Ismail Akbari: You Don't Deserve to Live in a Country You Don't Protect

2019-08-02 - 8:54 p

Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): Ismail Akbari "BuBassam" wrote in the bio of his personal Twitter page a right-wing statement that reveals a lot. "You don't deserve to live in a homeland you don't protect," he tells a virtual reader. It seems that he and his wife, a writer in Al-Watan newspaper, Sawsan Al-Shaer, have given themselves an authority that no one has given them to manage the vital population policies of the people of Bahrain. According to them, whoever "does not protect" the homeland, "does not deserve to" live in it is necessarily "you O Bahraini", which is evident from the use of the second person point of view.

It is a call for the "fascist transfer" i.e. the call for deporting the inhabitants of the country, which his wife adopts and summarized in her article "Mass Escape" which he gladly re-shared on his account. It is a one-way expulsion call- the same calls made by the extreme right-wing movements in the West. At an election rally organized by President Trump recently, his supporters chanted "send her back," referring to Ilhan Omar, a US Democratic congresswoman of Somali origin.

However, those from whom Akbari and his wife would like to take away their right to live in their homeland and expel them are the children of this country, who did not come from anywhere else; they in fact were born and lived in it generation after generation.

Which homeland does Akbari want Bahrainis to protect and how? Is it a homeland of hatred in which his family enjoys privileges? Or is it a homeland of love that the majority of Bahrainis are calling for, a country free of privileges where citizens are as equal as the teeth of a comb?

There are two contradictory concepts of our homeland. Akbari and his wife's concept of a homeland, from which all demands for equality, rights and participation should be expelled. It is the already existing homeland that has bankrupted Bahrain, tarnished its reputation and brought its public debt to $30 billion.

On the other hand, there is a homeland that Bahrainis adopt and have dreamt of since the 1920s, a homeland that embraces all its children of all sects, races and classes, and allows genuine peaceful mechanisms for democratic change.

This is the homeland we have not yet experienced, and as a result of its long absence, two fascists, such as Akbari and his wife, feel that they are safe to make dangerous calls for eradication against the natives of the country and target national unity. Bahrainis should be protected from the concept of the homeland which Akbari and his wife adopt.

The "Akbari" family emigrated from Bastak county, from the towering mountains of the Persian lands, escaping the oppression of the Safavid state, then settled in Bahrain; where they resided among their people for decades, became one of them, and endured what they endured. As a reward for his wife's long-term hypocrisy, his son, who has no wit, necessary qualities or experience to the extent that he described Bahrainis as "mentally ill", was inserted in the Shura Council. Why does Akbari, in return, want to oppress the people of this peaceful country "retroactively" and send them to the place where his family came from, saying "a homeland that you do not protect, you do not deserve to live in". Isn't this a paradox!

Arabic Version