Anti-Olympic : Pro-Olympian
By Ryan Oakley. Filed in Politics, canada |
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW8vgCGxFsc]
The Canadian Anti-Olympic movement has started.
Surely our free press will meet these protests with the same sympathy as they did their Chinese counterparts. Surely they’ll listen to our oppressed indigenous population just as well as they listened to the Tibetans. Perhaps they’ll even take the time to make a though examination of the RCMP and how they treat political dissent.
Or not.
It’s quite easy for Canadians to act in defence of other people’s rights, in lands far away; people toiling under political systems Canadians only comprehend in slogan form, guided by histories and cultures that your average Canuck has only encountered in a Hollywood movie. All of that is quite easy.
It requires nothing but sanctimony.
But, when the problem and resistance is upon their own soil, you can expect one thing and one thing only: An outpouring of nauseating nationalism patriotism.
The Olympics is all about flag waving mixed with vicarious accomplishment.
Long gone are the ancient days when athletes competed naked on behalf of themselves and, should they win, a great poet would compose a song celebrating their personal victory. You know, the good old Greek days. Long before the Nazis got involved with their television cameras.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj5UximeuoU]
From the flag to the torch, what we have now is their befouled legacy. A corrupt exercise in corporate and nationalist propaganda. One that destroys the communities it purports to celebrate and makes a joke of the ideals it pays lip service to.
But the athletes are no joke, Each and every one is an incredible specimen of physicality, discipline and endurance, deserving a degree of adulation. Each and every one of them offers either a heroic lesson or sets a villainous example. And I support our troops. It’s the spectacle that’s pathetic. It’s unworthy of these people.
I love the Olympics and hate their politicization. But it’s not the protesters who started that game. It was Nation State Inc. Sadly, they’ve taken a noble sporting event and degraded it. Now it’s a nationalistic frenzy in a concession stand.
Disgusting, saddening and tacky.
If people react against that and use the chance to put the worst of their nation on display with the best, that’s not only their right but their duty. It’s also what the Olympics are all about. Joy of victory, agony of defeat and all that drama.
So while I cheer for my favourite athletes and teams, wherever they’re from, whatever race they may be, and however many drugs they’ve taken, and on the basis of their personal story, there’s one thing and one thing only you can do with that flag of yours.
