Someone who loves motor racing may want to spend an afternoon watching it without being asked to answer for the country hosting it. That is an understandable wish. Leisure is one of the few places where people hope to put down their responsibilities for a while. Yet there is a difficulty when our wish for a good afternoon becomes a reason to stop listening to anyone who might disturb it.
Grandprix.com reports that Amnesty has criticised a Rwanda Grand Prix as sportswashing. The supplied report does not establish the details of Amnesty’s case or the event’s status. It gives us a criticism to examine, rather than enough evidence to settle the argument about this particular race.
The broader issue is how easily enjoyment can recruit us into defending something we have barely considered. Once a criticism threatens an event we want, we may begin treating the critic as the problem. A claim deserves examination on its merits, even when its timing is inconvenient for the things we enjoy.
There is a complication here. A country is full of people whose lives cannot fairly be reduced to a judgement about its authorities. Sporting attention may be welcomed by people for perfectly ordinary reasons: pride, interest, the prospect of opportunity. To dismiss their enthusiasm as gullibility would be another way of failing to see them. Equally, enthusiasm cannot answer a human rights criticism. They concern different things, even when they occupy the same place.
For those of us watching from elsewhere, the practical responsibility need not involve becoming experts on every host country. It can begin with resisting the urge to speak beyond what we know. Read the criticism before dismissing it. Ask what evidence supports it. Allow the answer to complicate the pleasure.
We do this in smaller ways throughout ordinary life. We hesitate to hear something troubling about an employer, a favourite business or someone whose company we enjoy, because hearing it may require a decision. The temptation is to protect the relationship by protecting ourselves from the information.
A race can be absorbing enough to hold our attention for an afternoon. It should not acquire the power to decide what we are willing to hear afterwards.