Page 110 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

discover whether this was premeditated or not. There
was a dump of
scrap iron near the mosque where the crowd picked up iron bars and
metal pipes, and one or two of them had revolvers. They closed in on
the western side of the fort, around the main entrance, and broke into the
garden of the ‘bungalow’, which was accessible from outside. A senior
N.C.O. went out and ordered them to disperse. They ignored him and
he only just managed to get back into the fort. It was a plucky action,
especially as he was a Sunni. Then the crowd began to move towards the
married lines behind the fort, and seeing this some of the police on the
tower fired in the air, without orders, and the shots hit several men on the
outskirts of the crowd.
Next day there was a strike of Shia workers and over 2000 men were
absent from the oil field and refinery; a group of young Shias had told
people that it would be dangerous to go back to work. The young Arabs,
on their part, appeared with guns and revolvers at the offices where they
worked, until I put a stop to this. Crowds of Arab tribesmen, hereditary
retainers of the Ruling Family, flocked out to the Rafaa palace where the
Shaikh was living to offer their services. Though most of them had been
living in towns and villages for generations they were still referred to as
‘the Bedouin* and many people, especially the Shia villagers, were afraid
of them. When I went to see the Shaikh I found the Bedouin performing
war dances in the courtyard of the palace while merchants came out in
cars
to call on the Shaikh and assure him of their loyalty.
I had several meetings with the Shia leaders, who were sensible and
helpful, but I felt that they were losing their grip over the younger men.
An enquiry was held to investigate the fort affair, but the general public
showed little interest, and people were reluctant to come forward to give
an account of what had happened. The court found that the Shias had
attempted to liberate their imprisoned friends. It condemned the use of
firearms by the police without orders and criticized the lack of action by
the police officers who were in the fort. After a day or two labourers in
the oil field began to go back to work and the strike ended.
After this strike an important political development took place. Some
of the Shias made an alliance with a group of young Sunnis, most of
whom were ‘Holis* belonging to families who had lived in Bahrain for a
few generations. Holis are descended from Arabs who migrated from the
Arab coast to Persia many centuries ago and later returned to the Arab
side of the Gulf. They are Sunnis of the Shafi sub-sect whereas the
Khalifah family and the tribal Arabs belong to the Malaki sub-sect. Most
of the leading merchants in Bahrain are Holis. The Sunni-Shia combina-
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tion formed a committee which held meetings in mosques, ostensibly
on religious occasions but actually to provide a platform for political *
speakers. They put forward a number of demands, some of which were
reasonable and some which were manifestly unreasonable. They asked
for an elected council, of which they, presumably, would be the members,
which would rule the country. They demanded reforms in the courts,
where they objected to all the judges except the Shia Kadhis, being
Sunnis, and they asked for a code of law. Before these demands were made
the Shaikh had appointed a British Judicial Adviser, Geoffrey Peace, who
had legal experience and knowledge of the Middle East. He held the post,
doing a great deal of valuable work, until 1958, when he was succeeded by
Mr David Humphreys.
I sympathized with the demand for a law code; from my experience
of court work I knew how much it was needed. I had tried in the past to
adapt the Sudan Code to the requirements of Bahrain, but it had not been
officially adopted. Eventually the legal experts of the Foreign Office pro­
duced a Criminal Code for use in their courts in the Gulf which, after a
number of amendments, was accepted by the Government for use in the
Bahrain courts. It was to be brought into use by the Bahrain Government
before it was introduced in the British Agency courts. Unfortunately I
was on leave when the matter was dealt with. There was immediate
opposition to the new code—every innovation in Bahrain met with
opposition. The Sunni-Shia committee objected to certain clauses. Their
ostensible objections could have been overcome by redrafting or leaving
out one or two sections, but their real objection to it was that it had been
drafted in London and was therefore suspect. The promulgation of the
new law was indefinitely postponed.
The next strike was not for political reasons, though it was backed by
thc new political party. For some time I had been working on a scheme
for compulsory third-party insurance. Every year the number of vehicles
on the roads increased and the accident rate was extremely high. In most
cases the drivers who were responsible for accidents had no means of
paying compensation, and the fact that they were sent to jail was small
cqnsolatdon to their victims or the families of the people who were killed.
An Ordinance' was drafted, approved by the Shaikh and published. It
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caused little comment until a few months later when car-owners
reminded that they had to take out an insurance policy before a certain
date. Then the trouble began. Bus- and taxi-drivers went on strike.
They copied the technique of the Beirut taxi-drivers who constantly
strike. They caused an almost total dislocation of traffic by
went on
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