Abstract
Social media has permitted activists to subvert censorship and state-controlled media. As a result, it has become a key medium for experimenting with and/or creating genres previously marginalised or discouraged by the Bahraini government. This article explores aspects of revolutionary cultural production and creative resistance in Bahrain since the uprisings in 2011 and examines the role social media has played in shaping and defining it. Focusing on memes, parody accounts and the YouTube serial Baharna Drama, this article looks at the rise of political satire online and the evolution of satirical forms over the progression of the uprising as a dialectic with government policy and propaganda. This article argues that social media has facilitated the emergence of new forms of satire in Bahrain and has allowed activists to assert, to both local and global audiences and in different registers, the integrity of a desired revolutionary aesthetic by confronting state attempts to paint the revolution as schismatic and divisive. As such, 2011 marked a new turn in Bahrain’s satirical heritage. It also argues that the subversive nature of satire makes it a favourable genre with regard to revolutionary cultural production and the public sphere, yet acknowledges that satirical forms, as a response to authoritarian policies, are rarely devoid of the tutelage necessary to make them a truly revolutionary form of counter-narrative.
As disruptive, often infrequent moments, the opportunity to examine the cultural content of the revolutionary public sphere is important and urgent, not least due to its transience. The Bahrain uprising of 2011 saw new political imaginaries, creative resistance, aesthetic experimentation and a raft of cultural production facilitated by the confluence of new technologies and local context. By undermining traditional state-controlled media, social media has provided a forum for aesthetic experimentation and critique, raising interesting questions about revolutionary cultural production. This article explores this creative resistance and experimentation online, focusing in particular on the
The revolutionary potential of satire: disruptive, divisive or marginal?
Sometimes conceived of as ‘radically disruptive’, ‘genuinely subversive’ or even a ‘revolutionary force’ (Griffin, 1994, p. 158), political satire is the use of humour to criticise, ridicule and expose the shortcomings of politicians, government policy or regimes themselves. Traditionally a theatrical or literary form, the advent of television and radio prompted experimentations in delivery, aesthetic and form (LeBouef, 2007). Similarly, new technologies have allowed for a shift in the presentation of satire. In the participatory culture of Web 2.0 technologies, old consumers or audiences are becoming ‘producers and distributors’ of new creative content and cultural products (Shifman, 2012). This is particularly important in Bahrain, as the public performance of satire directed at the government has been limited by rigid authoritarianism and thus has tended to exist in day-to-day discursive practices, as opposed to in state-controlled media.
As a means of social critique, satire comes in many guises, yet the focus of academic study has been predominantly on that occurring in Western democracies (Hill, 2013). Those studies that do examine authoritarian regimes have their limits. Leonard Freedman’s (2012) important work, for example, focuses on satire in authoritarian regimes, specifically Germany and Russia. Indeed, despite the rich history of satire in the Arab World (Allday, 2015), scholarly work on political humour and satire in the Middle East is very much undernourished (Shehata, 1992). Khalid Kishtainy’s 1985 work on Arab political humour in the Middle East is still one of the few seminal texts on the Arab World, and work on political satire in the Gulf States is still relatively non-existent. It is important to acknowledge that even within authoritarian regimes of the Middle East, laws, attitudes, cultural practices and humour vary substantially. Nikahang Kowsar’s (2012) illuminating work on Iran begins with the assertion that many clerics see satire as a form of ‘sin’. In Jordan, Quintan Wiktorowicz (1999) noted how the press law of 1993 enabled the stifling of the nascent satirical scene; ‘… the prospect of such a fine caused the weekly political satire paper ’Abd Rabbuh to close in June of 1997’. However, the relatively recent rise of people such as Bassem Youssef 1 in Egypt highlights that political satire is arguably more tolerated in some Middle East countries than others (Aptaker, 2016), although perhaps this too reflects the historic role of Cairo as a cultural nerve centre in the region. Lisa Wedeen (2000), who has written extensively on Syria, states, ‘comedies, cartoons, and films are among the forms taken by everyday political contests …, no doubt in part because direct political engagement is generally discouraged by the fear of punishment or material deprivation’ (p. 87). However, while Wedeen’s argument may hold true for Syria, satire in Bahrain is not as tolerated as it [was] in Syria, highlighting the need for more fine-grained case studies. For example, Twitter parody accounts of high-ranking Bahraini officials, including that of the country’s prime minister, were targeted by the government security services – who used IP spying techniques in an attempt to uncover the identity of those operating the account (Bahrain Watch, 2013). The nature of the government’s response highlights the potential threat posed by humour, and while Amber Day (2011) argues that humour is not inherently subversive, it depends on the context. Indeed, the level of subversiveness is contingent on the nature of the regime and its tolerance, or lack thereof, to criticism. Thus, subversiveness is notably dependent on cultural, political and legal norms of what is acceptable.
