We Need to Fight Ritual Going Forward

This is the Statt Mann Baby. Time to Scatt a little bit.

Watching the ceremony at the start of Sunday’s Formula One race in Abu Dhabi it hit me: what a shame it would be to see this year’s ceremonial calls for change be reduced to ritual in the future.

2020 has been full of celebration and too much disappointment. F1 drivers have spent the year calling for an End to Racism. Hopefully someone watching this year has had their heart changed somehow. It would be sad to see the 2020 protests, pleadings and politics just surrender into ritual in 2021.

The pandemic has stolen much more than time and events in the past nine months. For many the sickness and death has stolen the will to overcome. For them, the pandemic has reduced human spirit to ritual and that might be the real fight ahead in 2021.
Can the intensity of motor racing and the competition of sport help ignite human will again and change the normal that created the upheavals of 2020?

Let’s hope so. There’s too much at stake to see 2020 become ritual in 2021.

Peace.