Bahrain’s Stillborn Revolution

They called him the golden boy. Celebrated for his grace on the soccer pitch, Aala Hubail was, until last spring, Bahrain’s best hope for a shot at the 2012 Olympics and a chance for the tiny island nation in the Persian Gulf to make the 2014 World Cup. Everyone in this soccer-mad country knew his name. But these days, the hero of Bahraini soccer lives alone in a sparsely furnished apartment in the Omani city of Soor, where he now plays for a local club. The bruises from repeated beatings in detention have faded, but he walks warily, as if still expecting a blow.

Many of his teammates are similarly dispersed and share the same horrific memories. The sudden exodus of Bahrain’s best national players has been a boon for international club soccer but has proved devastating for a home team that probably won’t see the world stage for at least another generation. “We were so close,” says Hubail. “And then we lost it all.”

(PHOTOS: Bahrain Routs Protesters from Pearl Square)

Hubail’s sudden reversal of fortune reflects that of Bahrain, a comfortably prosperous nation that, since a crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations that started nearly a year ago, has seen its international standing plummet and its projected growth for 2011 slashed in half. The Formula 1 International Circuit pulled out in early 2011 over concerns about human-rights abuses, costing the country millions in licensing fees and anticipated tourism revenue. This cosmopolitan country, once applauded for peaceful coexistence between a Sunni monarchy and its majority Shi’ite population, has been transformed into a police state; its Shi’ite-dominated professional class has been hollowed out by suspicion and sham trials.

Tunisia, Egypt and Libya may still be suffering from their Arab Spring hangovers, but Bahrain offers a sobering lesson in how much worse it can be when revolutions fail. The largely Shi’ite revolutionaries in Bahrain, an island nation with limited access to weapons, are unlikely to resort to the armed uprisings of Libya or Syria. Instead, the country faces prolonged, low-intensity unrest that threatens to calcify a long-standing perception of discrimination into what many Shi’ites are starting to call an apartheid state, setting the stage for open sectarian conflict that could destabilize the region.

Linked to Saudi Arabia by a 25-km-long causeway, Bahrain is ethnically Arab. But an estimated 70% of the population shares the same Shi’ite faith of archenemy Iran. Saudi Arabia has no desire to see a pro-democracy uprising in its backyard, nor does it want a Shi’ite uprising strengthening Iran. Bahrain’s economy, based on oil refining, banking and tourism, depends on Saudi patronage; the government is unlikely to defy the will of its larger neighbor.

Bahrain may be small — 500,000 citizens — but it is a potential flash point as tensions rise among Iran, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Bahrain is an essential American ally, providing a base for the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which protects the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and some 50% of the world’s oil production. One analyst likens Bahrain to Serbia in 1914: an inconsequential country until it ignited World War I.

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None of these issues were of any concern to Hubail in the early days of the Arab Spring. Tens of thousands of Bahraini citizens gathered at the capital’s Pearl Roundabout on Feb. 14 to demand long-promised political reforms, calling for the Prime Minister, Sheik Khalifa ibn Salman al-Khalifa — who had served for more than 40 years by appointment of his nephew the King — to stand down and make way for a directly elected parliament.

But Hubail’s passivity changed when five demonstrators died in an early-morning raid by government security forces on the protest camp two days later. They then attacked the mourners with tear gas and live ammunition, launching an escalating cycle of protests, government retaliation, deaths and funeral processions that sparked even larger protests and has resulted in more than 50 dead.

What started as a solidarity movement from both sides of Bahrain’s religious divide quickly devolved into a sectarian rift as the monarchy preyed on Sunni fears of being overwhelmed by the Shi’ite majority should the government implement representational democracy. “They say there can’t be reform until the sectarian problem is resolved,” says Matar Matar, a member of the Shi’ite-dominated Wefaq party, which resigned from parliament in protest over the crackdown. “But if we have more democracy in Bahrain, the problem will be eliminated.” Instead, it was allowed to fester, and soon Hubail was sucked into the politics he had long eschewed.

