Please avert your eyes from the rioting. Please pay no attention to the blood in the streets. What’s that cloud over there, a thunderstorm? No, tear gas. Oh, those fatalities? Not anyone we know, so it really doesn’t matter, does it?
The Formula 1 season-opening race is scheduled to take place in two weeks’ time, and the FIA, the sanctioning body that rules over F1, would really like it to go on as scheduled. They don’t want to disappoint the crowds and, more important, they don’t want to miss the big financial windfall that each race represents. There’s only one problem. The March 13 race is scheduled to take place in Bahrain, and that obscure Middle Eastern country is currently in the midst of what is euphemistically called “political unrest.” The fact is the country as we know it seems to be falling apart.
King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the monarch who rules the country, isn’t known as the Great Communicator, but he went on Bahraini TV last week to speak to the nation. What prompted him to get on the tube? Massive antigovernment demonstrations over the course of the previous few days had brought a violent response from the national police, so the situation was hard to ignore. In a recent confrontation, four civilians were killed and scores more were beaten or gassed, which brought international condemnation. The king promised that reforms were on the way, which seemed to do little to pacify the throngs in the streets.
So what is F1’s reaction to the carnage?
“We are constantly in touch with both the national authorities and local authorities,” FIA spokesman Norman Howell told the Associated Press. “We are monitoring the situation.”
Phew, that’s a relief. We sincerely hope that those unruly rioters are rounded up, the tear gas clouds cleared and the barricades in the streets bulldozed out of the way so the Formula 1 race can go on as slated. It would be horrible if a battle for liberty and democracy got in the way of a Bernie Ecclestone payday.
