As things stand, the race will continue on Sunday after Yemeni Houthi rebels hit an oil installation with a rocket. The harsh truth of the Saudi-led coalition war with the rebels has burst the bubble of F1 belief that they operate in a vacuum where sport and politics simply do not mix. It is a transparent fiction that is revealed every time you visit this state and others in the diary. The shortcomings of Saudi Arabia – and this is a generous description – are well known. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented “violent repression of peaceful dissidents” since Mohammed bin Salman was ousted. They invoke the regular use of torture on detainees. Same-sex relationships remain illegal, punishable by flogging or imprisonment. The state has played a big part in how “progressive” it was in allowing women the right to drive. However, HRW reports that some prominent activists have spent almost three years in prison for peacefully protesting this right. They remain subject to suspended sentences, travel bans and bans on their human rights work. All of this F1 was more than aware of when they first agreed to compete in Saudi Arabia last year, but in no way reminded them exactly who they were dealing with a few days before they arrived in the country. On March 12, the state executed 81 men in one day. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, said the UN believed that of the 81 convicted of “terrorist offenses”, 41 were from the Shiite minority who had taken part in anti-government protests, calling for greater political participation. The human rights group Reprieve reports that another 16 people have been killed since the massacre. Saudi Arabia is discussing the organization of the struggle in the hope of “changing perceptions”, in itself an admission of how badly it takes to reform its worthy grotesque image. HRW also reported that in its seven-year war in Yemen, Saudi Arabia has “a miserable history of illegal attacks targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in areas occupied by the Houthi militant group.” It should be noted that F1 acted with unprecedented speed to cancel the Russian GP within a few hours of their invasion of Ukraine, however it has not put its eyelid on what is happening in Yemen. Lewis Hamilton has spoken of similar controversies in the past. Photo: Antonin Vincent / Shutterstock F1’s repeated refrain when asked to respond to such criticism is that they believe they can bring about positive change in the countries they visit. Nelson Mandela took the opposite view, believing how important the sports boycott was to end apartheid in South Africa. Worse, there is no indication that any change has ever occurred. Since the mass protests in Bahrain in 2011, F1 has fought in the country and human rights groups have insisted that the situation has worsened for all those who speak out against the regime and that imprisonment and torture have, in fact, increased. If anyone has any doubts about what this means, it was clearly stated on Friday by Felix Jakens of Amnesty International. “This weekend’s Grand Prix in Saudi Arabia is sporty – simple and straightforward,” he said. “Despite promises of reform, human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia are going from bad to worse. Disagreement and free expression are now virtually non-existent. “Much of the world’s attention is currently focused on Ukraine, but the sports world should not limit its consciousness to a conflict. “Saudi Arabia must not be allowed to go free from the ongoing bombing of civilians in Yemen.” So why F1 in Saudi Arabia? In 2020, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, a day before the Australian GP was finally canceled, Lewis Hamilton was the only driver to openly say he thought a mass gathering of more than 100,000 people was a bad idea. When asked why he believed F1 and the FIA were continuing the fight, his answer was simple and caustically accurate: “Cash is the king,” he said. F1’s 10-year deal to host the race in Saudi Arabia is worth $ 900 million, while Saudi Arabia’s state oil company Aramco is F1’s “global partner” in a $ 450 million contract, again for 10 years. . . With the deals made last year, then-FIA President Jean Todt and F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali were happy to be photographed with gleaming smiles on the grid with bin-Salman – the man US intelligence spotted. that he approved the 2018 assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Kasogi. The real danger with sportwashing is that it normalizes regimes over time. The commotion subsides as people come to accept the fact, but business as usual continues in the background. This is the deal that F1 has made. In this brave new world, the leadership of the sport overthrows the oil-funded soma to soften the reality of burying their heads in increasingly blood-stained sand.
