29/03/2012
FEATURE BY MIKE LAWRENCE
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Bernie has blamed the media for opposition to Bahrain, death, torture and imprisonment does not enter the equation. We at Pitpass have been consistent in our opposition to the race, and vociferous in that opposition. We have no hidden agenda. Nobody is paying us to express an opinion. We have never been invited on a carefully-orchestrate 'fact finding' mission involving first class air travel and a five star hotel.
Our opposition stems from the fact that we love the sport and do not want to see it turned into a political football. Shanghai built a circuit for political reasons, and China is no great shakes when it comes to human rights, but the owner of the circuit is not also the titular head of the armed forces.
It is the intimate relationship between the Bahraini royal family and both the race and internal oppression which causes us concern. Bahrain has an hereditary dictatorship. England has an hereditary monarch, but the Queen reigns, she does not rule. There is the difference.
The Queen is powerless, but she occupies all the positions of power and therefore no grubby politician can. It is not rational, but it seems to work. According to scientific laws, a bumble bee cannot fly, but it does.
We are used to drivers looking forward to a race and predicting that their team has something special up its sleeve. At Melbourne. Michael Schumacher established another first in motor racing. He said that he was relaxed about racing in Bahrain because he was confident that the security team Mercedes will employ is the business. Not, you notice, anything about a new wing, but about security.
He seems to have forgotten the dictum that security must be impregnable all the time while those who wish to breech it have to be lucky just once.
Perhaps he, and people like Ross Brawn and Bernie, are so engrossed in their work that he has not noticed that perhaps as many as 20 per-cent of the Bahraini population turned out on 9th March to protest against the regime.
I am sceptical about the numbers involved in any demonstration, both sides tend to be manipulative, but I have seen the photos and that was a huge protest by anyone's standard. In New York or London it would have made headlines round the world. On a pro rata basis, it was perhaps the largest grassroots demonstration in history, but it barely made the Western media.
Last year, the Shia majority was asking only for civil rights, now it is calling for regime change. The royal family could have buried the issue with a few concessions, instead they ordered in the troops. Saudi Arabia, that bastion of civilised values, invaded and its troops destroyed at least a dozen Shia mosques.
The Crown Prince owns/owned the circuit and the rights to the Grand Prix. My information is that he has been side-lined as hard-liners in the extensive royal family have taken over and are calling the shots. This may be why the tartan philosopher has been quiet of late.
Incidentally, Bahrain has a Prime Minister, which sounds sort of liberal until you realise that Khalifa bin Salman is the king's uncle, is unelected, and has been in the post since 1971. He must be really popular and good at his job to have been in office that long.
Gee, but the Al Khalifa family must be the most talented on the planet.
After the 9th March demonstration, members of the opposition wrote to Bernie suggesting that the race be cancelled. They said that they would do 'everything in our capacity' to ensure that the race fails.
'Everything in our capacity' strikes a chill in me. The hotels where the teams stay are largely staffed by members of the oppressed Shia majority. Ross, Michael and Bernie cannot be sure what lies behind the smile of the waiter who brings them room service. What part of 'everything in our capacity' do they not understand?
A jihadist website has advocated mixing strychnine with hand cream. Think of all the ways that hotel employees could ruin anyone's Grand Prix. A potent laxative could do it, an attack does not have to be lethal.
When Castro's men abducted Fangio prior to the 1958 Cuban GP, they did not harm him. They treated him with the utmost courtesy, apart from the guns, that is. When there were arrests, Fangio spoke on behalf of his captors, but they were shot anyway.
You cannot apply the level of security we now expect at airports to a motor race, the numbers are too great and, besides, Bahrain is too hot even in April. You have to let people into the circuit. An airport terminal is designed to process a few thousand passengers at any one time and tends to be spacious and air conditioned. Motor racing circuits are not designed to process spectators.
Remember the defrocked Irish priest at Silverstone a few years ago? Or the disgruntled sacked worker at Hockenheim?
Security in Britain and Germany is pretty tight, but they got in and they caused disruption. Neither, however, had a loved one killed by a government. Neither was from a tradition which promises paradise to martyrs, along with six dozen virgins and all the sherbet you can eat.
The venues for the London Olympics have been designed against outside threats and more than 22,000 security staff will be deployed. These range from the Mall Militia, the rent-a-uniform people, to the SAS. Precautions include anti-aircraft missiles. We read about military drones and they are essentially large radio controlled model aircraft. You can buy a model aircraft kit anywhere.
Spanish police recently found a model aircraft carrying 2.2 kg of marijuana. The same weight of explosive and ball bearings could spoil your day and there could be a dozen of them.
The Olympics are taking place in a country which has taken action in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lybia and is an obvious target for any nutter with a cause. When the Bahrain circuit was designed, the kingdom was apparently peaceful, though there had been demonstrations in the 1990s.
The latest news about the Olympics is that all 3,800 members of MI5 will be employed on security (Bond works for MI6, the international branch.) Then there is the police's Special Force, and the 7,500 people monitoring the airwaves at GCHQ. Bahrain has the population of a medium-sized city.
Remember that medics were to be charged in court for treating protesters brutalised by the police? Then it seemed that international pressure had caused the cases to be dropped. As of 22nd March, according to gulfnews.com. those charges are again active.
Do we not have doctors and paramedics at every motor race, even a clubbie?
The future of Bahrain, like every country, rests with its young. Four hundred students have been expelled from the University of Bahrain, students overseas have had their funding cut and 117 people in academic posts have been sacked. Measures against Bahrain Polytechnic have been even more severe.
Students sacked for being students? It is part of being a student to dissent, as well as getting laid and hanging around in bars discussing the Meaning of Life. Some students are also facing trial.
The surname of the Justice Minister is, of course, Al Khalifa. He is of the immensely gifted ruling family.
There might have been more outrage over this, but we have the apparently larger crisis in Syria and the problem with Iran's nuclear ambitions. The media apparently cannot spread its concentration too far. There is no motor racing in Iran. Israel or Syria, but there is a race scheduled in Bahrain.
It is precisely because little Bahrain has fallen off the media radar that we should worry. News is now instantaneous and international so the Bahraini opposition knows as much as anyone in the world who cares to check the Net. Their great opportunity to grab the headlines is at the Grand Prix.
On 23rd March, the capital, Manama, was not touched, but there were demonstrations in ten villages which encircle the capital. The bulk of the security forces were wrong-footed.
This was not reported widely. To plan a demonstration, you need only talk to a number of imams. You don't have to use cell phones or the Internet, you do it in the old fashioned way, by personal contact. Speak to ten imams, each leading a disaffected congregation, and you can have ten small demonstrations, perfectly synchronised. This is what happened on 23rd March and while it was reported locally, and is on the Net, it did not make the mainstream media.
Bahrain is a footnote in current Middle Eastern politics, but it is our footnote. If the race goes ahead without incident, it will be a PR coup for a corrupt regime. I cannot imagine how it might be staged without incident since the opposition, which is the majority, has said that they will do 'everything in our capacity' to ensure that the race fails.
Mike Lawrence
mike.lawrence@pitpass.com
To check out previous features from Mike, click here