Bahrain’s New Economy

Daniel Bell (1974) came up with the concept of Post-Industrialism or Post Industrial Society. It refers to the shift from a dominance of the manufacturing industry with its assembly line workers to the growth of the service industry and its accompanying service oriented employees. It comes with increased automation replacing blue-collar workers with machines and enhanced focus on service, lean structures and professional workers.

What does this have to do with anything?

I don’t know but it brings to mind a phenomenon that is taking place right here at home. The information above this paragraph came from Wikipedia, below it is just me theorizing on what is taking place with the market in Bahrain today and relating it to Bell’s theory. It has no merit academically, economically, politically, comically or otherwise. However, with all pieces of useless research must come the researcher’s own contribution and I will gift you mine; no citation required.

In its early days, Bahrain started out as a pearl trade country moving later on to manufacturing from aluminum extrusion to refining GCC oil. Jobs in large manufacturers like Alba or Bapco were highly lucrative and extremely competitive and the service industry was yet to be born. Then came the banking “revolution” creating our own little post industrial culture especially after opening the competition in the telecom industry and I observed that service suddenly became a priority on everyone’s agenda.

Now here comes my little contribution to this particular body of research…

The financial crisis and later on the political one have created an employment void. People lost jobs in the service industry and business have shrunk tremendously causing a shortage of positions available for the increasing number of college graduates. However, the amazing outcome of these mishaps is a new wave of employees: the self-employed. Home grown businesses have emerged with the social media spike and we have seen many of them flourish before our eyes on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and then move out of the virtual world and into the trade fairs and markets and permanent offices, shops and kitchens.

So Bahrain moves from the industrial revolution, to the service industry to the entrepreneurial industry; what I would like to call “post-post-industrialism”.

Please let us not focus on the ridiculousness of the term I’m about to coin and let’s pay attention to its meaning.

We, Bahrainis, do not succumb to market conditions or go around begging for jobs. We CREATE jobs for ourselves and we do it well! We have talents and business sense and we put them together to create innovative products and services that compete with those in medium and large companies. We do what we love and that is our job. The typical Bahraini is independent and resourceful. We don’t wait for handouts or help. We earn our respect and place in society and business and we make a name that sells itself. We don’t shy away from laborious tasks and we don’t look down upon those who perform them if we happen to be more fortunate. We are down to earth and amiable and we get our hands dirty and we are PROUD OF IT.

This article is a tribute to all of those Bahraini entrepreneurs who made it and those who are about to make it and even to those who might have failed because its only a matter of time until success comes-a-knockin’.

The Blog Connection to Academia

As I embark on my next phase in my DBA journey I had a couple of months of stagnation where I just couldn't go through with my research. The originally intended topic was Migrant Worker issues in Bahrain and while it is a subject still close to my heart I was relating to a more potent internal struggle that screamed to be explored and studied and shared with the academic world. It is a topic to which many would relate especially in this patriarchal society in which we live. Those couple of months were a constant internal debate of the aspects of my life that I hold dear and important and the duality of my role as professional and homemaker where the time and effort distribution are not equal yet the expectations are high at both ends. It is a situation where societal norms are pulling me to one side while the need to maintain my place in the professional arena pull me to the other. The decision was then made for me that this will be the topic of my study.

I started reading feminist and post colonial literature on this very subject and while I've always struggled with non-fiction I found that I can actually lose myself into this form of prose. It is the first time I actually enjoy anything that is not bound by the parameters of a plot and a climax and a surprise ending. Currently reading Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East; a compilation of articles edited by Lila Abu-Lughod with a primary focus on Egypt and secondary focus on Turkey and Iran.

Just looking at the title caused me to raise an eyebrow as it was the first time I see feminism and Islam in the same context where they two always seemed contradictory to me. The book uses post-colonial theories to analyze discourses on the role of women then and now and explores the notion of modernity as it is understood and adopted in the policy making of these societies. Modernity itself is highly debated among scholars with its roots stemming from a time that we would not characterize as modern now and with the added complexity of the existence of postmodernism in the mix. The dual role of women is a central theme of these articles which is where I hope to find the theoretical backbone of my research.