While political satire may be subversive in Bahrain, it has also been privileged by the revolution on account of the divergent narratives that resulted from the government’s attempts to whitewash an image tainted by numerous human rights violations. As the government protested its innocence and attempted to discount revolutionary narratives with public relations (PR), doublespeak, ‘alternative facts’ and propaganda, the gap between brutal reality and the whitewashed PR image increased, paving the way for a chasm of absurdity that was best resolved with satire and parody. In a sense, the Bahrain regime’s resistance to change encouraged the emergence of satire, making satirical production an almost inevitable outcome of the articulation of authoritarian practice. The government’s attempts to shape discourses were often so absurd that they became ripe for parody, and the increased material for aspiring satirists has been complemented by the rise of social media and new technologies, which have also allowed budding producers greater opportunities for making and disseminating their satire. In addition, harsh government responses to public protests juxtaposed with their poor attempts to cover up or legitimise their actions, exposed the disingenuous nature of their exposed narrative. As Amber Day (2011, p. 4) argues, the lack of transparency that so often accompanies more authoritarian leadership leads to an ‘uninterrogated discourse’ that becomes ripe for deconstruction by satirists. Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef inadvertently agrees with Day when he thanks President Mohammed Morsi for providing so much material that is easy to satirise (BestofBassem, 2013). Bob Cesca (2017) said the same of the rise of Donald Trump, which he argues, has prompted a new ‘satirical urgency’ – perhaps because satire has the ability to ‘unmask and to de construct, pointing us toward the flaws and posturing of official policy’ (Day, 2011, p. 12). Thus, satire, as a genre, attempts to ‘discredit views that cannot withstand critical scrutiny’ – a vital aspect of the public sphere (Fraser, 2007, p. 7). Indeed, authoritarian regimes perhaps have always provided more material for satire than other types of regime, although its articulation has always been controlled by state censorship.
As a genre through, is satire more than just poking fun at the authorities, or is it an antidote to post truth politics? In her research on Syria, Wedeen (2000, p. 89) argues that ‘political parodies, features films, and jokes’ are forms of cultural production in which ‘political vitality’ reside and where ‘critique and oppositional consciousness thrive’. While it could be argued that these everyday mundane or banal transgressions against the government do not really threaten the regime’s dominance, Wedeen (2000) and Scott point out that these daily struggles are forms of resistance that may grow into large-scale ‘challenges to the political order’ (p. 87). Yet Wedeen is also talking about state-sanctioned criticism, which itself may be criticised as being a form of state-sponsored dissent and thus limited in its transgressive nature. The Bahrain regime, however, has yet to really tolerate criticism, especially when directed at specific individuals. While the same is true of Syria, in that individuals cannot be singled out for criticism, the Bahrain media is far less tolerant of any form of satire or parody, state-sanctioned or otherwise. State laws in Bahrain forbid criticism of the King, public institutions (such as the police), public figures and even allied countries. So, while being an important part of political vitality in itself, regime paranoia highlights the perceived revolutionary purpose of satire, and this perception of a threat lends the genre a certain revolutionary credibility. As Linda Hutcheon (1994, p. 30) states, ‘satire has the potential to offer a challenge to the hierarchy of the very “sites” of discourse, a hierarchy based in social relations of dominance’. Such forms of transgression and cultural production can also offer a collective sense of ritualistic bonding. Satire can reinforce political opinions, offering a form of ‘affirmation and reinforcement’ that has an important ‘community-building function’ (Day, 2011, p. 13). On a similar note, ‘hearing the laughter of fellow spectators in a theatre, sharing the experience of watching a television program satirizing official discourse, or discussing the program among friends afterwards, counteracts the atomizing conditions of the cult’ (Wedeen, 2000, p. 90). The emergence of satire also demonstrates attempts by marginalised groups to challenge the authoritarian public sphere, momentarily reducing disparities in what Nancy Fraser (2007) calls (p. 12) ‘political voice’ while promoting the ability to participate in public debate. This ability of social media to subvert regime control of traditional media, coupled with satire’s reconciling of reality with absurdity, points to a functioning aspect of public sphere, which is to challenge and expose views that cannot hold up to critical scrutiny.
Yet satire’s impact should not be overstated or generalised. One must qualify that just because government reactions during revolutions may produce material that is ripe for satire, it does not necessarily make satire a revolutionary genre – that is, a genre that can encourage revolution by uniting disparate elements in opposition to a common foe. Indeed, its disruptiveness or ability to function as a counter-narrative is tempered by the various events that necessitate its creation. Indeed, if cultural production ‘refers to the processes by which new texts, new cultural artefacts, and commodities, such as art, music and video, are created’ (Levinson & Ward, 1996, p. 13), then what is revolutionary cultural production? Is it, as Bourdieu (1993) might argue, that which has freed itself from ‘aristocratic and ecclesiastical tutelage as well as from its aesthetic and ethical demands’ (p. 112). Indeed, revolutionary cultural production must be that which, axiomatically, is rejected or deemed threatening to the regime it seeks to challenge. If it falls under the tutelage of state institutions, it cannot really be deemed threatening by the state and thus ceases to be revolutionary. Similarly, revolutionary cultural production should be that which frees itself from ‘the moral censure and aesthetic programmes of a proselytizing church or the academic controls and directives of political power, inclined to regard art as an instrument of propaganda’ (Bourdieu, 1993, p. 113).
