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<H2 class=date-header><SPAN>Monday, March 25, 2013</SPAN></H2>
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<DIV class="post hentry" itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting"
itemscope="itemscope" itemprop="blogPost"><A name=6222951323781724543></A>
<H3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">Zainab Al-Khawaja:Letter From
A Bahraini Prison </H3>
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<DIV class=postinfo><SPAN class=date>We have blogged extensively about the
brutal Bahraini regime and its US backers. Politics does not make such
strange bedfellows as the US, the so-called great democracy, is supporting an
absolute monarchy against those fighting for democratic reforms and a
republic. The realpolitik is the struggle for US imperialism to maintain
dominance in the region through its numerous stooges, all hated by the the
majority of their populations and kept in check through US military aid funded
by the US taxpayer. </SPAN><BR><SPAN class=date><BR></SPAN><SPAN
class=date>This is reprinted from <A
href="http://jadaliyya.com/">Jadaliyya.com</A></SPAN><BR><BR><SPAN
class=date><B>Zainab Al-Khawaja:Letter From A Bahraini Prison
</B></SPAN><BR><BR><SPAN class=date>Mar 24 2013</SPAN> <SPAN class=author>by <A
href="http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/contributors/127203">Zainab
Al-Khawaja</A></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV id=readspeaker_button1 class=rs_skip></DIV>
<DIV class="image-wrap right"><IMG
title="[Zainab Al-Khawaja. Image from author's family archive]"
alt="[Zainab Al-Khawaja. Image from author's family archive]"
src="http://www.jadaliyya.com/content_images/3/z2.jpg"><BR><SPAN
class=caption>[Zainab Al-Khawaja. Image from author's family archive]</SPAN>
</DIV><BR>Great leaders are immortal, their words and deeds echo through the
years, decades, and centuries. They echo across oceans and borders and become an
inspiration that touches the lives of many who are willing to learn. One such
leader is the remarkable Martin Luther King Jr. As I read his words, I imagine
him reading out to us from another land, another time, to teach us some very
important lessons. Above all, he tells us, we should never become bitter or sink
to the level of our oppressors; that we sho<SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: inherit"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: small">uld be willing to
make</SPAN></SPAN> great sacrifices for freedom.<BR><BR>As seeds of hope and
resistance to oppression started flowering across the Arab world, the people of
Bahrain saw the first signs of a new dawn. One that promised an end to a long
night of dictatorship and oppression, a long winter of silence and fear, and to
spread the light and warmth of a new age of freedom and democracy.<BR><BR>With
that hope and determination, the people of Bahrain took to the streets on 14
February 2011 to peacefully demand their rights. Their songs, poetry, paintings
and chants for freedom were met with bullets, tanks, toxic tear gas, and
birdshot guns. The brutal Al Khalifa regime was determined to end the creative,
peaceful revolution, by resorting to violence and spreading fear.<BR><BR>Faced
with the regime’s brutality, Bahrainis showed great restraint. Day after long
day, protesters held up flowers to soldiers and mercenaries who would shoot at
them. Protesters stood with bare chests and arms raised shouting, "peaceful,
peaceful" [<I>silmiyya, silmiyya</I>] before they fell onto the ground, covered
with blood. Thousands of Bahrainis have since been detained and tortured for
so-called crimes such as “illegal gathering” and “inciting hatred against the
regime.”<BR><BR>Two years later, the Bahraini regime's atrocities continue.
Bahrainis are still being killed, detained, injured, and tortured for demanding
democracy. When I look into the eyes of Bahraini protesters today, too many
times I see that bitterness has overtaken hope. The same bitterness Martin
Luther King Jr. saw in the eyes of rioters in the slums of Chicago in 1966. He
saw that the same people who had been leading non-violent protests, who had
risked life and limb without the desire to strike back, were later convinced
that violence is the only language the world understood.<BR><BR>I, like King,
find myself saddened to find some of the same protesters who faced Bahrain’s
tanks and guns with bare chests and flowers, today asking, "What's the use of
non-violence? What’s the point of moral superiority, if no one is even
listening?" Martin Luther King Jr. explains that this despair is only
natural when people who sacrifice so much see no change in sight and feel their
suffering has been worthless.<BR><BR>Ironically, change towards democracy has
been so slow in Bahrain largely due to the support that the world’s most
powerful democratic nations continue to give to the dictators here. Through
selling them arms and providing economic and political support, the United
States and other western governments have proven to the people of Bahrain that
they stand with the Al Khalifa monarchy against the democratic
movement.<BR><BR>As I was reading through Martin Luther King's words I found
myself wishing he were alive. I found myself wondering what he would have to say
about the US administration's support of Bahraini dictators. What he would say
about turning a blind eye to the blood and tears being spilt in the quest for
freedom. All I had to do was turn a page, and this time Martin Luther King <A
href="http://books.google.com/books?id=qnoc3JhV5iUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=A+Testament+of+Hope:+The+Essential+Writings+and+Speeches+of+Martin+Luther&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4mdPUcvvNffk4AO_9YHgAg&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=A%20Testament%20of%20Hope%3A%20The%20Essential%20Writings%20and%20Speeches%20of%20Martin%20Luther&f=false">spoke</A>
not to me, but to you, to Americans:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE>John F. Kennedy said 'those who make peaceful revolution
impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.' Increasingly, by choice
or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken—the role of those who
make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and
the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment. I am
convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we
as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. (..) a true
revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice
of many of our past and present policies.<BR>These are revolutionary times.
