Blood On Their Hands

The Formula 1 bosses are right to say that holding the Grand Prix there has highlighted the oppression in the country, because of the media coverage.  That is a condemnation of the way the media have ignored the torture, and human rights violations, going on in Bahrain, over the last year, not a justification of F1 being in there.  Its true that questions have been raised, but, at the same time, it has been an opportunity for the Bahraini tyrants to claim that the opponents of the Grand Prix, i.e. the Bahraini masses, are extremists!

Jean Todt, justified the presence in Bahrain, partly by pointing to the fact that, last week, the Grand Prix was in China.  Personally, I would not have lost sleep if the Chinese GP had been cancelled either, but the situation in China is not the same as that in Bahrain.  There is not currently mass protests for democracy taking place in China, nor are there massive amounts of military force being used to subdue such protests.  In Bahrain that is the case.  In fact, on a proportional basis, more Bahrainis have died, as a result of State oppression, than have Syrians!  Besides that the Bahraini tyrants are themselves closely connected with F1 itself.  It simply will not do for David Coulthard to claim that the drivers do not properly understand the political situation in the country.  For one thing, what is there not to understand.  The country is a medieval, Feudal Monarchy, run by vicious tyrants, who are killing people for daring to demand freedom and democracy!  Besides which, if you don't understand the issues, then, in such a high profile position, you have a responsibility to find out, or else you are complicit.  As, the protesters have said, in fact, the repression has increased in recent days, precisely because the tyrants have tried to present things as normal, and to prevent the people from being able to effectively protest.

But, of course, F1 is a rich boys sport.  Its no wonder that its interests are aligned with the rich tyrants of the Bahraini Royal Family, and not with the ordinary Bahrainis facing torture, murder and oppression by those tyrants.  Nor is it a wonder that those other rich boys, those that make up the millionaire boys club that is the Tory Cabinet, have also been loathe to upset their friends amongst the Sunni, Gulf Arab tyrannies, whose activities they are more than happy to turn a blind eye to, in order to ensure their supply of oil, and in order to keep making billions from selling them luxury goods, and more weapons with which to murder the people.

These are the same Tory millionaires who, of course, were only to prepared to bomb the shit out of Libya, and Iraq, and Afghanistan, supposedly in the name of freedom and democracy, and defence of human rights!  They are the same millionaires' club who would do the same to Syria given the chance.  Yet, when it comes to their freinds in the Gulf tyrannies, they cannot even bring themselves to a limp protest such as opposing the holding of the Grand Prix there.

A couple of weeks ago, a lone protester upset the rich boys annual rowing race in protest at elitism.  The generally reserved British are not given to kamikaze tactics.  But, one prominent Bahraini human rights protester, gaoled for life, simply for demanding democracy, is on hunger strike, and may die this weekend, such is his commitent to his cause.  I hope it doesn't happen, but it is not at all impossible that protests, on the track, during the race, could occur, which would have dire consequences.  I hope it doesn't happen for those reasons, and because the F1 authorities, and the Bahraini tyrants would then use it to justify their claims that the protesters were extremists.  They would all claim, of course, that they could never have seen such an eventuality.

Of course, the Tories would be sympathetic to such an excuse.  After all, these are the same rich boy Tories who are happy to see British workers die in industrial accidents, because they do not beleive in things such as Health & Safety.  In both cases, the blood is on their hands.