While authentic revolutionary cultural production must be free from state tutelage, and actively rejected by the state, that does not mean the state does not have an important role in shaping cultural production. On the contrary, by examining the evolution of cultural production on social media during the Bahrain uprising, we can see how genres changed to reflect political dynamics, and how government intervention in the public sphere shifted cultural production on social media from a potentially revolutionary utopian genre, to more disparate genres including satire with different narratives and purposes. Thus, state intervention directly shapes non-authorised cultural production and content, as state strategies to co-opt or appropriate cultural production determine what may or may not be considered authentic and vice versa. Given that the state has a monopoly over the official media, social media has become an important location for the formation and distribution of revolutionary narratives. But even these are not immune, and the government has managed to appropriate or influence potentially revolutionary forms of cultural production on social media. It is this symbiosis and interplay that form the foundation of how the production of genres is a form of social action routed in the antagonism between the government and opposition. One genre can create the ‘sociorhetorical condition for the other in what Anne Freadman has called an “uptake,” a concept adapted from speech act theory to refer to the situated and dialogical relationship between texts’ (Bawarshi, 2000, p. 341). Similarly, as Efharis Mascha (2008, p. 70) notes about satire, ‘it is a discourse counter-posed to the dominant one but not one that can constitute a revolutionary project that is able to sustain itself without the existence of the dominant discourse’. Hill (2013, p. 333) argues that satire should be a ‘counter-narrative’ that subverts master narratives and the dominant master framework of the hegemonic in order to shine a light on its inequalities, hypocrisies and follies. However, she adds that the satirist is in a precarious position, ‘speaking from the margins while aiming for the mainstream’. With this in mind, how does the cultural content of Bahrain’s revolution affect the debate around the disruptive nature of satire? Once satire becomes ‘mainstream’, does it cease to be truly satirical, or a counter-narrative? How revolutionary is it? Is it right to argue, as Griffin (1994, p. 185) does, ‘raise doubts’ about its power in global politics? Or is it more, as Mascha notes, a counter-hegemonic project that fulfils the Gramscian notion of ‘passive revolution’, something more insidious, lengthy and sustained? It is important to consider whether satire’s potential for subversion or impact is contingent on specific cultural factors and whether general assertions about its disruptiveness are too essentialising given the contested nature of it.
Social media, creative resistance and cultural production in the Bahrain uprising
Given new technologies and the lack of a mediated satirical project before 2011, it is useful to begin with an exploration of the nature of social media and cultural production during the uprising. Indeed, satire did not spontaneously emerge but emerged within the context of the production and destruction of certain genres and other content. In order to conduct this case study and gain an insight into this revolutionary cultural content, a virtual, Twitter-centred ethnography was undertaken:
The process involved the daily monitoring [of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (the subjects of the study). Integral to this virtual ethnography was Twitter, which served as both a locus of interactions and conduit of vital information that led to relevant news, videos and images. Conducting this virtual ethnography moved beyond just ‘lurking’, and very much involved becoming part of Bahrain’s online community. In some ways this was for the sake of establishing trust and credibility, but it was also an inevitable part of online activism, of which I have become a part. (Jones, 2013)
As an active member of a community writing and blogging on Bahrain,
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I too became part of this new cultural ‘industry’, engaging in the construction of satirical art, sharing videos and endorsing what I thought was entertaining, powerful, poignant or moving. Only through this constant immersion over a long period
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was I able to keep tabs on the constant stream of tweets, videos and references. The ethnography exposed me to an incredibly rich world of revolutionary cultural content, in both English and Arabic. This richness was in part due to the rise of smart phones, the Internet and social media. New technologies preserved many of the sites and sounds of the revolution, which was not simply ‘image-heavy’ but also heavily aural (Buali, 2012). Slogans, chants and sounds became ubiquitous and as much as part of the revolution as banners. YouTube videos in particular allowed the refrains of the revolution to come ingrained in people’s minds. Chants such as ‘silmiyya, silmiyya’ (peaceful peaceful), ‘yasqut Hamad’ (down with Hamad) ‘ash-sha‘b yurīd islāh/isqāt an-niẓām’ (the people want the reform/fall of the regime) and ‘bi-rūh, bi-dem, nafīdak ya-l-Bahrain’ (with our blood, our soul, we sacrifice ourselves for you, Bahrain) grew to be iconic of the uprising. This is especially true of the refrain of
Although the protesters were repressed, often brutally, the resulting uprising prompted a proliferation of creative and stylistically innovative cultural content, from more traditional forms, such as graffiti and banners (in both English and Arabic), to more modern forms that blended emerging technologies such as social media with stylistic innovation. Social media was useful in disseminating information and images and preserving transient protests into more permanent digital recordings. This was particularly true with regard to graffiti, which the authorities are usually quick to paint over. A blog called ‘RebelliousWalls’ was set up to chronicle graffiti in Bahrain, especially that which criticised Bahrain’s hosting of the contentious Formula One Grand Prix. Blogs also allowed people to document and preserve otherwise transient moments of cultural production. For example, Fahad Desmukh (@chanadbh), a journalist and blogger on Bahrain, documented a number of instances of revolutionary arts, crafts and détournement. Examples included revolutionaries who had used spent tear gas canisters to make things like jewellery, pencil holders (dairawy4ever, 2011) and even a throne (@veritaz, 2011).
In addition to this, other acts of peaceful, creative defiance included balloon releases, in which V for victory signs, pictures of martyrs or slogans such as ‘Down with Hamad’ were attached to balloons and then released into the Bahraini sky. While the balloon releases in Bahrain were peaceful and largely symbolic, they were often taken seriously by the authorities. Indeed, the proliferation of social media technologies allowed people unconnected with the original balloon release to capture the resulting denouement. In one instance, a balloon displaying the phrase ‘Down with Hamad’ was filmed being released. Later, another video emerged that showed policemen attempting to capture the balloon (AHRARMURQOBAN, 2011). Eventually, the police succeeded and put the fully inflated balloon in the back of a police jeep. Satirically, those who filmed the video titled it ‘Itiqal Nafaakha Yasqut Hamad’ (Arrest of Yasqut Hamad Balloon).
