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Raising Olympia above politics

By Khaled Diab

In a divided world, finding an uncontroversial host for the Olympics is a tricky business. The solution could be to create a permanent Olympic village on neutral international territory.

 

April 2008

The flickering progress of the Olympic torch around the world has highlighted once again how politicised international sport can become. China’s heavy-handed suppression of demonstrations in Tibet have caused pro-Tibetan protests to flare up in many countries, including France and the United States.

 

While I am as outraged as others by China’s occupation of Tibet and its handling of dissent there, as well as its general human rights record, similar accusations can and have been levelled at previous hosts, and can easily be directed at future hosts.

 

In fact, numerous Olympics have been boycotted since the games were revived in 1894. The first time this occurred was in Sydney in 1956, where three European countries did not attend the games in protest against the putting down of the Hungarian Uprising, while several developing countries stayed away in protest against the Suez Crisis and the tripartite invasion of Egypt. Later boycotts included, in 1980 and 1984, the two superpowers of the Cold War refusing to attend each other’s games.

 

The Olympics have also been used for shameless propaganda. The most notable case was the 1936 games in Nazi Berlin. The silver lining was the sportsmanship exhibited by German athlete Luz Long who helped the African-American athlete Jesse Owens to win the long jump – a poignant gesture of subversion against Nazi race politics and American racial segregation.

 

And the use of the Olympics as a platform for political propaganda and protest is unlikely to stop in the future. The 2012 games will be held in London, perhaps in a bid to overcome the damage to the UK’s international reputation caused by its military misadventures. But just as people are demanding the boycotting of the Beijing Olympics because of Tibet, in four years, we are likely to hear calls for the boycotting of the London games in protest against the illegal invasion of Iraq and its dire consequences.

 

So, what’s the answer?

 

Well, the Olympics cannot be entirely divorced from politics since the Olympic ideal is itself political: it seeks to make of sport an arena where countries can cast aside their political differences and build understanding through friendly competition.

 

In order to ensure that this is the main political message coming out of the Olympics, I believe we need to rethink radically the way in which the games are organised. Instead of hosting it in a different country each time, I propose that a permanent venue should be established on neutral international territory.

 

And where would we locate this neutral ground?

 

Through the International Olympic Committee, interested countries would bid a tiny part of their country which would be declared, rather like the UN headquarters, neutral international territory. The selected country would have to be one that is largely uncontroversial on the world stage, probably a small democracy without too much global reach. An international fund would be set up to construct a fully equipped Olympic city with all the necessary sporting facilities and accommodation.

 

Not only would this depoliticise the Olympics, it would also avoid the massive economic wastage, which has put many countries into debt, associated with the rotating venues we currently have, since, after the initial investment, there would only be maintenance costs.

 

 

 

 

ã2008 K. Diab. Unless otherwise stated, all the content on this website is the copyright of Khaled Diab.