MANAMA, Bahrain — It’s the height of the holiday season and I’m hiding in the men’s room in the executive suite of a big steel-and-glass bank building, scarfing a Snickers bar and stealing sips of bottled water while no one’s looking because I don’t want to offend anyone. The problem is, it’s Ramadan and I’m in Manama, the capital city of the island nation of Bahrain off the Saudi Arabian coast south of Kuwait, and by religious bent and in some cases by law the secretaries and executives I encounter in the day-long series of meetings I’ve been stuck in for two and a half weeks aren’t able to offer me coffee or even a glass of water. Everyone is fasting from sun-up to sun-down, suffering the ever more gnawing stomach burn and squirm of uncomfortability that comes from not eating or drinking all day.

So I’m locked in a men’s room huffing chocolate. It seems outlandish, but really it’s a mild inconvenience, given the good fortune of finding myself on a magazine assignment in Bahrain. Although it’s Ramadan everywhere else, at least I can get room service whenever I get back to my hotel.

While the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is more like Easter than Christmas (or maybe more like Lent), it shares some characteristics with both Christian and Jewish holidays. (All three religions are based on the same text, after all.) At the end of the month there’s a great three-day party, called Eid Al-Fitr, when everyone dresses their houses in fairy lights, goes visiting and sits through an endless string of dinners with the relatives.

During Ramadan itself, as during Hanukkah, it’s sunset that determines when the fun begins. Only instead of lighting candles and giving out gelt, Muslims make the infinitely wiser move of gorging themselves on as much food as possible, keeping almost Spanish hours, and doing as little as possible during the day before closing up shop around 2 p.m. to head home and wait for the sun to set and the food fest to begin again. The restaurants are closed all day, and it’s illegal for even Westerners like myself to eat, drink or smoke outside.

Far be it from me, a non-denominational American in a Muslim nation at a time of unprecedented tension, another bombing next door in Saudi Arabia, and scary-sounding security warnings – stuff like “avoid places where Westerners might congregate” – far be it from me to step on my hosts’ highly inconvenient religious practices by inconsiderately indulging my hunger pangs in public. Hence the clandestine chocolate bar.

When I get a call from Moniem, an enthusiastic young stockbroker I’ve met at a Ramadan supper given by the stock exchange (their Christmas party, more or less), I’m ambivalent about going out. But it’s only in New York that I’ve ever been actually assaulted, and hey, how many times am I going to be in Manama on a Saturday night? So at 9:30 I meet him in the lobby of my hotel and we pile into his cousin Najeeb’s Suzuki Vitara and head downtown for what sounds to me like a gallery opening. “We can go see some paintings,” Najeeb, a back-office accountant, tells me. And all I can think is how fitting it is, somehow, that I should find Manhattan culture being imitated so far from New York.

It takes about two minutes to drive to downtown Manama from my hotel. It takes about two minutes to drive pretty much anywhere in Bahrain, an island about thirty miles long and only ten across. Most of the country’s 750,000 citizens live in Manama, at the northeast tip, but a few towns are sprinkled further down the dusty island, as are a U.S. naval base, a lushly irrigated golf course, and, weirdly, the Middle East’s first Formula 1 racing circuit.

The city itself is a mix of Financial District Modern and two- and three-story Colonial Stucco buildings of the kind found from Manila to Mozambique. Aspiring boulevards emanate from honking traffic circles only to bog down in one-lane back streets that wind around mosques, souqs, tea shops and grill restaurants. It’s a mellow city with a happening nightlife (this is where the Saudis come to cut loose, after all), but even during Ramadan there’s the impression that business is getting done.

Tonight the streets are alive. It’s only a few blocks from our parking spot behind the stock exchange building to the warren of narrow alleys that constitutes the old souq, but we walk them in the company of dozens of other Arabs all headed in the same direction. I lope along behind Najeeb from square to square, followed by Moniem and a melismatic soundtrack of Arabic music. It’s as crowded as an American subway at rush hour and I have to dip my shoulder between passers-by to keep up. I am the only white guy in sight, but no one seems to notice.

