I'm former expatriate in Bahrain who was working for a regime backed company, I left Bahrain in 2011. Although I knew that the royal family there ruled with impunity, I believed that there were many within the palaces who wanted a fairer society. My support of them crumbled when they started shooting their own people.

Sheikh H is probably marginalised now, just as any Al Khalifa who thinks for themselves and has an inquiring mind which eventually leads them to question the moral implications of the whole affair. Just as the reforming Crown Prince's education project failed and what is left is just window dressing: education could be the undoing of the regime and it is feared by the more hardliners in the family.

Insightful piece, thank you.