Calendar questions: Bahrain

There has been talk in recent days about some discontent regarding the most recent F1 calendar issued by the FIA. There are some very serious misgivings (again) over the inclusion of Bahrain – something which is inevitably going to cause problems in the months ahead, as the F1 world dances around the problems of the kingdom.

I am a sports journalist and I do not ultimately have any reason to care one way or the other about the people of Bahrain, but I believe that it is the right of everyone to be allowed to determine their own government and I believe that people should not be afraid to assert that right.

What I do care about is any attempt to use the sport to convey a political message, when the message being portrayed is not necessarily a fair picture. A good example of this was the stupid publicity stunt that the Turkish government pulled in 2006 when they organised for Mehmet Ali Talat to present the winner’s trophy at the Turkish GP, and had him introduced and captioned on TV as the President of the Northern Turkish Republic of Cyprus, a break-away state in the northern part of the island of Cyprus, which is recognized only by Turkey. This provocative piece of political theatre may have gone over the head of the F1 fans watching on TV but the FIA reacted strongly and called the Turks up before the FIA World Motor Sport Council. The result of this was a $5 million fine for the organisers and after that they lost interest in F1 and the race finally died out this year, after seven years of wasted energy.

In the FIA Statutes the first Article states that the FIA will “refrain from manifesting racial, political or religious discrimination in the course of its activities and from taking any action in this respect”. There is a strong argument that by supporting a race in Bahrain the FIA is in danger of breaking its own rules, although this rather depends on who one wishes to believe with regard to what is happening on the ground in Bahrain.

The FIA got into trouble this summer for believing a report from one of its envoys which clearly did not address all the questions that the security clampdown had created. It is necessary to turn away from such “amateur hour” activities and look at what the global community is saying. The United Nations is a good place to start and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights recently released an update on the situation in Bahrain highlighting that there are currently 264 cases pending before a Bahrain military trial. Thousands of others individuals are jobless due to accusations that they participated in anti-government protests earlier this year. Additionally, human rights groups have accused the ruling Sunni minority of using hospitals as torture chambers.

The UN clearly takes a dim view of what is going on and F1 needs to be wary of upsetting the NGO world.

On the other extreme, the Al-Jazeera newsagency, in a strongly worded opinion piece, recently argued that Arab silence on the continued repression of the Bahraini people is “a shameful episode that does not fit the era of the Arab revolution.”

I have grown to like Bahrain and I am terribly sad to see what has happened there, but this does not detract from my belief that the Bahrainis must sort out the problems that exist there, and not try to use the sport to wallpaper over the cracks. Human rights organisations and international news agencies do not make up claims of abuse, nor do they often fall victim to the propaganda of those with agendas that are not obvious.

A week ago King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa spoke to the UN General Assembly in New York, and argued that for more than a decade Bahrain has “recognized the need to proceed toward greater reform and improvement, keeping in mind the supreme interests of the people” but he argued that “America should be patient with us. We cannot build a Jeffersonian society in one or five years”.

The King said that initially he had believed that the protests were those of a new generation with a new vision of the future, “but we gradually realized there were vicious hands behind it, especially as there was a dialogue going on with the crown prince, who at that time offered them a development package which they did not accept.” He argues that the Iranians were trying to influence political events.

All this is well above my pay grade and my argument is that until there are black and white answers to these questions it is unwise for F1 to be sent to the country as this leaves the sport open to the charge that it is being used to convey a sense of normality that is not the reality; and that the presence of the sport will inflame the situation as the protesters use the international spotlight to get their point across. In short, there is more to be lost than there is to be gained for the sport in Bahrain and it is better to focus on places where such questions do not have to be answered.

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