A Bahrain Coffee Shop and Protester Meeting House

Anchor Marco Werman talks to journalist Reem Khalifa in Manama, Bahrain, about a coffee shop that serves as a meeting house for demonstrators, and has been engulfed by tear gas from nearby protests many times.

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Marco Werman: Demonstrators in Bahrain may feel that the Arab Spring has passed them by. After almost a year protestors haven’t seen any tangible results, but at least they seem to have a rallying point. It’s a coffee shop; Costa is a British chain and one of its stores can be found right on a main road in Manama. The shop’s tall windows give it a front row seat on a wide traffic circle where a lot of the protests have occurred. Independent journalist Reem Khalifa is in Bahrain. She’s a regular customer at the coffee shop.

Reem Khalifa: Since the uprising happened in Bahrain on February 14, 2011, this coffee shop witnessed a lot of things among you know, the protestors or the anti-riot police, events like chasing the protestors or beating them, or firing tear gas or rubber bullets, so young Bahraini exchange of views through the social media. And they like to film these incidents or to be part of it. When a group of protestors attempted to occupy the Budaiya highway a few weeks ago it was an attempt to imitate the Occupy Wall Street in New York.

Werman: I was going to say that this whole story about the Costa coffee shop felt a bit like the fast food restaurants around Wall Street where the protestors there from occupy Wall Street would retreat for food and bathroom breaks. What does the Cost coffee shop now represent for these Bahrainis?

Khalifa: Well, as I said to you its location is very ironic and everybody could go there, I mean men and women, boys and girls, and they can study, the can tweet, they can socialize. There is no restrictions on coffee shops in Bahrain like in Saudi, if you go you can’t really sit in a place where men and women sit together. When in Bahrain you will find both sexes sitting together and nobody really interfering. And you will find a lot of university students, it’s like in the states. And even us journalists, we sometimes sit there and all of the sudden it’s all happening in front of your eyes.

Werman: Now, Reem, it was a New York Times online story about the Costa coffee shop that grabbed our attention and we have an excerpt from a New York Times video. This is a customer at the Costa coffee shop, a woman called Fatan expressing openly her anger and frustration with what’s going on.

Fatan: [speaking Arabic]

Werman: And Fatan says, “We’re tired of tolerating the hit and we tolerate, what kind of heart can tolerate this? We’re tried of keeping silent she says and being patient. Our heart is melting into ash.” So Reem Khalifa, if this coffee shop has emerged as kind of an ad hoc protest headquarters why doesn’t the government shut it down?

Khalifa: I don’t know. Ask the government. I think it’s very hard. I mean even Starbuck’s in another part of Manama turned also to be a place for the activists and for a physician to attend when there was a couple of tries in the diplomatic area. And I have to say people are very much fed up seeing the clashes happening without having the right to assemble peacefully. Unfortunately, we’ve seen now the violence is increasing and it is very much frustrating for people like the lady just now we heard her voice.

Werman: Have you actually been tear gassed yet and have you had the misfortune of tasting coffee with tear gas in it?

Khalifa: Yeah, many times, including inside my house in the past three weeks we experienced having this massive of tear gas that turned many areas in Bahrain to white clouds. It’s happening almost every day now and in some areas it’s more extensive.

Werman: Independent journalist, Reem Khalifa, speaking with us from Manama, thank you very much.

Khalifa: Thanks.

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