All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and
new systems of justice and equality, are being born… We in the west must
support these revolutions.<BR>It is a sad fact that because of comfort,
complacency… and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the western nations
that irritated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have
now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. We must move past indecision to
action. We must find new ways to speak for peace… and justice throughout the
world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be
dragged down the long, dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those
who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength
without sight.<BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE>The echo of Martin Luther King's words has
travelled across oceans, through the walls and metal bars of a Bahraini prison,
and into the overcrowded and filthy cell I live in. I hear the words of this
great American leader, whose unbending dedication to morality and justice made
him the great leader he was. As I marvel at his wisdom from my tiny cell, I
wonder if the people of the United States are also listening.<BR><BR>Being a
political prisoner in Bahrain, I try to find a way to fight from within the
fortress of the enemy, as Mandela describes it. Not long after I was placed in a
cell with fourteen people—two of whom are convicted murderers—I was handed the
orange prison uniform. I knew I could not wear the uniform without having to
swallow a little of my dignity. Refusing to wear the convicts' clothes because I
have not committed a crime, that was my small version of civil disobedience.
Denying my visitation rights, and not letting me see my family and my
three-year-old daughter, that has been <I>their</I> punishment. <BR><BR>That is
why I am on hunger strike.<BR><BR>Prison administrators ask me why I am on
hunger strike. I reply, “Because I want to see my baby.” They respond,
nonchalantly, “Obey and you will see her.” But if I obey, my little Jude will
not in fact be seeing <I>her</I> mother, but rather a broken version of her. I
wrote to the prison administration that I refuse to wear the convicts’ uniform
because "no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice." (Thoreau).<BR><BR>What
makes jail difficult is that you are living with your enemy, even in the most
basic ways. If you want to eat, you stand in front of him with your plastic
tray. And every day, one faces the possibility of being ridiculed, shouted at,
or humiliated for any reason. Or for no reason. But I have let the words of
great men and women help me through these times. When the “specialist”
threatened to beat me for telling an inmate that she has a right to call her
lawyer, I did not shout back. I repeated King's words in my head: "No matter how
emotional your opponents are, you must be calm.”<BR><BR>Until one day, I had had
enough of people telling me that I am getting all my rights and refusing to face
that I have responsibilities. After hearing that sentence over and over, I
finally got angry. And what is worse, I felt so frustrated that I shouted
back.<BR><BR>But then hadn't a great man once said that in the struggle for
justice we, “must not become bitter” and that we should "never to sink to the
lever of our oppressors”?<BR><BR>A doctor came to see me and <A
href="http://www.bahrainrights.org/en/node/5682">said</A> “you might fall into a
coma, your vital organs might stop working, your blood sugar levels are so low,
and all this for what… A uniform!”<BR><BR>I replied: “I am glad you weren't with
Rosa Parks on that bus, to tell the woman who sparked the civil rights movement,
“that it was all for nothing but a chair.” When the doctor started asking about
the African American movement, I offered my Martin Luther King book. If you know
me you would know that I very rarely offer to give away my
books.<BR><BR>Sometimes, through his words, Martin Luther King has been a
companion, a cellmate more than a teacher. He says, “No one can understand my
conflict who hasn't looked into the eyes of those he loves, knowing that he has
no alternative but to take a stand that leaves them tormented.” I do understand.
He wrote as though he sits beside me. “The jail experience… is a life without
the singing of a bird, without the sight of the sun, moon, and stars, without
the felt presence of fresh air. In short, it is life without the beauties of
life, it is bare existence—cold, cruel, degenerating".<BR><BR>My father, my hero
and my friend, sentenced to life in prison for his human rights work has also
refused to wear the grey prison uniform. As usual, the government tries to “put
us in our places” by taking away what means most to us. They will not allow my
father his family visit. And to further taunt him, they, for the first time,
said he would be able to visit me in prison if he wore the uniform. Cruelty is
the Al Khalifa regime's trademark, but unwavering courage and patience is my
dad's. No emotional pressure will break him.<BR><BR>The family visit is the one
thing one looks forward to in prison. My father and I will not be seeing our
family or each other, but the struggle for our rights will continue. Until we
see our family next, we hold them in our hearts.<BR><BR>Yesterday I fell asleep
while looking at my prison cell door with its iron bars, and I had a dream. But
this time it was a small and simple dream, not of democracy and freedom. I just
saw my smiling mother, holding my daughter's hand, standing at the door of my
prison cell. I saw them walk through the metal. My mother sat on my prison bed
as my daughter and I lay side by side, our heads in her lap. I tickle Jude and
she laughs, and my heart fills with joy. Suddenly I feel we are in a cool and
protective shadow, I look up and see my father standing by the bed, looking at
the three of us and smiling. I dream of those I love, it is their love that
gives me the strength to fight for the dreams of our country.<BR><BR>Zainab
Alkhawaja<BR>Isa Town Women
Prison</DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>