At the last peer review workshop I attended in Bradford I was audience to one of the best research presentations I have ever seen. She was a colleague from the Netherlands who is doing an auto ethnographic study of herself in the three roles that she holds in her universe. Her ability to draw and maintain the lines between her three roles throughout her journey was outstanding and I am so much more interested in the literary aspect of the DBA than its scientific merit that I am seriously considering this approach.

One of the integral components of writing such research is maintaining a detailed journal of not only what has occurred in my life but also my mindset at the time and the "conversations" I'm having about it. Hence I thought why not use my blog for this? It is after all a form of ranting isn't it?

Loss

It's not easy to lose something.. Or someone.. It's not easy to have something and suddenly not have it anymore. A loss is a loss with varying degrees of difficulty. The more attached you are to it the harder it is to come to terms with losing it. 

Sometimes you lose someone who was once close and that loss manifests itself into great lament. Why did I not pick up the phone when she called? Why wasn't I there when she needed me? Why didn't I call her the other day? Moments that you could have had but didn't because you've taken life for granted. A life so short you one day sit and wonder where it went.. And we keep doing it over and over again.. Taking life for granted.. Because we lost a friend once surely it won't happen again? Not twice.. Not to us.. Well it does happen. All the time. To everyone..

Sometimes you mourn the loss of something you don't even have.. It is something for which you had been hoping and praying but then you lose that hope.. That's probably the worst kind of loss. Because hope is something you always have and when what you're hoping for doesn't happen it's a loss that occurs over and over again. It's the same redundant sadness that just doesn't get any better.. It's a loss you keep losing..

No words of advice here.. I cannot preach what I do not know. All I can say is I'll try not to take it for granted.. Life I mean.. But also everyone around me.  It's not worth the guilt..

All the Light We Cannot See: A Review… Sort of

Half way through All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr I paused to reflect on human nature and how people are sometimes forced to conform with a socially constructed concept to which they may or may not subscribe yet find themselves consciously participating with a heavy heart and a niggling feeling in their throats..

The book is set during WWII German invasion of France and depicts how "Hitler Youth" are trained to become soldiers for the reich on one hand and the devastation caused by the invasion particularly to a young blind girl who has a vision bigger than any sighted person you’ll ever know.. Told from the perspective of those conformists who do not subscribe to the ideologies prescribed by the "Fuhrer" the story personifies the inner turmoil that one feels when doing something with which they don't particularly agree and the feelings are real and applicable to even less dire situations..

Even in the face of severe punishment for nonconformity people find a way to express their individuality and break away from social norms. The angry French women who supply food and wash clothes use their services as an underground resistance while on the surface they appear to comply hiding little messages in loaves of bread or adding minuscule amounts of toxic elements to the Nazis’ laundry or the kids in the orphanage who find solace in a forbidden radio frequency that tells them all about the world which they would otherwise never experience..

Lights and color are recurring motifs that run in parallel throughout this novel. Marie-Laure, the blind girl. identifies the world by the colors she perceives in everything she experiences. these colors are from her memory as a child but each person or place has a special color that does not necessarily correlate with reality. The lights vary in brightness, the happier the experience the brighter they are. The sea, her favorite place, is a shimmer in her world where all her troubles disappear.

The story runs in many parallels that revolve around the paranormal, depravity, desperation, conformity, camaraderie and loss. It even delves into the world of physics, electronics and marine biology. It was difficult to stay engaged and I got lost in the plot on several occasions but I was determined to finish it because I was too stubborn to let a book go to waste. I was drawn to it from the Kindle reviews and the best-selling status of its author, Anthony Doerr. It is akin to a book that would be assigned as high school reading and I envision it to become one of the classics of our time.

زمان احن اليه

احن لزمن امتاز ببساطته و صدق مشاعره..

لما كان الجار صاحب الجار والصديق اكثر من عضيد و الفريج أمان والوناسه نرسمها على الارض و ننقز عليها او خمس حصايات نتلقفها او قواطي بيبسي نطيحها بالكرة..

لما كانت البرادة معلم من معالم الفريج كل بيت محاذيها و كل عيدية تنصرف فيها و راعيها صديج الكبير والصغير من طيبته خلاك تشتري سلف و متى ما قدرت تدفع له..

