Olympics
The news media are getting all wound up into a frenzy about the Olympic Games, but the overlay of jingoistic nationalism needed to make athletics interesting makes it hard for me to get excited.
I do not understand why a sports event in which most athletes participate as individuals has been turned into a competition between nations, especially when ability in many athletic sports depends on accidents of birth. Athletic sports are a competition between people, not nations.
The concept of an individual athlete representing their nation is quite odd. Competitors at the Olympics may feel greater motivation, because they think they are representing their nation, but how can they be my representative. An elected politician cannot represent me, so how can an unelected athlete be my representative. If they knew how unathletic I am, they would not want to represent me. I do not know them, so they cannot represent me.
Christians are citizens of a different kingdom.
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek‚…
If this is true, why would I want to claim that I am an American, or a Canadian, or a New Zealander? If I am passionate about being in Christ Jesus, how can I be passionate about a nation?
for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:26-28).
Atheletes do all the hard work of training, but nations tend to steal some of the glory. I am very wary about cheering my national team. I do not feel comfortable about saying ‚“We won‚” when all I did was sit on a couch and perhaps cheer.
The Olympics are supposed to be a competition for amateurs, but sports nationalism has turned many athletes into semi-professionals by enabling them to become sports beneficiaries of the state.
A sporting competition between nations does not make much sense, when nations had different sized populations. Only a few nations have sufficient population to be a contender for the most gold medals.
Why do nations need to prove that they are better than other nations. Germany dominated the 1936 games, but then went on to do great evil, so winning gold medals does not signify anything about the goodness of a nation.
National pride is the thin end of the wedge of nationalism. Nationalism dominated the twentieth century and terrible evils were done in the name of nationalism. I suspect that people who get wrapped up in a national team, will be more open to the militaristic adventures of their nationalist governments.
International Sport is the maidservant of Nationalism.
Nationalism is the handmaiden ofTotalitarian Democracy.
6 comments:
Culture leaves its indelible marks on humans. Even though a Kiwi Christian is a citizen of heaven, they are still a Kiwi. This means they are still a humble, friendly, approachable person who cannot drive or handle spicy food, and does not have a sense of fashion.
New Zealand athletes competing at the Olympics do not represent you personally, they represent New Zealand. The Olympic Games is a festival of world-championships. All the best athletes of multiple disciplines come together at the same time and same place to compete in their chosen sports.
Take someone who gets into track and field when they are a kid. Of course at that age they are going to compete in a tournament that is close to where they live. As they age and mature and gain ability they climb through the ranks and start competing at regional level, then interregional level, and then national level.
At some point they may even start competing at international level. Enter the Olympics. As I said above, they are a festival of the world’s best in sports that have to exhibit certain popularity before they are accepted as Olympic sports (which is why rugby is not an Olympic sport).
As kids enter the sport of their choice, they will naturally be surrounded by kids of the same nationality. Only when they hit the age of 16 or so will they start to move away from home and a team perhaps gains some internationality due to immigration (which is perfectly natural).
The flavour of the sport may take a different direction in one country than in another, for example in ice hockey, the Canadians play a very physical style, while the Russians do everything at very high speed and the Czechs are aesthetes and think that everything they do must look pretty.
So sports are generally already organised by the country where the tournament is held, a part from at elite level where the best players congregate in the same league (NHL, NBA, Major League Baseball, Formula One, etc.)
It is actually a myth that the Olympic Games are a competition for amateurs. The reason for this is that in the 1970’s and 80’s the Soviet Union was cheating by having their athletes amateur on paper, as they were employed for example by the army, but in reality were dedicating themselves to their sport. The IOC then changed the rules in 1988, allowing professionals to compete.
The idea that the Olympics are a past-time for amateurs is therefore an outdated view, by about 24 years. Even track and field athletes are now professional, with most of their earnings coming from sponsorship deals with equipment manufacturers.
