The captions on both of these snapshots says "Slave Fort Bahrain 57." I could not find anything about a slave fort online, but did find links about forts in Bahrain (here, here, and here). Perhaps a reader, far wiser than I, will find the hidden link to answer where and what this is. It does appear to have been under renovation.
Could there be a bluer sky?
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A lot of the Pearl Divers were slaves - so they had slaves there at a rather late date too.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting. So maybe this particular fort was slave quarters.
DeleteActually, The Persian Gulf was one of several major routes for the Arab slave trade. Slavers working east Africa sailed their Dhows from the Horn of Africa, through the Red Sea, the Gulf, or across the Indian Ocean to sell slaves. They built forts all along their routes to both house slaves and to defend themselves from rivals. I have no idea whether the fort in this slide was one of them, but it's a good bet.
ReplyDeleteToday, a system known as Kafala, or sponsorship, is common through out the middle east. In the Kafala system, a foreign worker is sponsored by a local employer, who has absolute responsibility and control over the sponsored worker. On arrival, the worker's passport is seized, and they can only quit their job and leave with the permission of the employer. Workers are often, kept against their will, and aren't paid. Coincidentally, Bahrain has just become the first country in the Gulf to ban the Kalafa system. The justice minister referred to it as a modern day form of slavery.
I hate to write this, but slavery is one of the fastest growing institutions in the world, and it's not just in the middle east. The word "salve" is almost never used, but bonded labor, indentured servitude, and, of course, the trade in sex workers and children are all forms of slavery.
And, before I bore too many people with my political rants, if you think slavery ended in the United States with the 13th Amendment, do some research into the convict labor laws in the south. Slavery actually ended, in the U.S., in the early 1940s, when the Roosevelt administration put an end to it. Well almost, people were being arrested on peonage charges, in the south, into the 1960s.
Loved your rant. Hit all the points.
DeleteGlad to hear Bahrain has done away with the forced servitude so prevalent in the Mid East.
I think Donald's photo best resembles your third link to the Riffa Fort circa 1812 in East Riffa, Bahrain, based on other images on line. Apparently one of the tall towers in the background is an example of an ancient Persian architectural feature called a windcatcher. It was a system for cooling a large palace/residence by using a clever series of chimneys to direct cool exterior winds in a building and exhaust hot interior air.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with WJY's comment on slavery. It is abhorrent that it still exists in parts of the world where oppression and exploitation rule.
I too thought it might have been the Riva Fort. That information about the cooling system is fascinating!
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