Similarly, a wooden mannequin of a woman with a sign reading ‘free our prisoners’ was arrested and put in the car, while other activists filmed a mock hanging of some members of the Al Khalifa ruling family (Jones, 2012). Statues of the Pearl Roundabout, which itself had become symbolic and metonymic of the uprising itself, were often made by activists following its vindictive destruction by the Bahrain authorities. These statues were often placed in public places by activists, confounding the country’s police who would often go to considerable lengths to remove and/or destroy them. As Amal Khalaf (2013) argues, ‘The monument [Pearl Roundabout], once used as part of the state’s image-economy, has been turned into a memorial for an uprising against the very state that created it’. These creative forms of resistance, coupled with the power of social media, allowed these acts of defiance to be shared with those who may have not witnessed the original act. As forms of protest and civil disobedience, they were a genre in their own right. That is to say, quieted creative acts that served to irritate and antagonise the authorities in a peaceful fashion. Furthermore, by allowing activists and citizens to publicise the subversive, social media assisted in de-institutionalising political discourse and disrupting the agenda-setting nature of the state media.
While social media was used to disseminate and document forms of resistance, sometimes social media itself provided new forms of resistance and cultural production. This often came in the form of memes, a modern phenomenon of cultural production (Knobel & Lankshear, 2007) defined by Shifman (2012, p. 2) ‘as units of culture that spread from person to person by means of copying or imitation’. Indeed, given the more dramatic events of the past few years and the zeitgeist of social media, one may be forgiven for thinking that the genre of the Arab uprisings may be characterised by what Sheyma Buali describes as ‘the aesthetic of hand-held, grainy, on-the-run footage, with shirtless men on the ground, usually accompanied by the sounds of people shouting slogans calling for the fall of the regime, gunshots and takbeers’ (Buali, 2012). However, as has been argued before, ‘the collective effervescence spawned in meatspace during the early days of the uprising, coupled with the relative goodwill between different factions of protesters, led to a Twitter campaign that utilised the hashtag #UniteBH (Short for Unite Bahrain)’ (Jones, 2016, p. 77). The premise was simple; tweet something that you loved about Bahrain that people could unite about. The credit for its inception went to Manaf al Muhandis (@Redbelt), a young middle-class Bahraini professional. Soon, the country’s creative industry latched onto the campaign. Saleh Nass, a local film-maker, asked people to submit short videos of themselves saying what they loved about Bahrain (Jones, 2016). The ubiquity of personal cameras, phones or webcams made such an appeal relatively straightforward. People submitted their videos, and Saleh Nass edited them so as to form a montage that was then distributed on YouTube. Soon afterwards, a rap song was made, and t-shirts,
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badges, lanyards and mugs were being produced, each bearing the slogan
However, any society so self-conscious of sectarianism and difference is a fragile society vulnerable to division. The authorities reacted harshly to these displays of cross-sect and cross-group co-operation. The creator of the #UniteBH movement was arrested and interrogated overnight in connection with his involvement (Jones, 2016). Stories surfaced of those wearing ‘No Sunni, No Shi‘a, Just Bahraini’ t-shirts being ridiculed at checkpoints (Al Yusif, 2011). In addition to this intimidation, the government sought to appropriate, co-opt and monitor the #UniteBH campaign to ensure that the government appeared to be the sponsors of a unity-based event. After the Ministry of Social Development endorsed the campaign, it lost any ‘revolutionary’ credentials, instead becoming a vehicle to promote and market Bahrain’s neoliberal economy (Jones, 2016, p. 78). After this appropriation, #UniteBH events started to be held at locations that showcased Bahrain’s business-friendly attitude and ‘façade of neoliberal modernity’ (Jones, 2016, p. 78), further highlighting its tutelage under counter-revolutionary actors.
#UniteBH’s potency lay in how it challenged the Bahrain’s regime divide and rule tactics. As such, its destruction or co-optation became an important part of attacking revolutionary cultural production. As alluded to earlier, this cultural production espousing unity was problematic for the regime as it threatened the government’s traditional monopoly on their role as a bulwark against violent religious sectarianism. As Abdulhadi Khalaf (1988) argues, the Al Khalifas have always been able to ‘monopolise use of force in the territory, mediate among tribal and confessional hierarchies, and impose their segmented co-existence’. By doing so, they legitimise their continued position as rulers of the country (Khuri, 1980). Slogans such as ‘no Sunni no Shi‘a, just Bahraini’, when not done on government terms, threaten their primacy as mediators in inter communal relations. Before its co-optation, a number of activists expressed their reservation that despite its well-meaning intent, the initial #UniteBH campaign was an attempt to whitewash human rights abuses in Bahrain by projecting an illusion of harmonious normalcy in Bahrain. Rather than addressing inequalities, injustices and lack of real democracy, the campaign simply focused on the positive aspects of Bahraini society and thus chose to ignore problems of sectarianism and discrimination. Instead of encouraging revolution, it was a plea to accept the status quo. It did not address, for example, institutional discrimination against the country’s
Despite the flaws of #UniteBH, it was a memetic device that initially spawned a raft of cultural production that ostensibly promoted unity and peace. What was perhaps a genre of utopian fiction gave way to a semi-dystopian sense of reality. As government repression increased, and as divisions began to appear in Bahraini society, between the opposition itself, and between pro-democracy and pro-status quo groups, genres shifted. As protesters were further radicalised by government repression, videos of activist, violence became more common. Interactions on Twitter became more heated, and people who bought into the narrative that the Bahrain uprising was an exogenous event designed to spread Iranian hegemony in the region began to distribute ‘conspiratorial’ videos attempting to discredit the pro-democracy movement. Many of these narratives carried themes that alluded to the Shi‘a as sexually deviant fanatics, or apostate, who only carried Bahraini flags to pretend they were patriotic (Khalaf, 2013). Conspiratorial exposes became common, with activists and counter-revolutionary actors attempting to undermine each others’ narratives by creating images and videos debunking their claims.
