Page 107 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

and tunics. The tunics were open at the back across the shoulders exposing
trouble. Wo had to make a wide detour because the streets were blocked by
bare flesh. Each man had a ‘cac-o’-ninc-tails’ wjth a shore wooden handle, to
crowds waiting to see the return of the procession. There was a nasty
which were attached a number of thin metal chains. With this instrument
scrap going on. Arab spectators and Shias from the procession were
they beat their backs at the same time performing what was almost a
fighting, using sticks and stones and broken bottles, while the women on
dance, two long steps sideways; then the whips swung in the air and were
the roofs threw things indiscriminately on to the people in the street.
brought down on the bare backs, then two more sideways steps, all
When I appeared, riding on a lorry, many of the people cheered and
carried out in time to the tune which the chain-swingers sang. Their
some of the men who were fighting took to their heels, but there had been
leader, with frantic energy, ran up and down the long double line of men,
a good many casualties, though none of them were fatal. The police guard
sometimes leaping in the air, clashing cymbals to keep them in time. The
at the Agency, seeing an excited crowd running towards the building, not
black figures as they raised their steel whips made monstrous shadows on
realizing that they were seeking refuge, fired in the air from the roof
the smooth, flat walls along the side of the street.
thinking that they were being attacked, which added to the confusion.
« Hundreds of chest-beatcrs brought lip the rear in rings of twenty or
thirty men and boys, their naked bodies shining with sweat, their chests The Shias accused the Sunni spectators of deliberately provoking a dis­
turbance, and the Sunnis declared that they were attacked by the Shias.
raw and bleeding; they ran for a little distance, then paused and formed a
In the enquiry which was held later it was found that there had been a
circle, linked together, bending inwards, belabouring their chests, with
quarrel between two men in the procession in which the spectators had
short guttural shouts. They made a splash of colour in the light of the
joined.
torches, for their waist-cloths were brilliantly coloured.
I walked home to my house and went to bed on the roof, but it was There, was tense excitement throughout the town. Crowds of Shias
some time before I could sleep. From all over the town came the sound who had. taken part in the procession rushed to their matems where
people made fiery speeches. For a while it seemed likely that there would
of clashing cymbals, chanting, and the wailing ot women. I have always
be a general Sunni-Shia conflict. I went to some of the matems and tried
thought that this savage saturnalia below the deep blue Eastern sky, the
to calm the people, who were almost frantic with the excitement of the
strange, haunting music, the wild, torch-lit figures, the colour and the
Muharram atmosphere and the incident during the procession. Wild
atmosphere, not only of religious fanaticism but of something erotic as
rumours spread to all the villages and towns and in Muharraq, on the
well, would make a magnificent motif for a ballet.
other island, the Sunnis heard that the Arabs in Manama were being
In 1953 Muharram was in September. I watched the daytime pro­
attacked by the Shias, so when a party of Shias crossed the causeway, on
cession from a police lorry in an open square in Manama. By light of day
their way back to their villages in Muharraq island, they were roughly
the procession was less impressive than at night, but the swordsmen
handled by a Sunni crowd. At nightfall we imposed a curfew and the
always provided a thrill of excitement as they moved round the square
police patrolled the streets. Outwardly everything was quiet but both
with blood pouring from their foreheads over their faces and clothes.
factions were in a state of nervousness, fearing that they would be attacked
Men ran along beside them dabbing them with cotton wool soaked in
disinfectant and sometimes, when the weather was hot, two or three of by the others.
Next day only a few of the Shias employed by BAPCO turned up
the head-cutters had to be carried off to hospital. It was a genuine blood­
for work and the Sunnis, thinking that the Shias might be contemplating
letting, though some of the Europeans did not believe this. I knew all !
about it, having been behind the scenes in the yard where they assembled an attack on their homes, began to leave their work and return to their
before and after the show. Admittedly some of the men first cut their houses in the towns. Meanwhile the company carried on with half its
i workers absent. The Shaikh was away in the country—he usually went
foreheads with razor blades to cause the blood to flow more rapidly.
While part of the procession was still in the square a police officer came out during the Ashur celebrations—so I drove out to see him at the litde
house in a garden by the sea on the west coast. I gave him a full account
running to the lorry with the news that there was fighting about half a
mile away at another part of the route. of all that had happened and told him what steps I had taken. On my way
back I stopped at a police post which I had set up on the main road.
In the lorry, with a dozen policemen, I drove to the scene of the
While I was there several lorries and buses, full of Arabs returning from
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