usually we discuss politics in the "lavender room", the forum that keeps off-topic (esp political) discussion off the triathlon forum. we're going to make a semi-exception. i knew when i interviewed saqer al khalifa that i would get serious flack from those whose concern or burden is simply and only the abuses attributed to members of the bahrain royal family. i take those allegations very seriously. i think if we're going to patronize this race, give it coverage, talk to the principals, we ought to provide a place to hash out our decision to give this race oxygen. my calculation was as follows, all of which came before my decision to interview saqer al khalifa.
first, there was a prior article i wrote about the bahrainis, discussing and linking to these allegations. it's here, and there is a link to this article immediately appending to the interview on the front page now. you might find fault with the dialogue i had with myself prior to this interview, and i'm happy to hear whatever it is you want to say. it's below. my one caveat, if you want to engage, is this: we're not the economist. we're slowtwitch.com. geopolitics is not the reason people come to us. triathlon is. therefore, any discussion we're going to have here should be in the context of triathlon. i don't mind discussing anything you want, just, as long as the backdrop of triathlon is acknowledged. we wouldn't be discussing bahrain unless: 1) there's a very significant race going to occur there; and 2) a large slice of this country's political leaders and elite are hard core triathlon enthusiasts, and that's unprecedented in the history of our sport.
the quashing of a popular uprising among the majority shia, who want more democracy and self-determination, weighed heavily on me. on a visceral level i side with the shia. but on a practical level i see what happens when the obvious successor to the khalifa family - al wefaq - fills the power void. this group seems to me progressive as religious parties go, but still holds that Islam has primacy on family matters. it doesn't seem to me even a close call as to where bahrain sits over the past 15 years, among islamic countries, when it comes to expanding rights and access. it's near the top, to the point where the royal family is getting heat from the conservative members of its own side for expanding rights too quickly.
i therefore see this as a binary choice and that choice is not a monarchy or a democracy. rather, the choice might be more closely scribed, as in, the self-determination of the majority, versus the rights of women. some will criticize this as a false choice, as al wefaq is probably more pro-women than most other religious-based political parties. but it is not a full-throated women's rights party. al wefaq is also shy of distancing itself from iran, and iran's strident anti-western stand.
i was a fool to simply cheer the arab spring as if when the shackles come off alexander hamilton shows up and starts quoting locke and voltaire. it's clear that in almost every place we (the U.S.) have stepped in to tip the scales in the middle east chaos has been the result. i therefore don't have any wisdom, any answers, further i don't know that any pundit, politician, or seasoned state department veteran does. i think this should cause me (at least) to pause before i overlay my naive and imperfect view of middle eastern politics on my decision to self-censor coverage of this event.
on the one hand, then, you have the bird's eye view that i lay out above, according to my reading and my thinking. what you have on the ground, in particular, in detail, is the list of specific allegations against certain members of the royal family. these can't be just tossed aside. indeed, some of these acts are attributed to one of those who has fallen inside our circle of triathletes. as tevya said in fiddler, "there is no other hand." this isn't anything that can be tossed off, explained away, discounted, dismissed, diminished.
so, ought we to give oxygen to this race? does it deserve it? if i say "no", on what basis? because of a substantiated allegation of torture against a shia demonstrator by a member of the government? okay. but then should i also not give coverage to any triathlon in the united states either? should i not cover this race because the bahraini government chooses what it considers expediency and realism over a sped-up recognition and granting of full rights to all bahrainis? okay. but then should i not cover any races in the U.S. either, since we house our 5th fleet in bahrain?
this was my thought process, and, it has led to the "slowtwitch doctrine": we will either not cover, or actively campaign against, athletic events that seem to us to be specific attempts to propagandize and hide and put a false face on otherwise onerous regimes and practices. the 1936 olympics comes to mind.
i don't think this is one of those races. if you look at this particular man i interviewed, in his "former" life, before triathlon, one of his initiatives was pushing for free health care for all bahrainis on the condition that they spent a requisite amount of time engaged in improving their physical fitness and health. this guy is just a convert to what we believe in, at slowtwitch, at the core: that health and fitness saves and adds value to lives. this race is not a screen behind which is hidden tyranny. tyranny may exist in bahrain, but hiding it is not the purpose of this race. accordingly, i can see no reason why we should not embrace the possibility that a race likes this throws a lot of disparate people together in the cauldron of competition, where they come out the other side a little bit closer than before.