We stop on a corner where a man is serving something Tang-like in little plastic cups, but when I try to pay the cousins laugh at me. The crowd is lighter here, but they are still coming and going in all directions as if headed to a rock concert maybe, stopping to greet each other in the street or not stopping but just smiling and waving as they go past. At the end of the street I can see a building that’s somehow grand and squat at the same time, its soaring face a brilliant aquamarine festooned with tall ornate Arabic writing in white and gold. Most of the people passing by are either women in black abaya or men in white dish-dasha, the heel-length robe that is the standard men’s uniform in the Arab Gulf (though both Moniem and Najeeb wear American-style clothes). A couple of girls go by in the long robes and headscarves that leave only their faces revealed. Najeeb stares after them hungrily and asks me if I think they look nice.

Moniem is otherwise occupied. “Not so many paintings,” he tells me, looking disappointed, and it takes me a moment to realize he’s referring not to art in a gallery but to paintings like the one on the banner being carried toward us by two young men, of a bearded Muslim preacher or prophet or maybe even an ayatollah. “Maybe we see some music,” Moniem says. And as if on cue, a little cart like a laundromat wagon comes trundling around the corner with a loudspeaker teetering on a pole sticking out of it, powered by a car battery and tended by two young men in black slacks and black button-down shirts, broadcasting the words of the bearded, black-robed man who leads them. A phalanx of clarinetists, also in black, follows along, joined here and there by a trumpet or two, all tootling the same dirge-like Arabic melody, and between them and the imam’s sermon – it’s enough to drown out all the other noise on the street and focus my attention completely on the scene.

The musicians march four abreast but the street is only eight or ten feet wide, and Najeeb’s would-be girlfriends scamper down a side alley to get out of the way. Everyone else stands to one side or another and as the marchers go past, I suddenly find myself pressed into a doorway, transfixed by the musicians’ clamor and then by the long double column of men who follow behind them. They come in a slow, leg-swinging pantomime of a march, all dressed in black (some in what could pass for business attire, some in jeans and AC/DC tour shirts), and all in their 20s and 30s and 40s, neither too young nor too old, the same solemn expression on each man’s face. Each one carries a short bundle of chains fixed to a wooden handle, and as he rotates his torso through each step, he throws one arm over the opposite shoulder to deliver himself a ceremonial blow.

Once I get the hang of Moniem’s English, I understand that we’re out on the night of the Muslim year that commemorates the martyrdom of Imam Ali, who founded the Shiite sect of Islam in the Seventh century and who is apparently buried in Iraq’s holy city, Najaf. The men performing the ceremonial self-flagellation known as latmiyaat are expressing the sect’s 1,350-year-old grief – much as Christians commemorate Christ’s death and resurrection at Easter (or did, until the vapid bunnies and painted eggs got the better of them).

The streets of Manama are a million miles away from Manhattan and art galleries and insipid wine-guzzling scenesters – though even crowded into the doorway with a strange religious procession swirling through the night streets in front of me, I can’t help feeling momentarily like a five o’clock-shadowed Brad Pitt in the second act of a multi-million-dollar filmed-on-location epic of love, loss and bad line readings. When the procession passes, my co-stars and I wander on through the rough hodge-podge of three- and four-story whitewashed buildings. Thin short alleys let onto small rectangles of open space where kids run around and kick balls while the adults chat like friendly neighbors on the sidelines of a Fourth of July parade. Where five streets meet and somehow form a square, more than a hundred women dressed in black are seated on the ground, listening to the story of Imam Ali’s life. A more vitriolic sermon emerges from a mosque that appears suddenly, recessed between two buildings across the street from a row of storefronts. Amid the rapid-fire Arabic, one semi-familiar word surfaces from time to time: Amreeka. America. The security warnings return to my mind, but in this crowd I somehow feel more safe than threatened. This is not a place where Westerners might congregate, after all. “Don’t worry,” Moniem tells me. “It is George Bush they do not like, not you.”

