Warning! Long entry alert!

At the end of the last blog entry I did, Bahrain Bother 1 (Background), I asked four quite big questions:

 

How can F1 justify sending its people into a country where there is probable danger over and above the inherent danger of racing at over 200 mph? What ethical responsibilities does the sport have, given that ethical expectations have changed across the world as well as in the Middle East? Politically, what can - or should - F1 do to prevent itself from facing similar problems in future? Oh, and is there anything F1's own psuedopolitical structures can learn from the lessons of the Middle East?

 

So I will now try to tackle each of these in turn, hopefully before the fate of the 2011 Bahrain Grand Prix is decided.

How can F1 justify sending its people into a country where there is probable danger over and above the inherent danger of racing at over 200 mph?

Well, there is always, at least in theory, danger to those who participate in F1 over and beyond the dangers inherent in the sport. I watched the excellent documentary "Graham Hill: Driven" last night, which among other things briefly discussed his death and that of a significant part of his team in an air crash travelling back from a test. Petty crime is a risk everywhere, but particularly highlighted in Brazil, where sporadic robberies involving guns occur and weaponless versions seemingly happen to at least one person in the F1 paddock every year. Even on-track protests are not unheard of, as Germany 2000, Britain 2003 and Spain 2006 demonstrate, and those can kill drivers (alongside anyone in the car's path) if done badly.

However, heading into a country where violent protests are a possibility in the very city the teams are staying is new territory. Unlike the dangers mentioned above, every member of every team is equally at risk Furthermore there is nothing anyone involved in F1 can do to reduce the risks once in the area and following travel advice.

On the other hand, plane crashes could theoretically be avoided by using less risky forms of transport. Petty crime tends to occur less to those who use safer routes, don't look like they have anything worth stealing and hire protection. The best protection against on-track protests has proven to be diligent marshals, these being the reason nobody has died from an on-track protest yet. None of these take the risks to zero, but they all help.

Speaking of travel advice, many countries on Saturday were advising not to travel unless essential. This is a state that renders standard insurance invalid. The FCO (official British travel adviser) is still advising people not to do non-essential travel, though following peaceful words from the Crown Prince and two days without bloodshed, the British embassy has re-opened for restricted service.

The F1 paddock did not sign up to the sport to be put in danger by third parties, so that sort of danger should be minimised as far as reasonably practicable. On Friday, with riotous clashes on the very roundabout many of the teams are due to stay, it was obviously not safe enough to go. Besides, previous revolutions have rarely been resolved in three weeks and uppermost in many people's minds were that three of the countries in the Middle East "protest dominoes" - Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan* have already experienced a revolution (if this is defined by ousting of governments).

However, the two days of peace make the question more difficult. Will this peace last? While some of the protesters are still refusing to come to the table, a danger exists that violence could resume. Having said that, the removal of the army from the equation has had a transformative effect on the situation.

I think, in the absence of more detailed knowledge about Bahrain, I will leave the question of whether the peace will last as an open question. The other part to this question is whether F1 can take that risk. I don't think it can - which the idealistic side of me thinks is a pity, but the pragmatic side believes is part of sensible risk management. Bahrain is in uncharted territory and F1 simply cannot afford the danger of having a lot of its people in the wrong place at the wrong time.

What ethical responsibilities does the sport have, given that ethical expectations have changed across the world as well as in the Middle East?

When the FIA was formed, it declared itself apolitical by statute. Hence, all championships it organises are bound by the code of not favouring any form of politics over others. At the time, it was considered completely and utterly normal for a sport to disavow any interest in political matters. Sporting ethics demanded that the only ethical policy of a sport was sportsmanship.

However, since then there has been a growth in the influence of sport on matters outside its strict domain. From the point that commercialism entered sport, it became rich. Riches gave power. While no sport governs any particular state, sport is frequently used as a badge of approval by certain countries. In particular, hosting a World Cup or an Olympics is seen as proof that a country is wealthy, good at organising itself and has a form of politics acceptable to the wider world.

The hosting of a F1 race has always suggested wealth. It can suggest good organisation but doesn't necessarily have to (provided the people doing the actual race organising are skilled at it, the rest of the nation can be as disorganised as it likes). Politics is another matter.

Beyond the concept of sportsmanship (which has become gradually less important to F1 over the years), the fact that the FIA runs the series implies other ethical considerations. This is because the FIA also has a road division. F1 doesn't represent itself any more; it has become the public face of an organisation trying to decrease deaths and injuries in a wider context.

