Coming back from doing preliminary research work with my group for this week's country brief got me thinking about reform and development in a broader sense. I know the purpose of this class is to intensely study concerns and issues surrounding MENA social movements, but I think as SIS students we need to be able to apply these lessons to any situation around the world, including America's. Seeing the struggle for reform in Bahrain, and reading of the just open and innate corruption implicit in that struggle really makes me appreciate the American process. It may not be the best that it possibly can be, but it could also be a lot worse. That sounds like a fifth graders description of American politics, I know...but sometimes the youth are the wisest amongst us.
One other side story I came across in my Bahraini research, was of an American law firm being paid 30K a month to be kept on retainer by the Bahraini royal family to assist them in repressing the 2011 uprisings. They also paid a DC PR firm 240k over a 6-month period to help promote their image in the states. Others speak of the negative influence of the US in their countries and how Americans are always meddling foreigners, I know its become the hegemonic norm to shrug these accusations off in the spirit of a fading pax-Americana, but cases like this really make me sit up and take notice and evaluate just how fallible our positions in world politics can be.
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