“We are made to stay silent”- Lewis Hamilton claims system around him wants to suppress the voice of others but he wants to empower.
For Lewis Hamilton, the highlight of this year for him was not winning his 7th Drivers’ championship title, but the voice he raised against several issues causing global impact.
💬 “It’s incredible that we have gone leaps and bounds and continued to raise the bar. I am truly grateful to everyone who put so much work in to create an opportunity for me to go out and play my role in helping the team succeed” @LewisHamilton reflects on a season like no other pic.twitter.com/xMEPtKpyNq
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) December 22, 2020
The Briton driver feels that it is important for him to speak, as the influence he has earned over the years, brings onus to him to further assist the underprivileged to be seen.
“There’s a bunch of stuff that I got to do. I’ve got to help more young kids get through school, I’ve got to help more young kids get into university and I’ve got to get more young kids into Formula 1 and engineering.”
“There’s just an endless amount of stuff to do and there’s not an endless amount of time. I think it’s been important this year to speak out and not stay silent.”
“Particularly because there are so many issues around the world. A lot of us feel like we are made to stay silent or have to stay silent because that’s what people expect or that’s what the system wants you to do.”
“I think it’s been an empowering year in freeing myself and being open to speaking and hopefully we encourage other people to do the same”, Hamilton said.
Then why Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is an exception?- Writer’s note
Lewis Hamilton has repeatedly demanded others to speak against the structural racism across the world, and rightly so. But why he snubbed speaking against Saudi Arabian Grand Prix which is scheduled for 2021.
Hamilton conveniently shelved the matter by saying that he doesn’t know enough about the human rights violations in Saudi Arabia and suggested that such things can be improved by going there.
However, F1 is not a flagship programme or an awareness drive, rather a commercial activity, which will in any case avoid indulging itself in the domestic issues of a middle-eastern country. Who are we fooling Hamilton?
