose of
maintaining or improving the conditions of their working lives’, as identified by Sidney and Beatrice
Webb. See S. Webb and B. Webb, The History of Trade Unionism (London: 1920), 1.
110 H.V. Mapp, Leave Well Alone! Where Oil Shapes Dynasties and Destinies (Essex: 1994), 223,
hereafter Leave Well Alone.

© Hamad E. Abdulla 36