It is not entirely clear what this means for F1 yet. The many who watch F1 without regard for its wider implied political role would consider it heresy for the road safety agenda to play any part in what F1 does or where it goes. Indeed, many people reading this blog will remember the time before F1 and road safety were linked (this being one of Max Mosley's ideas in 1993).

For those in the FIA wishing to avoid interdepartmental hypocrisy, however, it implies that countries which deliberately endanger lives on the roads should be avoided by F1. Going to places where the death toll is high is not a problem because the FIA can work with such places to reduce it. If the government itself is working cross-purposes. So how does this fit into Bahrain? Well, one of the places where there were deaths in the recent protests was at the Pearl Monument in Manama. Which is a roundabout. In other words, a circular road. And if the reports are to be believed, the army - agents of the government - were responsible for at least some of those deaths.

Nonetheless, I would conclude that this should not be sufficient to exclude Bahrain from consideration as a venue. This was an isolated incident involving a situation not generally considered in the FIA's messages concerning road safety. Nobody is suggesting that Bahrain is usually that cavalier about protests, let alone road safety...

So in conclusion, F1 does have some ethical responsibilities, but those are pretty much self-imposed and not particularly relevant to the situation at hand.

Politically, what can - or should - F1 do to prevent itself from facing similar problems in future?

Would it be possible for F1 to persuade politicians to refrain from actions that would make it difficult for it to race in their countries? Would it be wise?

Bernie Ecclestone has repeatedly said that he is in contact with the Crown Prince of Bahrain over the matter of whether F1 is safe to go there. This indicates that, at least for Bahrain, F1 has a channel with which to attempt political influence. It is certain that at some point, Bernie will have mentioned that peace would help reassure the powers-that-be that it might be possible to race at Sakhir after all.

I do not think anyone would argue that this sort of mild influence in an emergency situation is anything other than beneficial. In fact, many people have been asking for peace in Bahrain who have rather less stake in the matter. However, it does open a question of whether this could be done in other, less urgent circumstances.

It would be tricky. The FIA, as previously mentioned, is apolitical. The fact it still is is not a random decision. It enables them to work with any country in the world. This is especially important given that they are, as previously mentioned, involved in road safety work as well as organising motor racing. If a country believes that the FIA might use politics as a reason to proffer or withhold a Grand Prix, then it is far less likely to be receptive to its views on other matters. Even countries that do get a race will be looking over their shoulders because political viewpoints change rapidly, in many of the countries in which the FIA is involved if not within any part of the F1 paddock itself.

Also, what precisely would qualify as sufficient political cause to prevent a F1 race from being issued? Human rights violations have been cited, but every country has human rights violations of one sort or another. Some have more violations and/or different types than others, but every country has skeletons in the closet. Violence has been suggested too, but apart from violence in places the F1 circus will need, how does one separate the various degrees of violence that are considered permissible and those which are not?

So I would conclude that there is little F1 can do politically to protect itself from this sort of situation, even in terms of relatively uncontroversial things like avoiding politically unstable countries (unless of course the instability is of a type likely to prevent the race being run in the first place).

Is there anything F1's own psuedopolitical structures can learn from the lessons of the Middle East?

This final question reverses the focus. Up to now, it's been a question of if F1 should give the world anything from an ethico-political perspective. Now it's whether the world can give anything to F1.

In Bahrain Bother 1, I mentioned Frank Herbert's quote that "the layered society is an invitation to violence". While nobody is suggesting that anyone will ever get into fisticuffs over F1's psuedopolitics, the verbal equivalent is not only possible but has happened on numerous occasions.

The powers-that-be in F1 have many layers. Drivers, teams, officials, the FIA, CVC/Bernie, circuit organisers... ...so many interest groups, so little equality, so much potential for trouble.

It is difficult to use the standard political response to repair the issue. "Democracy" in F1 could never be especially representative because even surveys of F1 supporters have never netted much more than 100,000 total, despite the true number being well into the millions in many countries. Hardly the basis for a representative governance.

As for internal representativeness, there's a surfeit of those. FOTA, GPDA, OWG, MBNP (OK, I made the last one up...**). They don't seem to get to do a huge amount because of the pre-established power structures. Said structures seem to spend half their time getting in each other's way, let alone the way of these upstarts. It would take a wholesale reorganisation to stop this from happening but nobody seems to have the authority, let alone the appetite, to do it by themselves...

