Quote Originally Posted by jcustis View Post
I am curious about a particular fact though, and that is what strata of society the protesters are from. Ruling families, TCN residents, or disenfranchised Arabs who claim Bahrain home but do not have any ties to ruling class?
Approximately 70-80% of the citizen population are Shiites. The ruling Al Khalifa family are Sunni, and the political and parliamentary system has been designed to limit Shiite political influence. Consequently, the protesters have been largely (although not exclusively) Shiite.

Historically, both the Bahraini military and the security services have relied of significant numbers of foreign personnel. I'm not sure what the current situation is (although certainly one hears complaints--true or not--from Bahrain protesters that many of the riot police are non-nationals).