The size of the country does not actually come into play as much as you might think. Sure, the bigger the population, the greater the chances of a nation being able to send multiple teams who are capable of winning medals over a greater range of sports.
But having a quick look at the medal tables of the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, shows that Australia out-performed Germany, even though Germany has a population 4 times as big. And New Zealand out-performed the Czech Republic in both 2004 and 2008, even though there are more than twice as many Czechs than Kiwis.
But not just that: As I am an athlete myself, having played ice hockey for 15 years, I understand the sportsmanship involved. It’s not simply about being the better country. Athletes have a huge amount of respect for their opponents. This is due to them knowing what the other athletes have been through to also get to that level of ability.
Also, when I watch the Olympics, I don’t just watch the Germans competing. I watch all of it because I am a sports fan. I can understand that you are not, but the claim that international sport is the maidservant of nationalism is, in my mind, quite absurd.
International sport is in itself actually neutral: It depends on what the person brings to it that makes the difference. To one it is a ‘my country is better than everyone else’s’ thing, and the only results they are interested in are the ones that involve their nation. To the other it is a celebration of sport and actually brings the world together in a friendly way.
The Olympic village is known for being a party place, where the athletes from various countries rub shoulders together and undoubtedly make friends. International sport actually has the ability to steer us away from dangerous hyper-nationalism as it gives people from varying cultures a common ground.
But perhaps only a sports fan can truly understand this?
As I have been watching the Olympics I have also been thinking more about your blog post. I was raised in a sports loving family. My father fled the communist regime of Czechoslovakia in the late 60’s and went to West Germany.
One of the things my father admires about the Germans is that they learnt from the dark years when the Nazi party was in charge: ARD (Germany’s TV One) made a conscious decision post-WWII to include all countries as equal in their television news broadcast.
This means that it is not necessarily German news that features first in the broadcast, but instead important international events. The German news that features next is then politics from the Bundestag.
Contrast this with the coverage provided by TV One and TV3 here: New Zealand news appears prominently, even if it is a quite trivial matter. If you don’t believe me, then I suggest you go to the DWTV website and see for yourself how German news broadcasts are constructed.
As I was born in Germany, with a NZ mother and Czech father, but also family from my mothers’ side in Switzerland and Germany, I appreciate other cultures and customs. I am also aware of what my family went through during the Nazi period and obviously don’t think much of nationalism myself, especially when taken to extremes.
However, when I watch the Olympic Games, there is no way I consider it a nationalistic affair. Quite the opposite, I consider it an international affair. I watched badminton earlier where an Indonesian was playing against a Thai. I watched because I enjoy watching sports.
Just now I saw a replay of the men’s swimming medley where Lochte beat Phelps to win the gold medal. These two rivals are from both from the USA, and yet I am excited to watch them compete with each other. I have no connection to the USA but I am happy for Lochte. Again it’s because I am a sports fan.
But if you contrast this with the attention the NZ media gives to the results of the events, then apart from the top stories like Lochte vs Phelps, then only the NZ athletes will be given heed to. If you only get your news about the Olympics from either TV One or TV3, then you will get a NZ biased story about the results.
This strengthens my point: It depends on what you bring to the Olympics; international sport is in itself neutral. Sports fans watch it all. NZ fans only watch the events where NZ’ers are involved. I am very happy that these days Prime TV is broadcasting 24 hours a day and Sky has up to 8 channels dedicated to the event.
This contrasts dramatically with the 80’s and 90’s where there was much more limited coverage. And then of course, they focused more on just the NZ athletes. Coverage of the Winter Olympics was in this regard even worse. While in Germany they have always had full coverage of the Olympics, both Winter and Summer, showing all athletes.
This means it is not the Olympics that promotes nationalism, it is rather the way people view them, and in this regard NZ is actually quite nationalistic.
David, while the attitudes of spectators are relevant, the problem is much deeper than that.