لما كانت مشاكلنا وهمية من ام الخضر والليف لي الفارس الملثم و طبعا ما ننسى ام حمار..

لما كنا نقعد نجابل الشاشة الملونة ننطر الساعة اربع بفارغ الصبر ونكيف على سنان و سندباد و توم اند جيري.. واذا كلش شطحنا طالعنا المصارعة الحرة وقعدنا نقلدهم ما تفرق ولد كنت او بنت..

لما كانت عذاري فعلاً عين واكبر ألعابها البانوش، و الحديقة المائية في عزها كان يوم السعد لي ودونا لها واذا بغينا نتكشخ رحنا ديري كوين نختم فيه يومنا..

لما كنا نلعب صيده في دواعيس ام الحصم لا نحس بخطر ولا احد يحاتينا، كل بيت أهلنا و حتى الجيران اهل..

لما كنا ندرع بجلابياتنا ونقرقع في بيوت الناس في رمضان و نرجع نفوشر مين الي يمع اكثر من الثاني.. 

لما كنا نروح البيت العتيج في الحد ابو الحوش الكبير مربط خيل نلعب فيه ما نمل.. وأمي أمينة تلعب بالكلينكس وتصفط فيه تالي اخر شي تعطينا إياه نلقاها حاطه فيه دينار.. يا فرحتنا فيه و يا حبنا لها من حياها ما تكشف ويها حتى على اجرب جريب..

لما كان البيت العود في ام الحصم ملفانا وأمي لطيفة امنا كلنا، ربتنا من صغيرنا لكبيرنا، ننطر الإجازة بس عشان نبات عندها و ثوبها الأبيض يتطاير بمشيتها و ريحة العود ما تفارقها.. سدرتها الي زرعتها بيدها كبرت معانا صارت سند لنا كلنا ، ويوم فارقتها ... فارقتنا ... بس ما فرقتنا.. تركت اثرها فينا كلنا وعلى خطاها ينلم شملنا .. هي و امي موزة لما نشقح الشارع نوصلها و قبل لا نوصلها توصلنا، في بيتها قضينا احلى الأوقات و لازالت احلى أوقاتنا مع أولادها..

رحمة الله عليهم جميعا، علمونا البساطة والحب والتواصل. كلهم صج أمهاتنا مب بس لقب احترام للكبير. أحيوا تراثنا و حببونا فيه و عيشونا اجمل لحظاته.. وللحين مستمرين نحيي ذكراهم بتواصلنا و إحياء تراثنا حق عيالنا وهم دوم في القلب يذكّرونا وين كنا و وين صرنا و ما زالوا يعلمونا ان مافي احلى من البساطة والتواضع و حب الآخرين و صلة الرحم و الله يقدرنا انا نستمر على نهجهم مع الأجيال الياية...

On 2015...

A new year has begun.. People wonder what it will bring and hope and pray that it will be better than their last. People bank their whole lives on that last leaf unfolding, on that last digit flipping and the dawn of the new year showing its first light.

What is a year but a number? A mere date on our calendar, just another day...

And what is hope but the fantasies of a lazy species sitting lax watching life pass them by and riding its coat tails; more often than not missing the ride because it was faster than their actions...?

Days, weeks, months and years are all the same. What differentiates them is what we do to give them value- make them count. We can watch them and let chance live our lives for us, or we can create these chances and live our own.

Accomplishing all we wish for requires planning and execution. Setting specific deadlines and holding ourselves responsible for meeting them is a good start. Statistics have shown that people with written goals are more likely to be successful than those who have not written them down.

The whole point of this rant is: don't blame last year for not being good to you and don't ask 2015 to bring you health and prosperity. Tell yourself and then blame yourself for not listening...

The Untold

A screen. An empty screen. The awaiting blink on the line urging the formation of a word. 

A word. A juxtaposition of letters that make up one word. A word to bring to life an inner thought. 

A thought. A million thoughts. Dancing around a mind that knows not how to savor precious dearth time.

Time. How much does one need? To juxtapose the words to form that thought. That dancing thought that won't settle, that won't thrive, a stillborn child.

A thought that was... Before it had the chance to be...