About

The British Council are running a competition to celebrate 200 years of British Bahraini relations. To do so, they are doing the following:

We are celebrating 200 years of relations between the UK and Bahrain. To mark this milestone we would like to invite anyone living in Bahrain or the UK to share their best Bahrain-UK memories, whether those were created here in Bahrain or in the UK. This could be anything from archival materials belonging to your family, to a very recent story of a trip or a personal encounter that marked you or that you feel symbolizes the people to people relationships between Bahrain and the UK.

The British Council has been working to create links between the people of the UK and Bahrain for over 60 years. However, exchanges between the two countries began long before that. Every day, our customers, our colleagues and our partners share their personal stories with us and Bahrain 200 is the perfect occasion to gather and celebrate these with everyone. Let your friends and relatives know by tweeting the opportunity with the #200stories hashtag!

Although the competition winners have not been publicized, there will no doubt be many genuine, heart-warming stories about the UK and Bahrain’s historic friendship. However, there is a fear that such stories will be cherry-picked, presenting a view of history that simply glorifies a relationship that was often either brutal and problematic. This site documents other stories, the ones where the relationship is show to either enforce systems of discrimination and subordination. Please share your stories, where you believe somehow that British-Bahraini friendship impacted personally on you, or the rights of those close to you, or your sense of humanity. They can be personal, academic, or otherwise!

A snapshot from the British Council’s website