F1 can learn from the Middle East that there's an inherent problem with its structure. That said, the different countries there are each coming up with their own solutions to the problem of an inherently unstable layered society and so will F1.

Conclusions

F1 isn't very political, cannot become very political, but sadly cannot justify sending their people to Bahrain yet. It can certainly learn from the Middle East but applying the lessons will be difficult.

* - Jordan the country, I hasten to add, not Jordan the TV pundit...

** - MBNP hypothetically means Massive Bunch of Noisy People.

Warning! Long entry alert!

I've been thinking what to write for this for most of the week. Normally F1 tackles politics by avoiding it with a 10-foot bargepole; Bernie focuses on the almighty [insert currency here] and the FIA is apolitical by statute.

The events of the past week in the Middle East have prevented the possibility of solution through ignorance.

First of all, some background. The chain of events that led to the current FCO travel advice not to go to Bahrain unless strictly necessary started in December 2010 over in Tunisia. The recession, poor living conditions, corruption and dissatisfaction with a lack of political freedoms resulted in a population ripe for turning into a mob.

The eventual spark that ignited the fire of rebelliousness was caused by a dispute over a vegetable cart licence. Cart owner Mohamed Bouazizi, after apparently being assaulted by a police officer and unsuccessfully attempting to get the local police station to hear his complaint, set himself on fire in protest. The people, for the most part, sided with the cart owner. Initial protests concerning his treatment by the police were met with tear gas, obstructionism and a "quasi-curfew".

The people increased their demands in response, eventually demanding the removal from government of the entire ruling party (RCD) and release of political prisoners. Even a reformation of the government with a reduced number of RCD members did nothing to quell the uprising. Eventually the army sided with the protesters and mass resignations followed.

This Sidi Bouzid Revolt triggered a chain reaction across the Middle East. Most of the world is currently in recession, but many if not most countries in the Middle East are characterised with various types of authoritarian regime. While the majority have democratic layers, there have been as many ways of implementing them as there are countries.

Authoritarian regimes tend to be associated with corruption and generate nations of layered societies.As Frank Herbert correctly noted, "The layered society is an invitation to violence". This is because each layer tends to envy, covet and/or despise the other layers, resulting in rampant power abuse. In turn, a desire is created to take what rightfully belongs to others, which remains undisclosed and unsatisfied due to fear of said power abuse and the lack of incentive for the powerful to enable uncontrolled social movement.

The countries of the Middle East have shared a bond with one another since Islam first united their common ideologies. They have also experienced common changes that have made them more vulnerable to a tidal change in popular thinking. The average population has slowly become younger, therefore less likely to think conservatively or in accord with the opinions of their elders. They have been typically better-educated than before; in many of the Middle Eastern countries, agriculture has become less important as more highly-skilled services such as banking and business administration have increased in importance.

Oil, which has slowed the transition from agriculture to service-based industry, is becoming less important as it is increasingly clear the resource is finite. Many of the countries which had oil have diversified successfully, but it has broadened horizons.

Most importantly, many people are engaging with the internet and social media - which are proving more difficult to censor than more traditional communication channels. Newspapers, broadcast channels and even static web sites can easily be influenced by rulers in their home nation should they be so inclined. Trying to influence thousands or even millions of individual connections and accounts across multiple networks, many of which aren't even in the Middle East, has proven vastly more complicated.

The reduced censorship has not only emboldened people but provided easier access in materials on how to voice their complaints. Non-violent manuals easily downloadable (PDF) from the internet have contributed to the ability of protest organisers to make their protests effective. People who have been involved in previous protests can share their expertise.

Furthermore, it is easier for the people to give direct accounts of what they believe to the world and for the world to answer back. Most of the traffic on social networks consists of spam, banter and matters of relatively minor importance (in approximately that order). However, it is also possible for a large number of people to give the same message to those involved in political strife. It reminds those people that the world is watching. It can help people remember that those people have standards and thus utilise peer pressure to modify behaviour. It can demonstrate the failure of censorship and the politics of fear. It can even encourage normally-apathetic people to engage with the issues of the day, thus increasing pressure on the governments not directly involved to state their stance and bring their great powers to bear.