From a genre of utopian unity to emergence of satire
In addition to these conspiratorial forms of genre, political satire emerged as the reality of the situation in Bahrain changed. There was a marked shift from a potentially revolutionary genre of utopian unity to ones that best addressed the nature of government repression, political manoeuvring and deception.
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Indeed, the rise of satire demonstrated a move away from idealistic discourses such as #UniteBH to ones that were less ambiguous, perhaps more cynical, and less vulnerable to co-optation or appropriation. In the midst of challenges to the political order, satire is increasingly important. Social media are, in many ways, an ideal medium for satire. Generally speaking, they are more decentralised and thus less exposed to state censorship. As an object of curiosity of the Arab uprisings too, content distributed via social media is imbued with a certain contemporary relevance, especially when there is no association with governmental media. Any programme broadcast on state television would risk losing its revolutionary credentials by being associated with the authorities. This was demonstrated amply by the UniteBH campaign, which was co-opted under the Ministry of Social Development. Unlike the #UniteBH meme though, which was not primarily humorous, the first authentic
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meme to emerge following Bahrain’s uprising was satirical. Early on in the uprising, as the government began to increase the repression of pro-democracy activists, and sought to defame and discredit the movement by propagating mufabrakāt (fabrications), satire began to become more commonplace. These mufabrakāt seemed to have a particular allure for satirists, most notably due to their sheer absurdity and unlikeliness. The first of such mufabrakāt was the story of Houzman, a.k.a Hoseman (Arabic: هوزمان), is the name of a satirical, fictional superhero intended to poke fun at a Bahraini policeman who was featured in a propaganda documentary film produced and aired by Bahrain’s state-run TV station in March 2011. According to the program, the policeman was allegedly captured by pro-reform protesters, but managed to escape by climbing down the wall from the roof using only a plastic hose. Due to the Bahraini population’s overwhelming scepticism towards state-run media, the official’s testimony and dramatic re-enactment of escape quickly became a subject of mockeries online, earning the nickname ‘Houzman’.
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Soon after Bahrain Television (BTV) aired the news clip, Twitter lit up with users mocking
While
Rise of parody accounts
Following the
Interestingly, these accounts generally cater for different audiences. The account with the most followers, @RashedKhalifa, tweets in Arabic and has been doing so for about 2 years. Other accounts, such as @SheikhKhalifaPM, mostly tweet in English. With satire, this is important, as it is often quite an exclusive form of humour in that it relies on the audience to have a certain amount of culturally specific knowledge. Indeed:
parody depends on the recognition by the audience of both the ‘foreground’ (parody) and ‘background’ (target text) and the dynamics between these levels. In other words, it is possible to miss the parodic intent of a work if one is unfamiliar with the cultural references. (Milne, 2013, p. 197)
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Thus, while @RashedKhalifa’s account may appeal to all Bahraini activists who speak Arabic, @SheikhKhalifaPM is perhaps more appealing to English-speaking audiences or the so-called ‘Chicken-nuggets’ – a generation of Gulf Arabs born in the 1980s and 1990s who prefer to speak in English and ‘until recently … lingered at the margins of social and cultural life within their countries’ (Al Hasan, 2013).
Themes addressed by @SheikhKhalifaPM include the prime minister’s corruption, his autocratic nature and his length of time in power. While these themes come across through his tweets, further elements of satire are evident in the YouTube videos he or she creates, many of which feature
On other occasions, the Al Khalifa regime solicits advice from Hitler. When Zainab Al-Khawaja was arrested for tearing up a photo of King Hamad, the Al Khalifas ask Hitler what to do. Alluding to the perceived hierarchy within Bahraini’s Royal Family, which places the Prime Minister as more powerful than the King, Hitler dismisses Al-Khawaja’s crimes by saying Hamad needs to ‘grow some balls’. The Hitler memes are also peppered with mentions of culturally specific commentary on the Prime Minister himself. As with @SheikhKhalifaPM’s tweets, his corruption is often alluded to, especially with regard to, his alleged and fraudulent procurement of large amounts of land in Bahrain for small sums of money. While these satirical memes imply some knowledge of local issues, they also perform a didactic function in that they inform people less familiar with Bahraini politics about specific grievances people have against Khalifa and the Ruling Family.
