Bahrain: the friendliest country in world

I ran across some interesting news today. It confirms what I’ve been thinking all along. Forbes magazine, a very reputable magazine ran a survey and declared that Bahrain was the friendliest country in the world. Really? I found that very hard to believe that Bahrain, as tiny as it would be the first at anything. I did not dispute its findings however. Bahrain is an incredibly friendly place, which is even more surprising considering the negative stereotype of the Middle East. I think it hones back to what I’ve been saying since day 1 in the blog, and finally its been validated. Im quite thrilled about that. Yahoo picked up on the story and spread it throughout the Internet. Canada, last year’s winner was #2, and the U.S. was all the way down to #10. Here’s the article if you want more details: http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/30/worlds-friendliest-countries-lifestyle-travel-canada-bahrain-hsbc.html

Bahrain seems to be 50% Indian. The joke is that if Indians were to leave that Bahrain would cease to exist. Because India is so close, many expats both work here and maintain their fulltime residences in India. However, I know of several multi-generational Indian families that live here. I love the Indian Culture. So you have the genuine goodness of Indians (and the Filipinos are quite friendly too) mixed with Arab Hospitality and you have Bahrain being #1. Now this is not a 100% scientific study and Im sure there are flaws in their formula and an announcement, but still its recognition of what many people who live and visit Bahrain already know to be true.

This friendly nature of Bahrain goes back thousands of years even to the dawn of time. Many people believe that Bahrain was actually the place where the Garden of Eden was originally located. Back then, the island was full of natural fresh water springs so there were dozens if not hundreds of oasis’ in the midst of this desert island. At one point Bahrain was quite tropical. These natural fresh water springs were prominent in Bahrain until about 70 years ago, when the dredging of the shipping channels occurred with building of modern shipping ports. The theory is that the underground springs were destroyed and the fresh water was diverted to somewhere unknown in the ocean. It was also because of these freshwater springs that Bahrain’s pearl diving industry was once so vibrant. The freshwater and saltwater made the pearls unique in the world.

Ok..while Im being a documentarian, I’ll go further. Bahrain was actually the center of the world at one point, at least in terms of commerce. The first known civilizations Mesopotamia (Modern Day Iraq) and the Indus Valley (Pakistan-India) were the main population hubs. Bahrain was right in the middle of these two. So traders and the shipping industry naturally used Bahrain to off-load their exports and on-load their imports since Bahrain was the precise half-way mark. But it wasn’t just that, it was the fresh water. Bahrain had the fresh water (they call it sweet water here) springs, like no other country in the Middle East at the time, Sailors were also able to store up on the precious freshwater. So for thousands of years Bahrain had scores of visitors from different cultures descend upon their land. Generation after generation of Bahraini’s became very hospitable to visitors, it was just good business and it became ingrained in their culture. I did a short documentary on this topic for the Government that details this. If you’d like to see it, it can be found on my website: http://www.rickbeeman.com/Site/Documentary.html


Arab hospitality (I believe) was literally born in Bahrain. Because you had so many ethnic groups visiting, you also had a lot of different religions. Bahrain is non-judgmental as you can worship whatever God you wish to worship. There are even two Jewish synagogues here. This is entirely different from other Islamic countries. Saudi Arabia for instance will cut your head off in the public square if you preach anything other than Islam. With Bahrain being so close to Saudi Arabia (a 15 mile long bridge connects them) its even more amazing about the freedom. Bahrain and Saudi couldn’t be more different, perhaps that is why thousand of Saudis descend upon Bahrain each weekend. In Bahrain women can drive, you can have alcohol, you can talk to a woman that isn’t your wife without fear of being arrested, you can date, go to movies, go to clubs, basically you can do whatever you can do in the U.S. or Europe. You can do none of those aforementioned things in Saudi Arabia.

So thousands of years have gone into Bahrain winning this award. Im sure its going to fill a lot of Bahraini’s with justified pride. I know Im proud of it. I have loved living here. The award also coincides with one of my mandates for coming here, and that is to change the way that Americans (and the West) think of the Middle East. This is just another one of my many steps in the journey of a 1000 miles. Thank you Forbes for helping me out.