05/06/2011
FEATURE BY MIKE LAWRENCE
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The fact that Bahrain is to be allowed to run a race this year appals me. What also appals me is that India is to be inconvenienced. No doubt the promoters in India are hoping for a down to the wire finale, but what about the marshals, the circuit doctors and paramedics, the stall holders and the fans who have already booked their flights and hotel rooms?
Races cannot take place without marshals and I can imagine people arranging time off work for the honour of spending a long weekend without pay. As always, the powers that be pay scant attention to the vast number of people without whom a race could not happen.
None of the teams want to go to Bahrain, but they are contractually obliged to do so. Before the 1958 Cuban GP for sports cars, some of Fidel Castro's men kidnapped Fangio. They would have taken Stirling as well, but Fangio told them that Moss was on his honeymoon. The rebels treated Fangio well and released him after the race, they were making a political point.
The world has moved on, I cannot think of a guerrilla group today who would not snatch a star prize because he is on his honeymoon. Sports events are soft targets for political activists.
Then there is the issue for having the season extended with 2012 to prepare for. Teams have been handed a logistical nightmare just before the Christmas holidays. Bernie does not celebrate Christmas, but lots of people do.
Sponsors may not like having their names linked to Bahrain and this is a special issue for Red Bull and Toro Rosso which are named for their owner/sponsor. Right now, Bahrain is as attractive to a sponsor as syphilis.
The WMSC has sent delegates on a fact-finding mission. In the 1930s there were many nasty stories leaking about Stalin's Russia so a fact-finding mission was invited, a group which included George Bernard Shaw. They found no evidence of the ten million who died of famine in the Ukraine or of the prison camps in Siberia. They saw only happy, glowing, farm workers and people making tractors.
A fact-finding mission is about as useful as the due diligence the FIA used when deciding which teams to admit in 2010. Due diligence weeded out hopeless cases like Lola and Prodrive, yet accepted US GP and HRT. Excuse me for being sceptical about fact finding, due diligence and other fancy phrases.
All the teams, except for HRT, belong to FOTA and this could be show time. If they said they were not going, there is actually nothing that anyone could do. Bernie could jump up and down, waving a piece of paper as much as he liked, no court would support him. All it would do would be to add to the gaiety of nations.
This could become the issue which decides who really is important in Formula One - it sure isn't some hedge fund.
Bernie has said that Bahrain is not about the money. Of course not, Bernie, perish the thought.
Bahrain failed to meet the original deadline of 1st May and that should have been an end to the matter. I am a journalist, I know what a deadline means. The word is 'dead', not man-flu. Apparently, the WMSC has its own definition, just as taxi drivers have their own version of the Highway Code.
It is a fair bet that 'force majeure' was invoked, it often is on such occasions. A force majeure is something beyond normal control, like your factory burning down, but not if you started the fire yourself. The reason for Bahrain cancelling in March was not something beyond its control. People stage peaceful demonstrate all the time in democracies without being killed and maimed.
Bahraini citizens, male and female, have the vote and may elect the Lower House of 40 representatives. The Upper House, also numbering 40, is selected by the king. Most of the Bahraini cabinet is related to the king, who must reckon that he has a very gifted family. Bahrain is an absolute monarchy with window dressing.
Peaceful demonstrators in most countries are not killed and maimed, and there have been at least 30 deaths. By comparison to Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen, this is a small number, but it is still mass murder. You cannot tell the friends and family of the victims that their deaths are statistically insignificant. The death of one person is 100 per-cent for that person.
When gunfire is involved, a rough rule of thumb is ten injuries for every death and this will range in severity from bruising when diving to the ground, via losing limbs, to paralysis, and those are just the physical scars. People are still dying of injuries sustained in March.
Initially, the Bahraini authorities agreed to the release of some political prisoners. What has actually happened is that hundreds of people have been thrown into prison. What conditions must be like defies imagination since the cells must be bursting at the seams.
Among those arrested were the medical staff who treated the wounded and there have been reports of torture and killings.
When people stage a peaceful demonstration and are killed, the technical term is murder and the Bahraini royal family has blood on its hands. Ironically, the initial demonstrations were not about regime change, but the extension of civil liberties. One small clique has grown powerful because of mineral resources which happen to be under their feet,
Part of an explosive mix is the fact that the ruling faction is Sunni while most of the population is Shia. Think Catholic and Protestant, think Northern Ireland. The troubles in Northern Ireland began when the Catholic minority staged peaceful demonstrations for increased civil liberties, that was all, and look what happened.
The lifting of martial law, imposed with the assistance of that fine upholder of human rights, Saudi Arabia, coincided with the WMSC's decision. On the day before the WMSC met, The Independent newspaper headlined with a story about a Bahraini woman who had been imprisoned for reading a poem at a rally. We are seriously asked to believe that Bahrain is now stable.
The Bahraini authorities lost control when they decided to murder and maim their own citizens. Bahrain is an absolute monarchy, every order comes from the top, it is not like some corporation where you can sacrifice some hapless middle-manager.