Without my noticing, we’ve wandered back toward the car. The crowds have thinned out a bit, the procession has broken up. The breeze coming off the Manama waterfront, a block away, is downright cool. “What do you want to do now?” Moniem asks me. I hardly have an answer. Najeeb breaks in: “Let’s go to the mall.”

Seef Mall, about a mile away, strikes me as – well, it’s a mall. A vast multi-level indoor air-conditioned mall as up-to-date as any in America, filled with name brands, screaming children and teenage girls – much to Najeeb’s distraction. At the Dairy Queen I have a falafel-burger and marvel at how far down the fast-food chain Bahrain reaches: there’s DQ and Burger King, but there’s also Cinnabon, Bennigan’s, Ponderosa Steakhouse, and even, weirdly, a Seattle’s Best Coffee. I’m a bit shell-shocked by the transition from centuries-old ceremony to 21st century commerce, but it’s soon clear we’re here mostly for Najeeb’s benefit. He ducks into a cosmetics store to flirt with the girl at the register. He has a “girlfriend,” whom he’ll most likely marry, he tells me, but she’s still a teenager and he sees her only about a half dozen times a year. He prefers the idea of love American-style. Despite his frustration, the impression I have is that he gets to try his hand at it often enough.

It’s getting late. The cousins suggest we take in a movie at the mall’s 16-plex. “Johnny Depp,” Najeeb nods approvingly at a Pirates of the Caribbean poster. But the last thing I want to do in Bahrain is sit through an American movie.

Not that an American movie is at all out of place here. The Gulf has its share of American restaurants, American products, American attitudes and ambition (while I am in Bahrain, Najeeb is head-hunted away to a new job after only two days at his old one) and American institutions like the mall, the gigaplex movie theater and the AC/DC t-shirt. Perhaps that’s part of the problem, but not everyone sees it that way.

On the ride back to my hotel, Backstreet Boys blaring from the Vitara’s speakers, I thank the cousins for showing me a slice of Islam I probably never would have found on my own. This sparks a discussion of “living the Muslim way,” which Moniem and Najeeb describe as a life in harmony with one’s fellows – something they find lacking in the Arab world. “Here is violence, discrimination, bad feeling between Shia and Sunni,” Najeeb says. Moniem agrees.

“Here we are not living the Muslim way,” Najeeb tells me. “Only in America do you find people living like true Muslims.”

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With a population of less than 700,000 and a total area of only 706 sq km, the kingdom of Bahrain in the Arabian Gulf has a hard enough time mustering the resources it needs to expand its infrastructure. But over the past few months, its task has been made even harder by an unusual obstacle that has risen in its path: a shortage of sand in the desert island nation.

With property prices rising and a number of ambitious developments already in the works, the shortage of sand – a key ingredient of concrete – is hitting Bahrain hard, driving up construction costs threefold, by some reports. And with renewed investor interest in the region in the wake of the Iraq war and a return of liquidity to the Gulf, the timing could not be worse for a country intent on capitalizing on its reputation for financial services and its recent steps toward political reform.

To anyone who has visited Bahrain, the notion of a sand shortage may seem slightly ridiculous. One encyclopedia describes the 33 islands that make up Bahrain’s archipelago as “level expanses of sand and rock”.

Drive no more than a few minutes beyond the suburbs of Manama, the capital city, and you are suddenly traveling through a pale topography of dust clouds and two-lane highways strewn with grit. The flat white landscape blends seamlessly into the flat white sky, and the major tourist attraction is the Tree of Life, a lone acacia tree, a century old or more, standing valiantly on a small rise surrounded by nothing but obdurate white desert. A few camels can be seen grazing in the distance, but what they might find of sustenance here is a mystery.

