A Wave of Revolution

Wednesday, five people were killed by security forces in Bahrain, the home of the U.S. fleet in the Persian Gulf; Thursday, the same armed forces opened fire on a crowd of peaceful demonstrators, with, I am guessing, some dozen or so being killed and many dozens more wounded.  But in the immediate aftermath, a participant more or less epitomized the loss of legitimacy of the monarchy:

 

Friday night, thousands of angry demonstrators gathered outside the hospital, chanting “Death to Khalifa,” referring to the king.

“We are not going to stop and we are not scared at any time,’ said Raed Aman, 31, one of the demonstrators who escaped uninjured and was at the hospital checking on his friends. “If anybody in my family dies, I will have more power. Even if I lose my life, I will be there every time.”

The pattern of the Egyptian overthrow of Mubarak was repeated here, on Saturday.  The willingness of thousands of demonstrators to continue nonviolent protests in the face of murderous repression from the armed forces overcame the supporters of the government.

 The leaders of the major opposition parties called off the protests for Saturday, telling the public to stay home in an effort to lower the temperature.

But in what appeared to be a measure of who controls the movement now, the people ignored their ostensible leaders. Marchers set out from villages and the city center and by midday converged on Pearl Square.

The police met them with tear gas and rubber bullets. Young men collapsed in the road and others ran for cover, but people kept coming.

The police fired again.

Then the government blinked, perhaps sensing that the only way to calm a spiral of violence that claimed more lives with each passing day was to cede the square to the protesters.

The police left so suddenly and so completely that it took a minute for the protesters, still rubbing the tear gas out of their eyes, to realize they once again controlled the square.