Motor racing has often dealt with unsavoury regimes, but there has always been a buffer, the conceit that somehow the organising club is separate from the government. Even while Nazi Germany was imprisoning political opponents, practising euthanasia on unfortunates and stripping Jews of basic human rights, we could pretend that this somehow did not involve sport.
There was the idea that sport was different and that it was somehow above everyday reality. Sport, so ran, runs, a naive argument, was a way of forming common bonds between people of different nations, though George Orwell got it right when he declared that sport was warfare without the guns.
When it came to justifying motor racing in countries with unsavoury regimes, you could always pretend that the organising club had nothing to do with the government. You were in La-La Land, but you could believe that you had the basis for an argument.
Bahrain wanted a Grand Prix for prestige and to boost tourism, nothing new about that. Now it wants to use our sport to camouflage the actions of an unsavoury government. Max Mosley has written: 'If a sport accepts this role, it becomes a tool of government. If Formula One allows itself to be used in this way in Bahrain, it will share the regime's guilt as surely as if it went out and helped brutalise unarmed protesters.'
The point about Bahrain is that it is an absolute monarchy and Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa owns both the circuit and the race, he is also head of the Bahraini armed forces. There is no buffer between he and the race.
An absolute monarchy is an inheritary dictatorship. When Max Mosley had some difficult press, the Crown Prince let it be known that Max was not welcome in Bahrain.
A princeling told the elected President of the FIA that he was not welcome at a race which was sanctioned by the FIA. I reckon that if you want to go motor racing, you abide by motor racing rules and that includes paying due respect to the elected head of the sport.
Max had sex, for money, with consensual adults, so what? Bahrain is wall-to-wall with hookers, it is whore Heaven. Hookers go where the money is. Negotionable affection is one of the unstated attractions of Bahrain.
If the race goes ahead, and I hope that it does not, I would like to think that TV will ignore the Crown Prince. The best thing that can happen is that he is ignored.
Asking him direct questions about the bloody regime in which he is a leading element will not work. He will have his minders and will anyway have been prepped by spin doctors. Treating him like a leper is the best thing, it will rob him of the ability to grandstand.
No power on earth can make you attend a function the Crown Prince may throw, you can always post a sickie.
The claim that it is safe to hold a Grand Prix is tosh. The conditions which caused thousands to demonstrate remain. Early demonstrations asked only for change, not the overthrow of the monarchy, now the climate has changed.
In an interview with BBC Radio, Nabeel Rajab, President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights has said that if the race goes ahead, race day will be a nationwide 'Day of Rage'. 'Day of Rage' is the term used by protesters for their original demonstration.
Bahrain has no shortage of oil money, which is finite. It has invested serious cash in a long-term future which includes tourism and financial services. As a tourist destination it is now a no-no, you cannot get travel insurance. As for Bahrain being a financial centre, forget it.
It would be my guess that since tourists are not gagging to book rooms in Bahrain, there will be lay-offs of staff, which will only add to the pool of discontent.
The Crown Prince seems to think that running a race will repair the damage his family has done and the WMSC is daft enough to believe him. I really did think that Jean Todt was more sophisticated than that.
Sir Jackie claims that a race will bring people together. It will not. It will only emphasise the division between the haves and the have-nots in a country awash with oil money. By the way, Jackie, it is Mark Webber who speaks for us now.
The Cheltenham Festival is a horse race meeting which attracts thousands of Irish. On St Patrick's Day this year, a man ran in front of the horses and was lucky to survive, a horse not having ABS, power assisted steering, or much of a brain.
The guy was protesting at the way he had been treated by RyanAir, a budget airline. By comparison to what the Bahraini ruling elite has done to its own people, this guy had no complaint, but it takes only one aggrieved person.
Should the Bahrain GP go ahead on 30th October it will, of course, be targeted. There is a huge pro-democracy movement in the Middle East and Bahrain has no way of dealing with it. It could not even brutalise its own citizens without help from Saudi Arabia.
Make no mistake, the race will be targeted. Put yourself in the position of an activist, the Bahrain GP is too tempting to ignore. There are no national borders when it comes to modern communication and there are plenty of political activists in the Middle East who would like nothing better than to depose an absolute monarch. All they need to do is book a package with a company running tips to the Grand Prix.
What the WMSC should do is to restore the original calendar and put Bahrain on probation. If, in a couple of years or so. it has proved to be fit, it can be reinstated.
Bahrain is a unique case since the circuit and the race are owned by the Crown Prince. There is no buffer of a sporting organisation to allow us to pretend that sport is somehow different from everyday life.
It is simple, Bahrain must be excluded and India returned to its original slot. India is the most populous democracy on earth and it is growing in stature by the day, shoving it aside to accommodate a country using the sport for political ends is no way to treat an important newcomer.
It is time for Formula One to make a stand.
Mike Lawrence
mike.lawrence@pitpass.com
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