I remember the first time I looked at the Olympics through a critical lens. Beijing 2008. And I’m not alone; almost everyone remembers the media harping on the Chinese government for literally building a wall around the “slums”, separating the rich from the poor in such an obvious, tactless maneuver. But of course with the anti-China pro-western mentality we’ve been raised to possess, this was almost expected. China has a history of violating international human rights agreements, so it’s only “natural” that they should continue these practices even when the public eye is staring them down.
Now I don’t mean to exonerate the Chinese government for their actions which I agree are reprehensible. But ever since that summer, I’ve been doing some digging. As it turns out (for those of you who weren’t aware), Beijing was not the first city to modify their geographical eye sores when the Olympics came to town. In fact, their construction/destruction efforts can be seen as just following suit in a long history of Olympics displacement efforts. Via British journalist George Monbiot:
In every city it examined, the Olympic Games – accidentally or deliberately – have become a catalyst for mass evictions and impoverishment. Since 1988, over 2 million people have been driven from their homes to make way for the Olympics… The games have become a licence for land grabs.
That’s right: Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney, Beijing… Every Olympic host city examined in the 2007 report from the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) since 1988 has been found guilty of “mega event-related housing violations”. Don’t believe George or me? Read it yourself: http://www.cohre.org/store/attachments/COHRE%27s%20Olympics%20Report.pdf
278 pages of irrefutable evidence that the Olympic games are not just about sport, but also about wealth and spectacle. And this trend of displacement and cover-up is not limited to the Olympics:
Roma were particularly subjected to harassment and eviction in Patras during the 2006 Cultural Capital of Europe celebrations; the tents of homeless people were removed by private security guards and police officers in Osaka for the 2006 World Rose Convention; homeless people were rounded up and institutionalised in Abuja for the 2002 Miss World Beauty Pageant; 300 homeless were ‘cleaned up’ from Osaka for the 2002 FIFA World Cup; homeless people, beggars and other ‘undesirables’ were banned from sleeping and doing business in Bangkok for the 1998 Asian Games; and homeless people were displaced in Chicago for the 1994 World Cup.
And yet, where is the media on this? Outside of Democracy Now‘s independent analysis and some NPR dabbling about the Vancouver protest (though not the actual criticism), it seems the U.S. has chosen tunnel vision over watchdog status. Even as journalists are detained at the Canadian border should they admit to having or simply be targeted as having anti-Olympics sentiments, the major press coverage remains non-existent, leaving the IOC and host city governments free of releasing statements or being held accountable in any way.
I feel particularly incensed by this, mostly because so many people buy into national Olympics pride while maintaining a front of ignorance towards the disastrous realities of the industrialization and militarization caused by the games going local. How many times have I heard the response “We need the sports!” or “But so many people love this international competition! It gives us happiness!”…? Many times. I’ve even spoken with someone who tried to argue by setting up a calculation: the amount of joy expressed by the many [viewers/athletes] versus the suffering felt by the few [poor/displaced]. And really, if we’re spending our time developing hedonistic formulas for global happiness, we need to take a giant f-ing step outside our bubble of privilege and ask the bigger question: why, oh why are we actually trying to justify the systemic oppression of under-privileged peoples?
Notice nowhere so far have I mentioned sports. Nowhere have I once criticized athletes or coaches or even fans (although I do put a certain amount of blame on the individuals who have chosen to not read the criticisms or not do their own historical research). Because this piece isn’t about the sports, it’s about the giant advertising campaign that host cities put on which result in incresed homelessness, exploitation of the poor, indigenous land grabbing (in Vancouver), militarization, and excessive short-term spending with long-term consequences. You want to have your games on TV? I see no problem with that. But take a piece of Monbiot’s advice:
Let them [the Olympic games] stay in a city where it has already been done.
In other words, raise your voice and push to find a way to satisfy the global sports craving that doesn’t come at the expense of structural, institutionalized oppression and homelessness.
NOTE: Although this wasn’t the topic of my post, I do also want to recognize the ongoing gender inequality in the Olympic games, particularly through the aggressove efforts by the IOC to keep women’s ski jump out, via Spare Candy: http://www.sparecandy.com/2010/02/remember-women-ski-jumpers-during.html
Related Links:
- Olympic Resistance Network: http://olympicresistance.net/
- No 2010: http://www.no2010.com/
- George Monbiot’s article “Someone Else’s Legacy”: http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/06/12/someone-elses-legacy/
- COHRE Olympics Report: http://www.cohre.org/store/attachments/COHRE%27s%20Olympics%20Report.pdf
- Democracy Now! Olympics Reporting: http://www.democracynow.org/tags/olympics
- Anita‘s photos from the 2010 opening ceremony protest: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22577152@N04/sets/72157623298825091/