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When Bahrain’s Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa called for dialogue and defended the rights of all Bahrainis to protest peacefully, Hubail and his Shi’ite teammates joined an athletes’ rally denouncing the severity of the crackdown. Like a doctors’ rally and a teachers’ rally held on previous days, citizens gathered in the tens of thousands. The royal family is revered in Bahrain, and few of the protesters actually desire an end to the monarchy. But after the crackdown, emotions ran high, and several protesters called for the fall of the regime. Others, like Hubail, just asked for reform. Despite the promises, the crackdown became more severe, and on March 14, Saudi tanks rolled across the causeway to help Bahrain stifle the protest. Some 3,000 people were detained for participating, 2,000 suspended from government jobs and hundreds put on military trial, among them 64 athletes. They were sentenced to one to 15 years in prison. Hubail and his teammates, national heroes, were singled out in a rabid name-and-shame campaign conducted by a local sports channel. Government spokesman Abdul-Aziz bin Mubarak al-Khalifa says the broadcast, along with similar Facebook-based smear campaigns, was “regrettable” but denies that the government had anything to do with it. Hubail isn’t placated. “I gave everything to my country, and this is what I get in return,” he says. “All I did was go to a rally. Even His Majesty said it was permissible.”

Hubail’s travails were not over with the broadcast. The next day he and his teammates were pulled from practice and bundled into waiting vans. At the detention center, they were beaten until they signed false confessions. The torture lasted for two months. It wasn’t just the athletes. Doctors, nurses, lawyers and journalists associated with the protests were similarly treated. “They came after all of us because we were the Shi’ite elite,” says Bassim Dhaif, Bahrain’s pre-eminent sports-medicine surgeon. Dhaif was tortured into informing against his colleagues in a tape later released on national TV. International outcry — including from the U.S. — resulted in the release of all but a few protesters in June, though hundreds are still awaiting a retrial in civilian courts.

(TIME Exclusive Photos: Crackdown in Bahrain)

Until then, Dhaif has been suspended from his job at Salmaniya Medical Complex, the country’s only public hospital. Also suspended were the hospital’s best heart surgeon, the only transplant surgeon, the top tier of theater nurses and the most experienced internists. All told, 178 experienced medical professionals are no longer working at Salmaniya.

Government officials admit that the crackdown may have been too harsh, but they defend their decision to quash a revolution that they claim took Bahrain into dangerous waters. “We are in the Gulf, not Scandinavia,” says spokesman Khalifa. And then he hints darkly at an Iranian agenda to set up an “ideological Islamic state” in Bahrain, wielding a threat that resonates well with outsiders who have watched with alarm the success of Islamist parties in Egypt and Tunisia.

(MORE: Bahrain’s Violent Crackdown Hardens Opposition)

Protest leaders dismiss such claims as fearmongering propaganda, pointing out that not only the CIA but also a recent Bahraini-government-funded independent investigation into the uprising found absolutely no evidence of Iranian influence. The government responded with an indignant rebuttal: “Due to security and confidentiality considerations … the Government of Bahrain did not share information of Iranian involvement.”

That report was commissioned by King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa in June, in an attempt to bring healing to a traumatized nation. Despite findings of “systematic torture,” “unlawful detention” and “excessive use of force,” the report, which was released in late November, has helped refurbish the country’s reputation. The King has been hailed for his unflinching transparency in a region where monarchs usually operate with impunity, and his government has been applauded for newly implemented reforms to policing and detention policies. Investment has started to trickle back in, and Formula 1 says Bahrain is back on the 2012 calendar, for now. Even $53 million in arms sales held up in the U.S. Congress pending the report’s release looks like it will go through. On the surface, it seems that the government has successfully contained the revolution, just as it has quarantined the most restless of the Shi’ite villages. Still, the crackdowns continue. “The government’s goal is to quash the revolution by any means necessary, while putting on a reformist window dressing,” says Physicians for Human Rights deputy director Richard Sollom, who was denied entry to Bahrain on Jan. 9, despite having a visa. “And it’s working.”

(MORE: Bahrain’s Hard Justice: Activists Sentenced to Death and Life)

But the protesters, along with the opposition Wefaq party, say the revolution lives on. Bahrain’s newfound calm is relative: not a night goes by without reports of a tear-gas and rubber-bullet attack on protesters in Shi’ite villages, pro-democracy demonstrations or even funerals.

Back in Oman, Hubail just wants to go home and play for his country. After strong lobbying by international human-rights groups, the government has offered amnesty to protesters as long as they were not directly involved in fomenting unrest. But Hubail is wary. Other teammates are still awaiting trial. Soccer is about trust and communication, and Hubail fears that the damage may be irreparable. “After all the insults and the beatings, I’m not sure I can trust my country anymore.”

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