It is over the hill where he had to go. Samuel Burroughs squinted hard at the horizon and his eyes thought he saw wisps of smoke rising. His heart told him it was smoke, maybe his silent, incorrect wish. His head said they were merely dirty clouds.

Over the hill was where the tip from Carla Hudson said to go, the one that came to him almost by accident, the way the beginning of most true scoops, true stories come. He had been back to Berlin, where he lived, and was in the Cafe Paris with an out-of-town buddy, and during dinner an old girl friend of the guest dropped by. She worked for an aid group, was worried about the war and told Sam and his chum that her group was deeply concerned about rumors of Bosnian villages where Muslims lived being destroyed – along with the Muslims. She was heading down there to see what her group could do.

So Sam’s friend went home with her that night, but two weeks later she showed up in Belgrade, at the Hyatt, where Sam’s friend had thoughtfully told her where to find Sam. The friend was back in Boston and had no interest in burning villages. Sam had no interest in the woman but a lot in burning villages in Bosnia. Carla actually came through. She got him a seat in a humanitarian convoy and paperwork and he did not have lie or break any journalistic vow, just keep his mouth shut. Then, the plan was when they got to the village, he could ask away.

But that was over the hill, or perhaps several hills. The seven hours from Belgrade had produced many zigs and zags, numerous checkpoints and already a very bad back. But each village they went through was still standing and, although there were not a lot of people, each village felt like it was alive and moderately well.

And then suddenly is changed. As the collection of trucks and autos turned the next corner, there were people on the road. At first, Sam did not take note, lost in thoughts and the eagerness of the hunt. Then, the paces of the people quicken and thickened and the convoy slowed to a crawl, then stopped.

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Anniversaries are dangerous days and dangerous moments. There is often a lot of celebrating, a flash of attention and then the sun goes down and life goes on as before. We properly celebrate an accomplishment from the past without real thought or determination on how to preserve and build on the celebrated triumph.

So now we are in the run of anniversaries of the Arab Spring, where elections have been held in Tunisia and Egypt, disarray and uncertainty pervades Libya and the bloody battle continues in Syria. In places like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Yemen there are different murmurs of dissent and muddle of just what direction the movements and the reforms will go forth.

Are the elections of Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt the teaching moments that shine on this first anniversary? Or is the true result that woman with the blue bra, being beaten in Cairo coupled with a ramp up on as sexual assaults on journalists? Is the complete confusion and uncertainty of Yemen the harbinger, or the frustrating stagnation of political movement in Lebanon? Or is another wave of self-immolations in Tunisia the true elements of the story?

Perhaps it is perfect symbolism that again people are lighting themselves on fire in Tunisia. That says the circle has now been completed. Back to the beginning, the first tipping points that Tunisia — whose previous impact in the modern Arab world was designed by its dictator to be quiet at best — found itself launching a political dynamic unlike any in the area’s history, since perhaps the first great wave of Islam swept over the region.

Yet there is a difference.

To read the entire post, please go to:

http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2012/02/03/tunisia-leads-way-now/

MANAMA, Bahrain — It is likely that Zahra Saleh Mohammed, 27, and Ali Yousif Al Satrawi, 16, probably never met during their lives in Bahrain. They only met in that wider inhospitable universe of people harmed abruptly and unnaturally on the same day because of the same protest and both being in wrong places at the wrong time.

Now one of them is dead and the other teetering on the brink.

Zahra was getting off a bus Saturday in Diah, a village outside the Bahraini capital of Manama, when she was attacked with an iron bar wielded by protestors. The iron rebar — the material used to fortify walls in new construction — violently smashed deep into her head, and she was rushed to a hospital where she remains in serious condition.

Why was Zahra there? She got off the bus at that the location, not her normal stop, because a demonstration closed major sections of roadways. She was not part of any action, not protesting, merely trying to get home.

Wrong place, wrong time.

Ali was killed earlier Saturday after being hit by a police car. He was participating in a protest in Juffair, a suburb of Manama, which is home to many Americans and the U.S. naval facility.

For the entire story please go to: http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2011/11/21/intersections-of-fate-in-bahrain/

MANAMA, Bahrain — An independent commission examining the unrest that occurred in Bahrain earlier this year will document and detail the widespread attacks by anti-government protestors on South Asian citizens that left at least four dead and almost 100 injured.

That report will be the first public examination of the scale and suffering caused by those attacks against Bahrain’s South Asian citizens. Those attacks have been largely ignored by the media primarily because they do not fit the commonly accepted narrative of the Arab Spring.

According to documents received by the independent commission, which is to report its findings on November 23, at the peak of the unrest in March 2011 a series of violent attacks erupted against the South Asian expatriate community. The attacks were primarily orchestrated by mobs of masked armed men roaming the neighborhoods where expatriates were known to live, according to information provided to the independent commission.

The anti-government mobs broke into the houses of the expatriates, brutally beating everyone in their way and vandalizing the properties, according to reports collected by the commission. According to testimony and documentation presented to the commission, the attackers’ rage against the Asian expatriates is said to have been driven by the sentiment that foreigners are taking away jobs from native born Bahrainians. Moreover, in some cases, the expatriates — particularly the Pakistanis – were also targeted because they were believed to be associated with policemen, the commission has found. Many South Asian citizens are members of the police force in Bahrain.

To read the entire postining, please go to:

http://beforeitsnews.com/story/1399/668/Attacks_on_Bahrain_s_Asian_citizens_documented_by_Independent_Commission.html

Foreign Policy Association blog, November 18, 2011

The fast-forward events of political discourse in Bahrain that were rushing towards October 31 have come to an unexpected halt. Just as the countdown reached single digits to the release of an independent commission’s report that would detail in depth who did what in the street protests earlier this year the commission said hang on.

It was the pause heard around the island and around the region. No other Arab nation that experienced any kind of street protests this year had invited independent outsiders to come in and examine what happened. All sides were anxiously awaiting the findings: those opposed to the government, to say “see we told you so;” government officials who expect the commission to candidly show where some of the protestors were heinous; and the vast majority of Bahrainis who believe in their country and who seek a fuller understanding of what caused the scar Bahrain now seeks to heal.

To read the full posting, please go to:

http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2011/11/18/a-pause-button-hits-bahrain/