Is It About the Games or the Message?

I'm excited because the 2008 Summer Olympics kick off today and for the next two weeks, the best and the brightest from around the world will come to compete. I usually get excited in the weeks leading up to the Olympics because it's a chance to see sports that normally don't get very much limelight at all outside of Olympic years. Interested in swimming or badminton or table tennis then this is the time of year that you will be more than excited about, you'll be enamoured. But still, there's a side of the games that has been coming out more and more in recent years and that's in 'sending a message' to one country or another through some decision.

President Bush has come under a lot of fire this year for many things but one of which is the fact that he has chosen to attend the Olympic Games inspite of the fact that China has previously been 'scolded' by the US for their human rights violations. Many opponents to Bush's decision argued that if the US wanted to send a message to the Chinese government then he should have refused the invitation to attend and sat at home here in the United States and watched on television like the rest of us. Now while that is a compelling arguement, Bush declined to take that option and instead countered by saying that the Olympics were nothing more than a 'sporting event' and though he did make a statement condemning China's human rights violations while he made a stop in Thailand, it was more to appease those complaining against him than anything else.

Though I was young to remember much, I do recall reading about how the United States boycotted the games in 1980 to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It was also a show of defiance against the communist controlled Soviet Union but still, the message was clear. We don't like the way you're running things and so we aren't going to play with you. Things have certainly changed since then but I think at that time it was a powerful message to the Soviet Union about just how strongly the United States stood against their actions. But is this what the games are about? Is this what they are to be remembered for and anticipated for? In 1972, the terrorist group Black September made a powerful statement of their own when they held members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage and eventually killed them. That sent a message to the world too.

Even way back when; back in 1936 at the Berlin Games when Jesse Owens broke the colour barrier and more or less demolished the Nazi vision of being the superior race when he won three Gold Medals. There was a mixed message there too. In spite of being in a country on the verge of unleashing one of the most horrible racial genocides in history, Owens was still able to move about Germany like any other citizen though when he came home to the United States he was once again segregated and treated like a second class citizen. Though he had helped America 'prove' her superiority, he was still not treated as an equal which showed just how duplicitious we could also be.

But all this reflection makes me think about the fact that we're getting farther and farther away from the games themselves and focussing more on who will send what message and in what way? The United States will be having refugee immigrant Lopez Lomong of Darfur carry the flag in the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Darfur is yet another country where the expurgation of various races has been carrying on unabated for decades and though there has been increased awareness, there is a surprising amount of ambivalence and silence on the issue. I guess maybe a lot of people feel that there's nothing for us to gain by helping out in Darfur while improving things in China will eventually help us out as a nation won't it? We're sending and receiving messages as convenient but for our own purposes it seems. Why not focus on the games. Not on how many medals our country has won versus how many the opposite country has won but the games. Simply the games and the great athletes who have struggled for most of their lives to reach this point.