This role of fusing political commentary with humour is complemented by the account’s interactivity and performativity. Many users address the account as ‘Your Highness’, and he responds with suitable jokes, advice or derision. In addition to this interaction and performance, @SheikhKhalifaPM’s presence extends beyond Twitter. He has his own blog and YouTube account. The extent of his performance and his desire to export his parody to new audiences and perhaps encourage engagement with the Bahrain issue is demonstrated by his use of multiple social media platforms. Khalifa’s familiarity with contemporary sites, exemplified by his attempts to insert Bahrain-related terms in ‘UrbanDictionary’, demonstrates a level of performativity that moves him beyond a mere Twitter parody. The use of familiar memes, such as the
However, while one might argue that the @SheikhKhalifaPM parody account loses some of its revolutionary credibility by isolating the most marginalised of Bahrainis, such as the non-English-speaking community, it fulfils an important awareness raising function on behalf of pro-democracy activists. During a climate where government rhetoric is attempting to paint the uprising as an ethno-religious and Shi‘a uprising on behest of Iran and Hezbollah, @SheikhKhalifaPM overcomes language barriers and attempts to bridge cultural gaps by marketing the revolution to a wider audience via an accessible and entertaining genre. Arguably, such satire seeks to win over foreign support by addressing Western audiences through a familiar comedic device, taking local protest to a transnational public sphere. Similarly, the owner of the account frequently changes the name (which Twitter allows one to do), to reflect themes in the current affairs that are broadly known. In its most recent iteration (March 2016), the account is called ‘Khalifa Al Swamp’, a nod towards Trump’s rhetoric of swamp referring to a corrupt establishment. @SheikhKhalifaPM also has the ability, as one respondent reported, to reassure and ‘de-scare’ users. A number of interviewees added that his satirical take on the often inflammatory and sensationalist state media made it less intimidating and galvanised their desire to keep engaging in advocacy on behalf of Bahrain’s pro-democracy movement. For one other respondent, it just ‘humanized’ what was an alien situation, increasing empathy and a desire to understand the Bahrain uprising and the revolutionary struggles. This underlines the argument that satire can have an important community-building function and make potentially difficult and forbidding topics accessible to broader audiences, thus potentially sustaining support for the revolution by solidifying activist counter-publics and supporting their attempts to influence political decision through lobbying.
Indeed, @SheikhKhalifaPM has become as much of a political pundit as a satirist, using irony, sarcasm and humour to ‘actively call upon audiences’ shared assumptions and predilections in an attempt to make members of existing discursive communities present to one another and, ideally, to turn those communities into actively politicised ones’ (Day, 2011, p. 146). Given that these communities are both disperse and diasporic, global and local, @SheikhKhalifaPM taps into the global public sphere, pushing critique about Bahrain beyond Bahrain and to broader audiences. Indeed, as globalisation has challenged the normative assumption of a public sphere tied to a sovereign nation state, @SheikhKhalifaPM demonstrates the development of a pundit who engages critically with dispersed and international actors seeking to advocate change in Bahrain, inadvertently forming a what Bart Cammaerts (2007, p. 266) calls ‘glocalized … transnational activism’.
Baharna Drama
Baharna Drama is a series of satirical video clips filmed and then posted on the video-sharing site YouTube by a group of anonymous, balaclava-wearing activists.
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In the clips, the activists film themselves satirising well-known contentious incidents in Bahrain. In particular, they focus on events that appeared to be government mufabrakāt
The extent of its revolutionary authenticity, in that it is produced by the country’s historically most marginalised population, is evident even from its name ‘Baharna Drama’, as the name bahārna refers to the indigenous, predominantly Shi‘a inhabitants of Bahrain, who have been oppressed by the Al Khalifa regime. Indeed, it could be argued that Sunni Shi‘a sectarianism in Bahrain has its roots in the feudal history of Al Khalifa overrule of the Baharna. Interestingly, while all the examples of satire and parody imply a bottom-up form of cultural production, the fact that Baharna Drama has sought to accentuate its ethnic credentials in the title demonstrate that the producers are a couple of steps ‘removed from the dominant’, which ‘allows them to play up their outsiders eye for absurdity’ (Day, 2011, pp. 9–10). Given the more esoteric approach of Baharna Drama, it is perhaps more an example of an active and critical citizenry expressing themselves through satire than it is a symbol of glocalised transnational activism.
Notable themes addressed by Baharna Drama include Bahrain’s collusion with Saudi Arabia, a long-time ally who sent over a thousand troops into Bahrain in 2011 to help quell the pro-democracy protests. Indeed, many Bahrain activists refer to Saudi as an occupying force (Shebabi & Jones, 2015). What makes Bahrain’s reliance on Saudi intervention so ironic is the Bahraini government’s frequent denunciation of foreign interference in Bahrain. In one of the episodes, the protagonists are imitating officers and balṭajiyya 15 at a checkpoint in Bahrain. A car pulls up, and the officers ask the driver to get out and open the boot. The officers proceed to inspect the contents of the trunk, tossing out old shoes and other bits of junk. They then come across weapons, including handguns and rifles, but, somewhat bafflingly, throw them away dismissively. However, their casual attitude to the weapons is clarified moments later, when they find a Saudi Arabian flag in the trunk. This elicits jubilation from the officers, who proceed to cheer, jump up and down and hug the driver. They then take great pains to return all the items that they threw out of the car trunk (قناة BaharnaDrama, 2011, October 30). This critique of Bahrain’s relation with the Saudi regime is further emphasised when the next car pulls up to the checkpoint. The officers proceed to inspect the boot. Again, they throw out bits of junk and bric-a-brac. They come across an air horn, and pip ‘tn tn ttn’ on it, but then toss it away dismissively – (this joke itself an act of defiance and also a reference to the perceived ignorance of the balṭajiyya). Shortly afterwards, they stumble across a Bahraini flag in the trunk. This alarms them, and they proceed to punch and kick the driver of the vehicle. This attack obviously alludes to the fact that the Al Khalifa regime and its supporters are more beholden to Saudi Arabia than they are to any sense of Bahraini patriotism. It also renders the government line that the uprising is a product of foreign interference hypocritical, for it shows the regime not simply ignoring the presence of a foreign (Saudi) flag but actively rejoicing when one is found in the trunk (قناة BaharnaDrama, 2011, October 30).
