By Kofi Akordor
THE Olympic Games, like other similar sports tournaments, are mainly meant to bring together athletes of various nationalities and different cultural backgrounds for the ultimate objective of attaining international peace and solidarity.
According to the Olympic Charter established by Pierre de Coubertin, who can be described as the Father of the Modern Olympics, the games are “to contribute to the building of a peaceful and better world by educating the youth through sports practised without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play”.
The games also bridged ideological gaps, brought together both the rich and poor, the powerful and the ordinary and strengthened the bonds of friendship among all and consequently reduce unnecessary tension in the world.
That was the case until 1980 when the United States of America (USA) decided to extend the Cold War battleground to the sporting arena. In that year, the USA led a boycott of the Moscow Olympic Games, citing, among other things, the invasion of Afghanistan by the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) as an excuse. Incidentally, that was the first time a Warsaw Pact country was hosting the summer Olympics.
Time, they say, changes. Today, it is the USA which has invaded Afghanistan in its war efforts against terror.
The USA succeeded in persuading poor and vulnerable Third World countries like Ghana, then under President Hilla Limann, to boycott the Moscow Games in return for aid packages which included consignments of wheat and yellow maize. The official explanation for the boycott was that the country could not afford the cost of going to Moscow. But it was common knowledge that that was not true and that the boycott decision had to do more with our inability to chart an independent path in international politics.
It, therefore, did not come as a surprise when, in 1984, the then USSR led a boycott of the Los Angeles Summer Olympic Games in retaliation. The USA, determined to beat the boycott, offered to airlift all participating countries from Africa and other poor regions of the world free of charge to the games. With such a generous offer, Ghana had no excuse, if even it had any intention to join its socialist counterparts in the boycott, and had to be there.
Earlier in 1976, African countries had, in solidarity with South Africa, which was then under apartheid rule, boycotted the Montreal Olympic Games in Canada because of the participation of countries with sporting ties with apartheid South Africa.
The 1980 Moscow and 1984 Los Angeles games were the last to be hosted by the superpowers before the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Empire. Since then, the games have been held in Barcelona (1992), Atlanta (1996), Sydney (2000) and Athens (2004) without any political disruptions.
On August 29, 2004, the Olympic flag was lowered in Athens and handed to the China Olympic Committee, which announced that the youth of the world would gather in Beijing in 2008 for the next Olympics. China, the world’s emerging economic power, plunged into serious action in preparation for the games which take place in August this year.
While everything seems to be going on well, there have been minor skirmishes to paint a gloomy picture of the Beijing Games. These include complaints about Beijing’s heavy traffic and atmospheric pollution. But these are issues that have been brushed aside as being too minor to affect the hosting of the games. However, two weeks ago, things took a different turn when demonstrators protesting against Chinese rule in Tibet clashed with the police, leaving an estimated 150 people dead.
Tibet has always been a sore point in China’s international diplomacy and the recent clashes have given ground for some of China’s opponents in the West to clamour for a boycott of the Beijing Summer Olympic Games.
Incidentally, this time the boycott voices are very feeble and among the major powers, only the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, has come out to openly declare that boycott is not out of the question.
The Australian Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, whose country has always pushed for a boycott of Zimbabwe for Mugabe’s alleged human rights abuses, said a boycott of the Beijing Olympics was not a sensible thing to do.
“The Olympics are a chance not only to put the spotlight on China but also enhance its engagement with the international community,” he said, admitting that, “In the past, boycotts of the Olympics, in my view, have not been successful, whether Australia is engaged in that, as it did with the Moscow Olympics, or when other nation states have engaged in it.”
This position was shared by other statesmen, including the Singaporean Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports, Vivian Balakrishnan, who said, “The games will provide a golden opportunity for athletes from all over the world to compete on a friendly basis, interact with one another, carry out fruitful dialogue and build lasting relationships.”
“If there are some people who want to boycott the Beijing Olympics, just leave them alone. We can still enjoy our great party,” Majed Al Qatarneh, the Secretary-General of the Jordan Olympic Committee, said.
To those who want to use politics to disrupt social events such as the Olympic Games, Patrick Hickey, the President of the European Olympic Committees (EOC), had this to say to them, “The EOC is a sports organisation which does not interfere in political issues.” Another EOC member, Togay Bayatli, observed, “Political issues should be resolved by the United Nations and other international organisations.”
The British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, while visiting China, also raised his opposition to calls for a boycott of the Beijing Games and called for all countries to participate.
“Political issues are unjust issues in the Olympic year. They should be issues we talk about every year,” he said, and raised the hopes of the anti-boycott lobby when he declared, “The Olympics should be a symbol of bringing countries and peoples together in an open, competitive way.”
Even though the Democrats in the US are pushing for a boycott of the games, President George W. Bush who, for once, is not prepared to swim against the tide of global opinion, has kept his distance from the Democrats.
Even the Dalai Lama and his government in exile have declared that they would want the Beijing Games to go on.
So who are those who stand to benefit from a boycott? As the Australian Foreign Minister noted, boycotts in the past had not been successful and there was no guarantee that any boycott this time would be different.
“It is the athletes who lose out in cases of boycotts and other political action,” the EOC’s Bayatli noted. I think that should inform those who are agitating for a boycott.
Africa, whatever the case may be, should not allow itself to be used as a pawn in any superpower ideological game again.
No comments:
Post a Comment