I went to a high school alumni gathering for the first time ever recently, which left me with an uneasy feeling. It was more than the fact that I was one of the oldest ex-students there, or even the awkwardness of meeting former teachers as equals rather than having to sneak around behind their backs. A former pupil even lit a cigarette in the hallway just for the hell of it, making me wish for a second that I smoked too.

No, what struck me most was how much I had changed since leaving the school, particularly in the way I perceive others. As a kid I interacted with students of different backgrounds and ethnicities and hardly gave it a second thought. But coming back to school 10 years on, I found myself subconsciously taking note of various ethnic groupings.

“Wait a minute… this guy was Bahrani? That girl was Persian? All this time?”

Not that I'm the kind of person who cares about these things, but they become hard to ignore as an adult when your mind is ‘tainted' by people's politics, prejudices and insecurities (especially when you have witnessed as many rallies, demonstrations and riots as I have). It seems people are either throwing their ethnicities and beliefs in your face or denying them completely (‘Oh no, we don't have a drop of Persian blood in us at all. We were Arabs originally.').

During school days there was very little of this among the students and we get along fine even today. But my school was an expensive private institution where all the kids were of a similar social class, no matter what their origins. This got me thinking…I have close friends of widely different ethnic backgrounds, but virtually all fall within a certain income bracket. This was not a conscious decision. I guess it's just easier to get along with people who have similar lifestyles and think the same way.

All this leads me to believe that any rifts which have developed in society over the years have less to do with sectarianism and ethnicity than with the disparity between economic classes. Consider marriages as an example. A Sunni and a Shi'ite tying the knot may cause tensions between their families, but they can more easily be overcome if both sides have a similar social standing. But if the man's family is significantly poorer than the woman's, then you can usually kiss the relationship goodbye. Sad, really, but that's how it is.

I hope critics of Bahrain's labour and economic reforms, which aim to create a larger middle class, are proven wrong. I have a few minor issues with it myself, but I don't think it's going to be the disaster that some business leaders predict. And if it succeeds, an important by-product will be to heal the social fabric of the country, which is well worth the sacrifice.

tariqk1976@hotmail.com 

tkhonji@yahoo.com

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