Similarly, in another clip entitled ‘Majlis an-Nuwab al-Bahraini’ (Bahraini Council of Deputies), the speaker of Parliament is seen denouncing all foreign interference in Bahraini affairs (قناة BaharnaDrama, 2011, November 16). Immediately after this denunciation, he waves an Emirati and Saudi Arabian flag, itself a dig at the presence of Emirati and Saudi Arabian security forces in Bahrain. The satire is, of course, well founded. The United Arab Emirates sent at least 800 troops into Bahrain in 2011 to help quash the protest. Furthermore, many attendees of pro-government rallies frequently waved Saudi Arabian flags. One affluent private school also held a Saudi-day, in which students decked the whole school out with Saudi flags. Related to this theme of foreign interference, a number of the videos addressed the government’s attempts to coerce Bahrain’s large population of South Asian migrants into boosting numbers at pro-government rallies. An episode called Maserat Tajami‘ al-Kharda al-Watani (Gathering of National Coins) shows Bahraini balṭajiyya and policemen paying Pakistani workers money to wave Saudi flags and pictures of King Hamad – the implication being that much of the pro-government support was bought – hence the name ‘The Gathering of National Coins’. In order to deliberately symbolise their lack of connection to Bahrain’s internal affairs, the workers obliviously hold the pictures of King Hamad upside down (قناة BaharnaDrama, 2011, December 27).
Other notable themes present in the sketches include ridiculing government attempts to defame activists by suggesting they obtain weapons from Iran. The trope of the regime associating unrest as Iranian sponsored subversion goes back to the Iranian revolution in 1979. During 2011, in particular, there were a number of instances where the authorities claimed that they had found caches of weapons, including machine-guns, swords and hammers. Many activists believed this to be government mufabrakāt aimed at discrediting what had been up to that point a peaceful movement. It was often joked that if the activists had all these weapons, why did they not use them? In the episode
The themes of weapons are extended in the clip Mustashfa al-Salmaniyya al-Askari (Salmaniyya Military Hospital), when the actors satirise a highly contentious episode in Bahrain in which a group of doctors at Bahrain’s Salmaniyya Hospital were accused by the authorities of stockpiling weapons (Black, 2011), stealing medicine and making protesters’ wounds worse in order to get more media attention (McEvers, 2011). In the episode, the actors are playing doctors at Salmaniyya, yet instead of medical instruments, they have weapons (قناة BaharnaDrama, 2011, November 7). Victims coming in for treatment are attacked with weapons, yet leave feeling top of the world. In the last scene, the doctor’s pharmacist is giving out medication to a patient, though the medication is actually spent tear gas canisters. The doctor lists the origins of the ‘medication’, saying they are American or French (depending on the tear gas canister). In addition to satirising the government’s mufabrakāt, this clip also alludes to the irony that even though the government are the one’s attacking protesters with weapons, they have the audacity to accuse primary caregivers and health professionals of using weapons in hospital. The use of the tear gas canisters to represent medicine is also an interesting piece of ironic détournement in which activists use the regime’s weapons against them, while also criticising foreign influence and the arms trade.
One of the final episodes produced by the makers of Baharna Drama is perhaps their finest work. In this clip, titled ‘Ghazwat Jawad al-Kubra’ (raid on big Jawads), producers satirise an attack by pro-government thugs on a supermarket owned by a merchant who supplied food to protesters during their occupation of the Pearl Roundabout in 2011 (قناة Baharna Drama, 2012, April 16). 16 The original attack was filmed by the store’s CCTV cameras, and the footage soon went viral on YouTube. In it, dozens of balṭajiyya flood into the supermarket and proceed to break windows, steal merchandise and vandalise the store. The police do little to intervene. On the contrary, some of them engage in theft and vandalism themselves. In the satirical take, the producers reconstruct a rustic version of the supermarket and even place the camera on the ceiling as if it were a CCTV camera. After two men begin to loot the store, it is flooded with a herd of goats and sheep, who represent the pro-government supporters and balṭajiyya of the original footage. The use of goats is significant, not least because the word ‘sheep’ in Arabic (khurūf), as in English, is often used to refer to those who follow the herd and do not think critically. After the sheep leave, some of the balṭajiyya and vandals then proceed to hug and chat to the policemen who come in to intervene, itself a commentary on how the Bahraini government use civilian militias to help in repressing dissent. Perhaps, most interesting about this final episode (no more were made afterwards) was that it contained no dialogue and could be understood and appreciated by anyone familiar with the Jawads rage, even those unfamiliar with Arabic. Whether or not this marked an attempt to broaden the previously more esoteric appeal is unknown, but it certainly appeared to be, stylistically, a move towards a more produced and slick form of content.