okay. sorry for the dissertation. i will discuss this with any person of goodwill for as long as that person wants.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
first, there was a prior article i wrote about the bahrainis, discussing and linking to these allegations. it's here, and there is a link to this article immediately appending to the interview on the front page now. you might find fault with the dialogue i had with myself prior to this interview, and i'm happy to hear whatever it is you want to say. it's below. my one caveat, if you want to engage, is this: we're not the economist. we're slowtwitch.com. geopolitics is not the reason people come to us. triathlon is. therefore, any discussion we're going to have here should be in the context of triathlon. i don't mind discussing anything you want, just, as long as the backdrop of triathlon is acknowledged. we wouldn't be discussing bahrain unless: 1) there's a very significant race going to occur there; and 2) a large slice of this country's political leaders and elite are hard core triathlon enthusiasts, and that's unprecedented in the history of our sport.
the quashing of a popular uprising among the majority shia, who want more democracy and self-determination, weighed heavily on me. on a visceral level i side with the shia. but on a practical level i see what happens when the obvious successor to the khalifa family - al wefaq - fills the power void. this group seems to me progressive as religious parties go, but still holds that Islam has primacy on family matters. it doesn't seem to me even a close call as to where bahrain sits over the past 15 years, among islamic countries, when it comes to expanding rights and access. it's near the top, to the point where the royal family is getting heat from the conservative members of its own side for expanding rights too quickly.
i therefore see this as a binary choice and that choice is not a monarchy or a democracy. rather, the choice might be more closely scribed, as in, the self-determination of the majority, versus the rights of women. some will criticize this as a false choice, as al wefaq is probably more pro-women than most other religious-based political parties. but it is not a full-throated women's rights party. al wefaq is also shy of distancing itself from iran, and iran's strident anti-western stand.
i was a fool to simply cheer the arab spring as if when the shackles come off alexander hamilton shows up and starts quoting locke and voltaire. it's clear that in almost every place we (the U.S.) have stepped in to tip the scales in the middle east chaos has been the result. i therefore don't have any wisdom, any answers, further i don't know that any pundit, politician, or seasoned state department veteran does. i think this should cause me (at least) to pause before i overlay my naive and imperfect view of middle eastern politics on my decision to self-censor coverage of this event.
on the one hand, then, you have the bird's eye view that i lay out above, according to my reading and my thinking. what you have on the ground, in particular, in detail, is the list of specific allegations against certain members of the royal family. these can't be just tossed aside. indeed, some of these acts are attributed to one of those who has fallen inside our circle of triathletes. as tevya said in fiddler, "there is no other hand." this isn't anything that can be tossed off, explained away, discounted, dismissed, diminished.
so, ought we to give oxygen to this race? does it deserve it? if i say "no", on what basis? because of a substantiated allegation of torture against a shia demonstrator by a member of the government? okay. but then should i also not give coverage to any triathlon in the united states either? should i not cover this race because the bahraini government chooses what it considers expediency and realism over a sped-up recognition and granting of full rights to all bahrainis? okay. but then should i not cover any races in the U.S. either, since we house our 5th fleet in bahrain?
this was my thought process, and, it has led to the "slowtwitch doctrine": we will either not cover, or actively campaign against, athletic events that seem to us to be specific attempts to propagandize and hide and put a false face on otherwise onerous regimes and practices. the 1936 olympics comes to mind.
i don't think this is one of those races. if you look at this particular man i interviewed, in his "former" life, before triathlon, one of his initiatives was pushing for free health care for all bahrainis on the condition that they spent a requisite amount of time engaged in improving their physical fitness and health. this guy is just a convert to what we believe in, at slowtwitch, at the core: that health and fitness saves and adds value to lives. this race is not a screen behind which is hidden tyranny. tyranny may exist in bahrain, but hiding it is not the purpose of this race. accordingly, i can see no reason why we should not embrace the possibility that a race likes this throws a lot of disparate people together in the cauldron of competition, where they come out the other side a little bit closer than before.
okay. sorry for the dissertation. i will discuss this with any person of goodwill for as long as that person wants.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman