Page 11 - Begrave Thesis_Neat

These words of Al-Hamad and the encouragement of Bahraini historian and friend

Dr Abdul-Hamid Al-Mahadeen to research further into Belgrave’s life and influence

re-kindled an interest that had been sparked in me as a child. This provoked me to

research the struggle for power that engulfed the Bahraini Administration, managed

by Belgrave, and the nationalist movement.

The conflict in Bahrain was not a mere internal political dispute but one that

was influenced by regional changes with international repercussions overshadowed

by the Cold War and a battle for supremacy by the superpowers in the Middle East.

It baffled Britain and left its policy makers between the Scylla and Charybdis of how

to handle the crisis and its fast-paced developments. The situation became so

critical that it caused Sir Roger Stevens, the British Ambassador to Iran, to declare

that ‘The Bahrain issue may well prove to be a chink in the armour of the Baghdad

Pact which its enemies may seek to exploit’. The so-called Baghdad Pact was in
5
reference to the name given to the Western alliance brokered by Britain to defend

the Middle East from possible Soviet aggression. Since the Bahraini nationalist

party had aligned itself with Egyptian regional policy that stood in opposition to the

Pact, this will be highlighted in this thesis.

Not only were the events of the political struggle in Bahrain a mystery to me,

but so was the British policy towards the Movement throughout the Party’s

development. A sense of distrust existed regarding Belgrave’s actions even after his

death. Bahrain’s former weekly newspaper Al-Adwha’a (The Lights) whose Editor-

in-Chief was Mahmood Al-Mardi, one of Belgrave’s opponents and a supporter of the

5 The National Archives (TNA), FO 371/120545, Roger Stevens to FO, 30 March 1956.

© Hamad E. Abdulla vii