Satire: privileged by revolution and authoritarianism
While satire has a rich history in the Arab World, 2011 certainly marked a new turn in Bahrain’s satirical tradition, not least due to the confluence between a sense of crisis-induced ‘satirical urgency’ and technological change. Social media has proven itself to be an important place for the emergence of satire and counter-hegemonic content, whether in its simple memetic form or in parody accounts and the more labour-intensive efforts of Baharna Drama. Each of these different productions show a level of depth to the satirical project in Bahrain, demonstrating that satire is not simply a sporadic incident or anomaly. 17 On the contrary, the proliferation of satire shows a diverse engagement with the genre that is both indicative of Bahrain’s cosmopolitanism and of the different target audiences. For example, satirical memes are the easiest to produce and the most accessible to those with basic technological literacy in Bahrain. Serials such as Baharna Drama offer nuanced and sophisticated satire geared towards Bahraini audiences who are familiar with the finer points of Bahrain’s uprising. Baharna Drama’s appeal also lies in its rustic charm, which itself satirises the highly produced, yet disingenuous spectacles shown on Bahrain’s technically modern media, yet ethically bankrupt media. Different again are parody accounts like that of @SheikhKhalifaPM, which offer political punditry, information and satire and are geared more towards Westernised audiences, highlighting a global connectedness. With perhaps rare exceptions, such as when bahārna drama portray government supporters as sheep, they all seem to offer a Horatian offering, a humorous critique, gently mocking rather than acerbic (Hill, 2013). The satire to have emerged in Bahrain has rarely been Juvenalian or nihilistic, preferring a ‘wry smile’ directed at the hegemonic order to a dystopian shaming of all humanity.
This diversity highlights critical engagement with both local and global publics, displaying how activists and critics of the government are engaging with multiple spheres. While there is still some contention as to whether satire serves as a basis for effective political change, satirical cultural production is a rich site of political discourse that gives an insight into Bahraini politics and commonly held grievances among Bahrain’s pro-democracy activists. The extent to which these marginal satirical discourses marshal public opinion and influence policy is questionable, yet they still form part of the effervescence that bubbles inside in the public sphere, generating publicity and debate before fizzing out and being absorbed into the fluid landscape of the public reservoir. The subversiveness of satire is also particularly fitting for a revolution, as it highlights a distinctive shift away from local institutionally dominated processes of cultural production. Indeed, in an age where consumers become producers in the memetic shifting of messages, social media such as Twitter and YouTube facilitate the means by which citizens can contribute to the public sphere, whether it be local, transnational or revolutionary. However, given that government action plays a key role in generating the material and scope for satire, it may, as a genre, not be directly removed from government tutelage, as it is a sociorhetorical response to the authoritarian public sphere. As a genre, satire thrives on the absurdity it seeks to critique and thus owes its very existence to the authoritarian policies of the Bahraini government. Without this scope for criticism, satire would cease to exist in the same way. With regard to medium, the presence of social media is also partly a result of the inability for oppositional voices to be heard on mainstream media. In this sense, the authoritarian public sphere allows for a plurality of discourses, so long as they are on its own terms and so long as they remain on the periphery of mainstream discourse or institutions.
In Bahrain, when it was clear that the relative unity that characterised the beginning of the uprising was fading, and the government’s policy was to repress, two competing discourses of the revolution began to emerge. Within this dichotomy emerged different narratives, each with its own genres and aesthetic. Indeed, on social media in Bahrain, there was a palpable shift from a utopian genre that espoused unity, to the emergence of cultural production more particularistic to different sides of the conflict. A more measured and progressive government response may have not resulted in an environment in which opportunities for satire and parody became abundant. Genres that may have actually been revolutionary in a manner more dangerous to the government’s repressive strategy, such as #UniteBH, were confronted, co-opted and appropriated by the regime, rendering them ineffective. So, ultimately, we must make a distinction between revolutionary genres and genres that are privileged by revolution. Indeed, there is a distinction between the two. The former may be genres that best promote a revolutionary ideal and that are contingent on cultural specific factors likely to engender a set of collective common goals in opposition to an oppressive regime. In some regards, this goes against Hill’s normative idea of political satire, for to be truly disruptive or revolutionary, perhaps a genre must actually revel, rather than reject, the idea of departing the margins for the mainstream. After all, a revolution implies some degree of populism, as opposed to obscurity. By becoming mainstream, does something cease to be satirical as it is no longer on the margins criticising the dominant master narrative? Furthermore, satire may serve to be divisive, and entrench meanings, while validating the identity of in-groups and excluding out-groups. This is not to say it is nihilistic but merely a particular expression of counter-hegemonic criticism that, paradoxically, plays into the polarising ruling strategy of the Bahraini government. Indeed, it would seem, as Ralph Rosen (2012, p. 2) notes, that ‘satire thrives on a number of paradoxes’.
It would seem that cultural production within the Bahrain revolution privileged satire, but that does not mean that genres remained constant and unchanging. On the contrary, genres evolved and changed, often as a result of government action and intervention. While satire may not be the disruptive force some scholars claim, the emergence of it in Bahrain at least problematises essentialising narratives of the ‘Arab street’. It certainly complicates Marc Lynch’s idea that the Arab Public Sphere is a ‘single voice driving out all dissent and critical reason’ (Āyish, 2008, p. 153). Instead, by attempting to drive out dissent, the regime creates active and critical counter-publics with their own platforms and forms of cultural production. Therefore, authoritarian regimes shape the public sphere, rather than entirely monopolising it. Furthermore, by driving out dissent, the authoritarian public sphere facilitates the creation of a transnational sphere, for citizens and activists confounded by attempts to influence public opinion on a sovereign-national level must sometimes turn to international actors in order to affect meaningful change or raise the profile of their revolutionary struggle.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the Project for Advanced Research in Global Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication for holding the symposium in 2014 at which this research was presented. The kind and thoughtful insights of the participants and organisers have been important in the writing and research process.
Notes
Author biography
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References
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