Speaking of which…
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You got me. I want my country to spend as little as possible on this bullshit parade of commercialism that has replaced the olympics.
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What if all the athletes for an event do it? Like everyone turning up for the 100m sprint & deciding they’re simply going to walk it & wave at the crowd.
There’s always one… scab.
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But masonic and “ironic Nazi” secret gestures are fine?
Be seeing you!
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I wonder if they’ll have a prescribed hairstyle? This occurs to me because my high school (in 1968) forbade girls (as they were then called – young women in modern terms) were forbidden short hair, I forget the prescribed minimum length.
Naturally, this led to a massive wave of hair clipping. “Go ahead, suspend the valedictorian and half of the rest of the senior class until it grows back.”
The IOC seems to be reverting to those days, so maybe they’ll adopt the kind of hairstyle, skirt length, etc. rules we had for subadults then.
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Kozakiewicz’s account of his actions actually places it as a rebuke to rude (and perhaps chauvinistic) Russian spectators rather than to Soviet occupation. But it was certainly okay with an awful lot of Poles. (And me!)
If the IOC had a shred of integrity or intellectual honesty they would recognize that any reaction of any kind to any national anthem is inherently a political gesture. The rules as currently written expressly forbid placing your hand over your heart when your nation’s anthem is played, for instance, though of course this is not enforced. Somehow, I suspect that they will find a way to define “the correct salutes” as apolitical, so 1936’s Heil Hitler = good, while 1968’s raised fist = bad.
It’s worth noting that that very same salute was, at the time Smith and Carlos made it (and in spite of the IOC’s claims that it was not a national salute and hence lacked the wholesome and apolitical qualities of the Nazi salute), the customary patriotic gesture of the last legitimately elected government of Spain. Further, as they were in Mexico, that’s not just trivia: IIRC Mexico never recognized the Franco regime and considered the Second Republic to be the rightful government of Spain right up until the restoration of democracy in the 70s.
Perhaps Avery Brundage, the Nazi-friendly president of the IOC in 1968, was still stinging from the Spanish boycott of his beloved 1936 Olympics.
(Look, it’s not his fault. Hitler promised Brundage in writing that the Nazis didn’t hate Jews. It’s not like Brundage should have been suspicious when he asked to talk to some Jewish athletes and the Nazis wouldn’t let him. Sure, in hindsight that looks bad, but who could have recognized that as a red flag at the time? …Oh, wait. I guess lots of people did actually. Jewish athletes from the US, South Africa, and France figured it out, as did, evidently, some Turkish fencers. But it’s just not fair to expect the IOC’s point man to be as well-informed on the subject he’s supposed to investigate as some women from Turkey!)
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I am totally ok with it too, especially when taking into account all the harm done by Soviet Union to Poland and other countries then belonging to Warsaw Pact.
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Since the Games are being held in Japan, they will be worried about:
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South Koreans protesting about comfort women and other issues related to the Second World War and the colonial era
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Chinese anti-Japan protests
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Taiwanese athletes and spectators flouting the rules for participating as “Chinese Taipei”
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Yes. I’m aware and agree that it’s okay… hence the /s… But my point is that political commentary has long been part of the olympics, and only some kinds of political protests are frowned upon, while others are welcomed. What is “political” and what is not is based on the ideology of the time and who is in charge of the IOC. I’m arguing that enforcing the ideology of the day IS a political act, and banning political commentary via actions IS a political act.
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The Olympics are what they always were.
I’m sorry that it took some of you this long to figure it out.
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Exactly. And you’re absolutely right to identify “anti-communist” positioning as key to the IOC’s thinking: that was Brundage’s excuse whenever someone would press him on whether this Hitler character wasn’t a bit unsavory in spite of his promises.
In other words, while you and I and Citizen 74 cheer for Kozakiewicz because we feel for the Poles, the IOC never gave a shit about the Poles and would have hated him if he’d stood up to right-wing oppression. They only looked the other way because they hated the Soviets, not because they hated oppression.
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Not to mention… spectators garbed in nationalistic colors and screaming “Go [insert country name here]”.
I completely agree with you, such ban is itself an act in the support of status quo, it forces everyone there to pretend that things are fine, when for currently oppressed groups they are obviously not. In a better world IOC would only enact a ban on carefully selected hate symbols. Such ban would also be a political statement, although with more positive message - “Nazis and other fascists are not welcome here”.
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