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I WONDER how many of us have started letters this week, only to scrap them and try again because the enormity of our current situation seems too difficult to address with mere words.

Life has been taken and, for many, the world is a completely different place to the one we looked forward to in January.

What happened? Why did it happen? Who is responsible? Where did it go so wrong? What was the role of the media?

These questions come from our core. Deep within us, the desire to understand, to clarify, to resolve, is so utterly human that, when we witness events beyond our understanding or acceptance, we feel out of place. We may feel that things shouldn't be this way, but they are!

These feelings are normal, the circumstances are not. We are ordinary beings experiencing extraordinary events.

Our minds swim with the pace of things. Our hearts race and our guts churn as events unfold at blistering speed. One minute you hear this, the next you feel that! Up and down, to and fro, left and right, back and forth!

Our emotions have been taken on a rollercoaster ride we neither wanted nor solicited. So, what in God's name are we doing here?

We Bahrainis are the most liked Arabs in the world. The islanders, the ancient islanders. So good with foreigners, so welcoming to all. How on earth did we get to this?

Not surprisingly, there are two sides to this answer.

Crucially, the very early lack of restraint on the part of the establishment. Senior officials have announced repeatedly that an enquiry is underway to establish the facts.

Equally crucial is the restraint demonstrated by the protesters after that tragic event and the carnival-like atmosphere on the roundabout thereafter.

We waited to see how the Crown Prince was getting on with his initiative for dialogue and we became increasingly aware that the opposition groups had a broad and divergent list of issues that they wanted addressed.

Generally, we relaxed knowing that all involved were now 'talking'.

At this point there was fairly widespread support for the protesters' right to protest. I personally disagreed with much of their politics but respected their right to voice their complaints in an unthreatening and democratic fashion.

They reminded me of the Greenham Common protest from the 1980s when thousands camped out on the Common against nuclear proliferation and missiles being based in the UK.

Then the 'tooting' started.

At first we thought nothing of it. We use our car horns all the time anyway, what was the big deal?

The big deal is that it is a tactic that is meant to intimidate. It is a constant reminder that 'we are everywhere'. It is not friendly and it is not meant to be.

Thereafter, the unofficial roadblocks became a manifestation of the intimidation we had, until that point, just heard. Now things had taken a sinister turn. More importantly, especially for the peaceful protesters, their efforts had been derailed, although at that point they may not have realised it.

The actions of a militant portion of them gave ample reason for the authorities to step in, where previously they had been happy to let them be.

Pro-government radicals also stepped-up their rhetoric and there was much sword waving, adding fuel to what was becoming a sectarian divide.

Our politics were rapidly becoming the politics of extremes. This is never good and is always destructive. Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, to name but a few examples.

My sympathies evaporated after I was stopped at an unofficial roadblock and asked the kind of questions the 3rd Reich could have asked.

In Bahrain your name can very clearly expose your religion, not always, but often. When a kid with a screwdriver driven through a piece of wood demands that information he ain't doing it so that he can address you by your first name. He wants to know which side of the fence you are.

In Bahrain, it was a broken, dilapidated fence for the most part. Easy to climb through with no bricks or barbed wire. In some places there was no fence at all and those brave Bahrainis had married one sect to another. We have lived and worked together for generations, never ever caring about each other's faith or how it was observed.

Today, Bahrainis are looking at each other in cars at the traffic lights wondering who the other is. Is he Sunni? Is he Shia? Can I tell by looking at him? How do I feel?

Suspicion and fear pervade because the far right and the far left have hijacked and derailed something that really only had to do with housing, jobs and rising prices because of the global recession, WHICH WE ARE STILL IN. The global recession is a depression in all but name. Anyone who tells you it has passed is deluded.

Today, we must not judge the protesters by the worst elements contained therein. Nor, by the same token, should we judge pro-government support by its most radical elements either.

We are one nation standing on the edge of a very deep drop to oblivion.

Civil conflict throughout history has rendered any nation exposed, unproductive, racked with poverty and abandoned by civilization until its people see the errors of their ways and begin a slow, and painfully long climb, back to the light of understanding and tolerance.

Our society has been defined by its tolerance for generations. We must not give up on that now.

Brothers and sisters, step back. Step back and take a slow, deep breath.

Do not fear me, I am your brother. I am the guy in the car next to you, I am your next door neighbour, I am you.

Nader Shaheen,

Bahrain.