Camels, though, are not known for their discernment. Bahrain is not lacking in the uncountable grains of disintegrated rock that fill deserts all over the world. The problem is its quality. For more than 20 years, Bahrain has been short of the particular kind of sand that is needed to make construction-grade concrete, and has had to import its supply – some 6,000 to 8,000 tonnes a day – from Saudi Arabia.

Camels may be satisfied with Bahraini sand, but Bahrain’s contractors are not.

Bahrain’s current “sand crisis”, as Manama’s local newspaper terms it, first began as early as July of 2003, when Saudi Arabia cut off its sand supply without warning or explanation. Even the Bahraini government was not given a reason for the suspension of deliveries, which came by the truckload across the 25km King Fahd causeway that links Bahrain to the Saudi mainland.

Businessmen and government officials in Manama have put forth various explanations to fill the Saudis’ silence. Concern for the environment could be one reason deliveries were stopped, though if this were the case it is unlikely that the Saudis, who pay particular attention to their image abroad, would not have advertised it.

Saudi Arabia’s sand and aggregate export sector operates largely informally, and another explanation that has been floated is that deliveries have been halted while Riyadh puts firmer regulations in place. Saudi Arabia has reportedly sought to expand its own cement-production industry in recent months, a move that may have contributed to the Arabian kingdom’s unwillingness to part with what has become a valuable resource. There is also speculation that Riyadh is hoarding its concrete-production capacity to take advantage of reconstruction contracts that may be coming on to the market in Iraq.

Whatever the reason, the cut-off of supply has affected Bahrain’s property market, which was already moving up, contributing to higher construction costs and higher property estate prices. According to Neil D’Silva, managing director of Norwich Property Consultants in Manama, construction prices now range from $25 to $50 a square foot, including labor costs. Local house prices have doubled in some towns, with prices averaging around $40 a square foot but topping $100 a square foot in prime locations. The property market has soared in the last year, outpacing the stock market, which rose almost 30 per cent in 2003.

Not all of the rise is due to a shortage of sand. Looser residence and ownership restrictions have made property in Bahrain more attractive, especially for expats working just across the causeway in Saudi Arabia who prefer to sleep and socialize in the calmer atmosphere of Bahrain.

Many of Bahrain’s current projects are luxury-living developments that carry a high price tag. At the new Al Marsa Floating City and Residential Marina, prices have risen 20 per cent since sales started in April 2003. The 3m sq m development occupies the man-made Amwaj Islands off Muharraq Island, where Bahrain’s international airport and shipping port are located.

Other projects in the Amwaj Islands include 211 luxury apartments in the seven Mina Towers buildings, where one-bedroom flats go for $70,000 and up, and the 120 two-storey townhouses of the nearby Mirage Beachfront development, which sell for $200,000 and up.

Another luxury project currently under construction is the $1.2 billion Durrat Al-Bahrain residential resort at the south-east end of Bahrain, where seven newly created islands will house up to 16,000 residents.

A newly built 18-hole golf course will also offer its own residential compound, and a marina will host more than 350 yachts. Construction is scheduled for completion in 2006.

Construction on these and other projects has been slowed by the sand shortage, but has not ground completely to a halt. A shortage of sand in the desert, of course, is like a shortage of water in the sea. But for Bahrain, the two problems are not unconnected. The country has been able to replace some of its Arabian peninsular sand supply with sand dredged from the sea floor. But its high chlorine and salt content makes sea sand harder to work with. The government’s recent efforts to expand roadworks in Manama have been able to take advantage of dredged sand, but these supplies are very expensive to obtain and process, especially since it takes three cubic meters of fresh water – itself in short supply on the 40km-long island – to cure one cubic meter of dredged sand.

