“After the Sheikhs” stirs up a wave of reactions after Dhahi Khalfan accuses the Bahraini opposition of financing it

2015-03-25 - 2:15 ص

:Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): The deputy chief of Dubai police and public security, Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, has described the book "After the Sheikhs", by the British academic Dr. Christopher Davidson, that it is "filled with insults" and questioned the role of the Bahraini opposition in financing it. As a result, the author described Khalfan's words as being influenced by "conspiracy theory".

Khalfan said, "After the Sheikhs" book is full of insults, abuse, jealousy and envy. The ink used to print its words is more valuable than the words themselves."

Khalfan continued on his Twitter account, "Did the Bahraini opposition help in financing this book? It is just a question."

Davidson, who responded to Khalfan in Arabic, described him as "friend" saying, "It is the conspiracy theory my friend."

Awal Centre for Studies and Documentation launched the Arabic edition of "After the Sheikhs: The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies" during the Beirut International Book Fair on December 2nd 2014.

The centre provided the translation from the original text by the British academic Dr. Christopher Davidson, who specializes in Middle Eastern Politics at the University of Durham.

Awal Centre is a Bahraini studies center whose headquarters is in London and Beirut and is concerned in Bahraini and Gulf issues.

Khalfan's comment has stirred up a wave of reactions. A Qatari twitter user replied, "Is the Bahraini opposition unified so that we can generalize? The book is a research project published since years ago and has been translated into Arabic by an independent research center."

Another twitter user added sarcastically, "As if publishing a book needs a countries' budget to be financed. What is this irrational wondering?"

He continued in the same context, "Christopher is a prominent doctor. Thousands of publishing houses wish to publish his books."

Another twitter user under the name of Adnan Al Awlaqi tweeted, "If the things in this book were not true, I would have laughed and cheered up. However, because it has something of reality, I felt annoyed."

Another one tweeted, "Some perceptions for the outcomes of the region and the reason of the sheikhs' collapsing are real and most of them happened. A real perception built on true happenings."

"After the Sheikhs" was widely read by people and its copies were all sold within a month of launching the Arabic version. Thus, a second edition was launched and a third one is expected soon.

Khalfan was met with some comments that support his point of view, for a twitter user tweeted, "As long as Awal Centre for studies and documentation is the publisher, it is not unusual that the finance be from the Bahraini opposition, Iran or even America."

Mohammed Al Ramadan added, "Their weapon (the Bahraini opposition) is the media and the author of the book is a close friend to Nabeel Rajab. Thus, it seems that the financing was more informatics rather than material."

Besides, another one tweeted, "What do we wait from the graduates of Qom and Iran sheikhs who only know the name of Islam and the patterns of the Arabic letters and whose pockets are full of Khums money."

On the other side, another twitter user posted that this book resembles, "A null and void narrative that expresses jealousy and envy and has no sense of creativeness."

"After the Sheikhs" that was published for the first time in 2012 raised arguments when it predicted the coming collapse of the Gulf monarchies. This book is considered the first academic research that comes with this interesting expectation. The book's first edition was published by Hurst publisher and then by "Oxford" University press.

"Foreign Policy" has classified this book in the top 20 best books about the Middle East for 2012. Many reviews and articles were written about it in the international and Arab newspapers such as, "The Economist", "The Independent" and "The Guardian". Moreover, some parts of the book were quoted and published by "Foreign Affairs" and "Foreign Policy". A Persian edition of this book was published earlier the last year.

 

 


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