Open Forum
New Delhi, 10 April 2008
Beijing Games 2008
PROTESTS, BOYCOTT BORN WITH OLYMPICS
By VS Dharmakumar
Politicians the world-over
proclaim, whenever and wherever it is convenient, that politics has no place in sports
and sports arena should be kept free of politics. However, many countries have mixed politics with the
greatest sporting event—the Olympic Games, to promote their political beliefs. And,
when publicity is the aim of protest, Olympics offers the best opportunity.
The Beijing
Olympic, 2008 is plagued by protests and threats of boycott. Political activists have already
stepped up their activities. The torch
relays in London, Paris,
and San Francisco have attracted thousands of
demonstrators, who want to focus the world attention on China's human rights record and its atrocities
in Tibet.
Politicization of the Olympic Games began with the
very first, held in Athens
in 1896. It was meant to embarrass the Turks, then occupying Northern
Greece. Thereafter, controversies have shrouded the Olympics with
alarming regularity. The 1900 Olympic in Paris
had its share of hullabaloo. The French team refused to compete on Bastille Day
as it was their national holiday to commemorate the anniversary of storming
Bastille. The game then got rescheduled to Sunday, an important day for
Christians. But, it was the turn of the Americans then to refuse to compete on that
day.
The 1908 London Olympic was also
marred by some controversies. Complications arose with regard to the team parade
with their national flags. The Finnish team
was expected to march under the Russian flag rather than its own and chose to
march without a flag. Not displaying the national flags of the US and Sweden
above the stadium led to the Swedish team’s non-participation in the ceremony
and the US
flag bearer’s refusal to dip the flag to the royal box created a protocol
breach. Forcing the Irish athletes to compete for the British team, which led
to a withdrawal by many.
The world of the 30s and 40s was
known for racial segregation and discrimination. Hitler’s Nazi regime that discriminated
Jews used the 1936 XI
Olympiad for celebrating the triumph Nazi ideology. His idea was to weed out
the weak, Jews and others by hardening the German spirit. Many Jews and Gypsies
were thus kept out of the Berlin
Olympic. The United
States, after planning to boycott XI Olympic
Games, finally participated fearing that the very foundation of the Olympics
will be damaged if individual countries are allowed to restrict participation
by reason of class, creed, or race.
The Mexico Games in 1968 got off
to a bumpy start, ten days prior to the actual beginning of the games. The
scene was the Plaza de las Tres Culturas.
About 5,000 Mexican
college students, who were opposed to spending money on the Olympic Games
wanted the money be spent on social programmes instead. They protested and the
Mexican Army opened fire into the crowd of protestors, killing an estimated 200-300
people. Eventually, the games began as scheduled but were beleaguered by
protests.
Politics again played
spoil-sport at the Munich
games with deadly effect in 1972. A Palestinian terrorist group (Black September) invaded the Games village,
broke into the apartment of the Israeli delegation and killed two Israelis and
held nine others as hostages. At the end, the terrorists were offered a safe
passage but were ambushed by the German security forces. Though the Games carried
on they were dominated by these events.
The next Olympiad of Montreal in
1976 was also marred by boycott. The reason: participation of New Zealand. African leaders wanted the IOC to ban New Zealand as its national team had played
rugby with South Africa.
Recall that at that time, South
Africa’s policy of racial apartheid had made
it an international pariah. The IOC refused to oblige, forcing the Games boycott
by 28 African
countries.
The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was the
cause of trouble for the 1980 Moscow
Olympic. Many countries, including the US,
thought of the Games as the best opportunity to protest and mortify the USSR. Thus, the
US and 64 other countries boycotted
the Moscow
Olympic and 15 others lodged their protest by not marching in the Opening
ceremony with their national flag. Instead, they used the Olympic Flag. In all,
only 81 nations’ participated in the Games.
Four years later, in 1984, it was the turn of the USSR to spearhead the ‘boycott politics’ with
many other nations of the Eastern Block, at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, the US. The Soviet
Union issued a statement, saying that it would boycott the Games due to
"chauvinistic sentiments and an anti-Soviet hysteria being whipped up in
the United States".
Thirteen allies of the then USSR
joined the boycott.
Let’s also look at South Korea. The political crisis there
got intensified through demonstrations in 1987, a year before the start of the
Seoul Games. Fortunately, the Olympic was not tarnished by widespread boycott. Only
North Korea, Cuba, Ethiopia
and Nicaragua
didn’t participate. Interestingly, with a participation of 160 countries, the Seoul
Games witnessed the largest participation in Olympic history.
The 29th Olympiad in China on August 8, 2008, is marred
in controversy. The Olympic torch, which had arrived in Tiananmen Square, and
is being taken for a worldwide tour covering 85,000 miles, along 136 routes
across 20 countries in five continents before lighting the flame on the opening
ceremony, has been doused and lit again.
However, many feel that boycotts and protests are not the
best way to deal with the Tibet
unrest and the human rights situation. It would be counterproductive. But France has made
known that boycotting of the opening ceremony cannot be ruled out.
As for China,
it has low tolerance level to protests. It is prone to suppressing dissent
ruthlessly. The authorities have warned the Tibetans that the police in China will not
tolerate political or social demonstrations to spoil the event. But the Tibetan
activists are adamant. They plan to demonstrate and a potential flashpoint is Lhasa, which falls in the flame’s route to Mount Everest
What
the world witnessed 40 years ago in Mexico
should not be repeated in Beijing.
Protests and boycotts are not going to solve the Tibetan problem. They will only
lead to violence and loss of life. An amicable solution can emerge only through
direct talks with each other. Vitiating the atmosphere prior to such likelihood
is not in the best interest of both parties. But sadly, even as I write this, the
unfolding events do not augur well.
Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic who accomplished the
feat of perfecting the world’s greatest sporting spectacle and who presided
over the IOC until 1925 said: “Peace, would be furthered by the
Olympic Games . . . but peace could be the product only of a better world; a
better world could be brought about only by better individuals; and better individuals
could be developed only by the give and take, the buffeting and battering, the
stress and strain of fierce competition”—INFA
(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)
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