A world games where the best athletes gather to compete against each other would make sense, but the Olympics is not organised that way. It is set up to be a competition between nations, from beginning to end. You confirm that in your comment. The badminton game that you watched was a match between two people, who have names, but you describe it as a match between a Thai and an Indonesian.
The best athletes do not always get to compete at the games. Someone who is in the top forty in their sport can miss out, if they are not in the top three for their country. The best basket ballers in the world are not at the Olympics, and many mediocre ones get to attend, because they come from a different nation.
The modern Olympics got underway at a time when nationalism was becoming a force in the world. In the first half of the twentieth century, the big issue was the supremacy of Germany. In the second half of the century, they turned in an extension of the cold war between America and the Soviet Union. They are now becoming a reflection of the struggle between America and the emerging superpower of China. Sport would be better without all this nonsense, but people might lose interest in dull sports like badminton and archery without the nationalistic overlay.
World Championships are actually also organised the same way as the Olympics. Usain Bolt, for example, doesn’t just run for himself, he also runs under the Jamaican flag at events in between the Olympic Games.
World Championships are where the best from the respective countries form teams based on their nationality and then compete with each other. This is why I said that the Olympic Games are one big World Championship. A large amount of sports get together at the same place and same time.
I think you made a typo when you said 'The best basket ballers in the world are not at the Olympics', either that or you haven't been paying attention to the Olympics for the last two decades.
The year was 1992, the Olympics were being held in Barcelona and the Olympics Committee allowed professional basketballers to take part for the first time.
Team USA was nicknamed the Dreamteam, as they had players like Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Clyde Drexler, Larrie Bird and Magic Johnson.
This year (2012) they also have a very strong team with players like Lebron James and Kobe Bryant. They are not seen as dominant as the first Dreamteam, but are expected to clean up the competition.
Sport is an interesting field of human activity. One can say that ‘it’s just a game’, which is true, but at the same time it has the ability to evoke strong emotions. However, part of participating in sport is learning how to lose. They say that to win you’ve got to hate losing, but at some point everyone loses and it is considered unsportsmanlike to be a bad loser.
It is because of this that when a group of athletes from varying countries get together to compete, it is actually something that brings the world closer together, not further apart.
Yes, the National Socialists used the Olympic Games as propaganda to try and say ‘look how Germans are better’, and Communist regimes also used them as a way of promoting communism as superior to capitalism, but that still does not mean that the Olympic Games are inherently nationalistic. The Olympics are neutral, it’s what we bring to the table that makes the difference.
Also, I would like to quote from the NZ Olympic website http://www.olympic.org.nz/nzoc/olympism
Modern Olympism
Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin who in 1894 established the Olympic Movement, is recognised as the father of modern Olympism. He modernised ancient Greek ideals and launched them to the rest of the world through the staging of a modern Olympic Games. Today, the festival celebrates the ideals which remain at the heart of Olympism. By blending sport with culture and education, Olympism promotes a way of life based on:
Goal of Olympism
Olympism uses sport to promote the balanced development of people as an essential step in building a peaceful society that places a high value on human dignity.
Sport and the Olympic Movement
Pierre de Coubertin was not a dreamer or a wide-eyed innocent. From his first steps onto the public stage (around 1880), he realised that sport, which he wanted to be the cornerstone of his educational system, was being eaten away by the same ills that were rotting the life of society: racketeering, nationalism, chauvinism, xenophobia. With a virulence bordering on violence, he denounced the influence of money on betting based sport, which was already sullied by the poison of drugs. The Victorian model of sport as he had discovered it through reading and during trips to Great Britain, was not enough. He wanted to give modern sport a theoretical corpus – as has been the case in ancient Greece – to shelter it from the damaging effects of modern civilisation.
- Yves Boulongne
The balanced development of the body, will and mind
The joy found in effort
The educational value of being a good role model
Respect for universal ethics including tolerance, generosity, unity, friendship, non-discrimination and respect for others.
Please note that Pierre de Coubertin wanted to use sport to steer against nationalism. Thanks.
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