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This article examines Bahrain's February 14 Coalition, an anonymous and decentralized youth movement that was formed during the small Gulf state's 2011 Arab Spring-inspired uprising. Drawing on fieldwork interviews and a content analysis study of the group's Facebook page, this article explores how the group uses its opaque organizational structure and strong social media presence to promote its off-line activities. In providing empirical data on the ideology, aims, and approach to activism of this important yet understudied group, this article questions prevailing sectarian narratives and makes the case for a more nuanced understanding of Bahrain's ongoing civil unrest.
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The youth movements that emerged in Bahrain during the "Arab Spring" uprisings of 2010-2011 were not simply seeking to transplant the gains of their counterparts in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere into a Gulf context. Reflecting deep social changes and growing intergenerational divides, the colorful, loosely coordinated groups of (mostly) young people who took to the streets to voice a range of concerns presented a distinct sociopolitical challenge to a unique Gulf status quo.1 In Bahrain, which had experienced significant civil unrest during the 1990s, youth engagement with politics has deeper roots than in some of the other Gulf states, especially among Shi'i youth who had borne the brunt of the Al Khalifa dynasty's increasingly sectarian education and employment policies. As in other parts of the Arab world, social media played a crucial role in empowering youth to organize and express their views, and in spite of the ongoing debate about the contribution of social media to sparking the Arab Spring uprisings, its utility as tool to facilitate organization and communication within activist movements has been well established.2
This article focuses on what is arguably Bahrain's most influential Shi'i youth group, the February 14 Coalition (I'tilaf Shabab Thawrat Arba'at 'Ashar Fibrayir, in full: Youth Coalition of the February 14 Revolution). While the February 14 Coalition is often mentioned in the literature on Bahrain's Arab Spring-inspired protest movement, the group has not been the subject of in-depth research and there is a significant lack of empirical information about its ideology and approach to activism. The February 14 Coalition is broadly discussed in a number of research studies on Bahrain's politics;3 however, the...