The following Editorial was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, September 13th, 2000. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia. Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795. CPA Central Committee: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "The Guardian": <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Webpage: http://www.cpa.org.au> Subscription rates on request. ****************************** Editorial: Restoring the Olympic spirit The opening ceremony in the main Olympic Stadium at Homebush, Sydney on Saturday 16, will mark the official opening of the 25th Olympic Games to be held in the modern era. The original Olympics were held in Greece from 776 BC to 394 AD, a period of more than 600 years. The original Olympics were a contest among the young men and women of Greece in sport, poetry and music and are credited with bringing conflicts to an end during the period of the Games. For 1500 years, no Olympic Games were held. They were revived only in 1896 but far from stopping wars, the Games were suspended during WW1 and WW2. In the post-WW2 period, the Games became a victim of the Cold War with boycotts imposed by the US and other countries against the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the machinations which led to Sydney receiving the vote for the present Games over the other contender, Beijing. Heaven and earth was moved, (by that one should read the exercise of vote buying), to ensure that Beijing, which had been the foremost contender for the 2000 Games, should be eliminated. Irrespective of the good intentions of the overwhelming majority of the world's people, the young sportsmen and women who come to contest their skills, the modern Olympics have become largely captured by big corporations and by governments that use the Games to promote nationalistic sentiments. The Australian Government has used the occasion to give the Federal Government powers to bring troops onto the streets of Australian cities. The big corporations become sponsors by putting up relatively small sums of money while the people, through the particular governments of the time, are called upon to put up the shortfall that runs into millions upon millions of dollars. So we have Telstra, McDonalds, Nike, UPS and many other big corporations as sponsors. In return, they get Olympic contracts and reap many millions in profits in return for their sponsorship dollars. The sponsors also buy some of the sportsmen and women who emblazon their tracksuits with the names of this or that corporation. Channel 7, the Packer-owned station, is given exclusive rights to transmit the Games, while McDonalds is given exclusive food rights at the various Games facilities. McDonalds have about doubled their normal prices in exchange for this "privilege". In this climate, it is not surprising that the International Olympic Committee, and doubtless, various national Olympic committees have become shot through with corruption. Only a small part of this has been exposed and it will never be thoroughly rooted out while the Games continue to be an opportunity for commercial interests to take over the running in so many important respects. The first fully privatised Games were those held in Atlanta which set up a private Olympic Committee. The modern Olympics have been captured by the Western imperialist powers that use their economic power to ensure that the Games are held in countries acceptable to them. Of the 25 Games actually held in the modern era, 14 were held in Europe and six in North America. American cities have hosted no less than four Olympic Games. Only two Asian cities have held the Games, Africa none and South America none. Undoubtedly the Sydney Olympics will be a magnificent spectacle. Overwhelmingly the sportsmen and women are imbued with the true Olympic spirit of sportsmanship. Sooner or later the Games will be rescued from the corporations and the nationalism that has been assiduously cultivated to the point where the only thing that matters is for this or that national sportsperson to win a gold medal. The private enterprise system will have to be replaced in many more countries before that transformation is achieved. When that is achieved, however, it will be possible to hold the Olympic Games in the spirit of the Greek Olympiads of ancient times. The Olympic Oath reads: "I promise that we shall take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by the rules which govern them, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honour of our teams." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
LL:ART: Editorial: Restoring the Olympic Spirit
Communist Party of Australia Wed, 13 Sep 2000 01:42:51 -0700
