On the 14 February anniversary, many of us breathed a sigh of relief; the protests hadn’t been particularly well attended, they hadn’t achieved their aims of reaching the Pearl Roundabout, and the police performed impressively well in managing these events, without giving the opposition any excuse to talk about repression, injustice and martyrs.

The poster boy for the 14 February demos was very much Nabeel Rajab. It was him who was photographed and quoted my most of the international newspapers and he who had spectacularly declared that he’d drag his young daughter and wife off to the Pearl – apparently in the hope of them all getting assaulted and locked up and thus providing the opposition with further material to grease their propaganda machine with. We can be grateful that our security forces showed restraint in refraining from granting Rajab’s wish.

His Royal Highness the King has once again shown that he is wiser and more courageous than all of us.

In the hours after the large March 9^th demonstration, the majority of us Bahrainis who remain loyal to our political system were nursing a sense of anger and resentment towards the protesters who had once again hijacked our streets and brought our country to a standstill. We had once again endured Molotovs, attacks on the police, burning tires and a dozen other means of violently and aggressively asserting their demands.

However, instead of giving voice to our anger and frustration, the Royal Court issued a statement welcoming Bahrainis exercising their right to freedom expression within the confines of the law, describing this as “a source of pride for Bahrain”.