The government is exploring alternative sources of sand, including importing it from Iran, but a solution has yet to be found. “We are talking with our brothers in Saudi Arabia, and maybe we can sort this problem as soon as possible,” Bahrain’s minister of commerce, Ali Bin Saleh Al-Saleh, said in a recent interview. Until then, he laughed, “We don’t have sand, though we have deserts all around us.”

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Reports that 10,000 people took to the streets of Bahrain to celebrate Jerusalem Day, the last Friday in Ramadan, on 21 November, may have understated the size of the event. Local correspondents report as many as 45,000 attended, a higher-than-normal turnout for the demonstration, which featured the usual anti-American and anti-Israel sloganeering and the burning of a few American flags.

There was no violence or arrests, but a simmering unrest in the normally pro-Western kingdom could have an impact on business interests there, just as the country is trying to make its mark on the international financial scene.

With the recent security warning from the UK embassy in Manama, issued just hours before the 8 November bombings in Riyadh (GSN 722/1), questions arise as to just how contagious the violence in Iraq and Saudi Arabia may be.

Events in Turkey suggest a region-wide phenomenon. But the British warning in Bahrain was later revealed to be based not on any specific information, but simply a generally “high threat from terrorism” in the region, particularly in places where Westerners might gather, the embassy said.

Whether or not terrorism is about to creep across the King Fahd Causeway linking Bahrain with Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, there have been signs of heightened unrest in the island kingdom, which has now reached a level where business interests are beginning to take notice. Some businessmen say that even a mild escalation could have an impact on prospects even as the global economy sputters ahead.

No song and dance
Several recent events point to increased activism on the part of anti-Western groups in Bahrain, though not necessarily to a rise in anti-Western sentiment. In October, Islamist MPs moved in Parliament to cancel two concerts by Lebanese singer Nancy Ajram, charging her show was indecent and provocative. Their motion was soundly defeated, but more than a 100 masked protestors disrupted Ajram’s concerts on 22-23 October, throwing stones, setting rubbish on fire and smashing car windows. There were several arrests over the two nights, but the concerts managed to go on as planned.

A smaller but perhaps more telling disruption came at the end of October, when a child’s Halloween party at an expat compound in a Manama suburb was shut down by an angry mob of approximately 120 Bahrainis, according to the Bahrain-based manager for a major American company doing business throughout the Gulf. The mob brandished mobile phones and threatened to summon many more supporters if the music and partying were not stopped. As the manager put it, “people want to live in a safe place.”

So far, Bahrain has been one of the safest, with a per capita income right in the middle of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) states (higher than Oman and Saudi Arabia), and more progressive democratic reforms in place than most if not all its fellow GCC members.

But many more disturbances of the same nature could change the feeling of security there. Western and Bahraini businessmen both tell GSN they view the situation with more wariness of late, though not yet with alarm. Whether the answer is heightened security, economic development, political reform, or progress in Palestine, Saudi Arabia or Iraq is far from clear. But if an answer is not found and things get much worse in Bahrain, there could be real consequences for business there just as the country is hoping its landmark Bahrain Financial Harbour (BFH) project will raise its international profile with investors.

Trouble at the mall
The tens of thousands of demonstrators that turned out for Palestine Day in Manama gathered outside the new Seef Mall, itself a very American icon, where shoppers have their pick of US-brand fast food and 16 theatres showing American and European films. On the street, some marchers carried pictures of the Statue of Liberty standing atop a pile of skulls.

Though life in Manama went on as normal in the days following the UK security warning and the latest Riyadh bombings, at least one other embassy, Germany’s, closed to foreigners for a reassessment of the country’s security situation, officials said. The US embassy in Manama issued no security warnings in the days before or after the bombings.

Though no new domestic security measures have yet surfaced, Bahrain will be eager to dispel any notion that it is a place not conducive to Western business interests. An escalation of anti-Western unrest could endanger not only new business initiatives but also the ones already in place, which have helped the kingdom establish the great deal of security it currently enjoys.

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