All this provided a highly unstable backdrop; the governments of many Middle Eastern countries simply hadn't adapted to the changes enforced by the passing of time. Protest dominoes suddenly looked likely, just as Gdańsk had become the trigger for the downfall of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe and pan-European revolts in the 1840s started with the Chartists in Britain.

Egypt was the next to feel the wrath of a dissatisfied people. Change happened over a period of weeks, as various measures were tried and found wanting by a population wanting wholesale regime change rather than just dismissing the odd minister.

In fact, there had been resistance for years but it took the Tunisian experience to catalyse it into the violent clashes, mass striking and constant demonstrating that eventually ensued. By February 11, even President Mubarak had seen the writing on the wall and resigned. Since then, things appear to have stayed calm (touch wood) pending discussions on how to ensure the reduced repression and application of a stronger democratic structure demanded by the population. Events have demonstrated that the old regimes cannot be replaced like for like and that something new is needed - and not just in Egypt.

15 other countries in the Arab world have featured protests - or more than protests - since Tunisia's revolution began. These had been going on for six weeks before the F1 world noticed, for Bahrain looked to be among the most stable of the Arab nations.

Bahrain has a prosperous economy and has had democratic institutions in its constitution for a decade. The trouble was that many people, particularly among the Shia, had not had their fortunes uplifted in line with those of their nation and the institutions are easily overruled by the King and other members of the royal family. The protestors tried to keep the sectarianism out of the equation but the government still saw a sectarian threat, which increased tensions. There were also complaints about the number of political prisoners in Bahrain. The success of the Egyptian revolt in particular inspired the dissatisfied to action.

The King paid 1000 Bahraini dinars (£615.10) to every citizen in the country on February 14, the 10-year anniversary of the constitution that should have ensured the democratic institutions were powerful. It is rumoured that this was an attempt to head off the demonstrations. If so, it failed. On February 14, there was a mass occupation of the streets across Bahrain. One protester died, but it was his funeral next day that turned the situation from a purely political problem to one that involved the motorsport community.

Police fired at the funeral procession, killing one person, injuring 25 and pushing thousands into believing the powers-that-be had abandoned them. It was into the resulting bloodstained fury that the GP2 Asia circus entered the country. Will Buxton vividly described the situation in the country on the relatively quiet day before first practise was due to begin. The reports from others indicated that increasing amounts of violence were being employed by the police and army, a tactic which never helps calmness of people or encourage stability of government. The official position attempted to reassure foreigners that they were still safe in Bahrain, but increasingly people were having doubts.

Practise itself started with the ART and iSport teams playing football against each other because the medical staff due to support the race's requirements were recalled to Manama to assist the injured. The riot police had started using live bullets in addition to the tear gas and batons used previously. Clearly, it was dangerous for the GP2 Asia people to remain in Manama and there was no prospect of getting the medical staff back in time to run the race anyway. This was sufficient reason for the FIA's Bahrain branch to cancel the race, using Article 1.3 of Appendix O of the International Sporting Code:

"Recommendations regarding the number of personnel should be complied with throughout the event; if it is not possible... ...the programme of the event should be rearranged".

The press release was rather less verbose, but it posed a clear message to F1. If Bahrain could not safely host a GP2 race, what chance a F1 test two weeks later - or indeed the F1 race a week after that? Many people on the internet were arguing against going to Bahrain, and not because of the complaints of previous years concerning low overtaking opportunities and general blandness. The violence in the region is ongoing, despite the Crown Prince's pleas for calm and orders for the army to leave Manama having resulted in an entire day without bloodshed.

Insurance for many people in the F1 paddock is currently invalid with respect to travel to Bahrain, and is likely to remain so unless and until the various international travel advisers are assured the current peace is permanent. Sponsors may be reluctant to associate themselves with the country for the time being. Nick Heidfeld, one of the more thoughtful drivers on the F1 grid, has urged sensitivity - a level-headed approach, but is there time between now and the point where visa applications and freight transportation demand an answer?

How can F1 justify sending its people into a country where there is probable danger over and above the inherent danger of racing at over 200 mph? What ethical responsibilities does the sport have, given that ethical expectations have changed across the world as well as in the Middle East? Politically, what can - or should - F1 do to prevent itself from facing similar problems in future? Oh, and is there anything F1's own psuedopolitical structures can learn from the lessons of the Middle East?

I hope to answer these in my next blog entry. Until then, I leave you with a link to a comment I made on F1 Fanatic that may convince you that F1 - whatever it does - cannot be truly apolitical about this.