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| "All
the Olympics are a little unnatural, of course, they are genial intervals of
make-believe," writes Charles McGrath, the Irish-American litterateur in
residence at the New York Times, "when the world pretends to be a happier
and friendlier place." McGrath understates the case. They are as phony as a two-headed yuan. They are the last remaining ruins of the burst of optimism that emerged in Europe as the Victorian Age morphed into the Edwardian Age. As the 19th century turned into the 20th century, belief in the inevitability of progress spread in Europe and North America. Peace had persisted in Europe since the Council of Vienna in 1815, save for relatively "minor" wars between Prussia and France, between France and England against Russia, between Italy and the papacy. Most of these were relatively limited engagements, since the horrific American Civil War did not count. Various internal conflicts in Russia (against Poland) and in the United Kingdom (against Ireland) were irrelevant, if only because the Poles and the Irish were irrelevant. |
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Eight decades of peace were a record. People could begin to talk about international law, disarmament, "conventions" to protect civilians. Nobel Peace Prizes were another hopeful sign. Major progress had been made in the sciences, and there were victories in medicine -- doctors no longer drained blood out of their patients. The world was becoming a better place in which to live (if one didn't look too closely at Africa and Asia). Representative governments were becoming more stable. The religious conflicts that had almost destroyed Europe had disappeared as science replaced religion as the guide of human life. What better way to symbolize and promote peace among nations than a restored Olympiad with its high ideals of sportsmanship? |
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The original Olympics were a religious activity celebrating peace and fraternity among the Greek principalities. They didn't make the Greek cities any less combative, and peace was finally imposed not by Greek virtue but by Roman might. And the bright hopes and dreams of progress died in the summer of 1914 as science, technology and rational discussion were swept away in earthquakes of nationalism. The renewal of the Olympiad after the Great War demonstrated beyond doubt that as long as nations were competing in the Olympics, they would inevitably be tainted by nationalism. Hitler's Olympics became a systematic effort to prove the superiority of the Third Reich and of the Aryan race. Socialist governments funded repressive training programs to prove that they were more skillful at producing master races than Fascist governments. American athletes, funded by the contributions of capitalist corporations and relying on the same kinds of performance drugs that the Socialists had used, continued to dominate the games, though "American" sports such as baseball and women's softball were squeezed out of the contests and American teams were cheated by biased officiating (most notably American basketball teams by Russian referees). American athletes were furious when Jimmy Carter ordered that Americans would not compete with Russian athletes as long as the Russians occupied Afghanistan. For all its tough talk about human rights, the Cheney-Bush administration accepted the Chinese oppression of its many "inferior"minority groups and China's drive to become the "central kingdom" of the world. China has never been a democracy, and it has precious little right to claim, despite all its economic progress, that it is a civilized country, not that the America of Cheney-Bush has worried much about human rights in this country. The pompous religious rites that create an atmosphere of peace and fraternity are hypocritical. The young athletes are impressive, to the extent they stay off drugs, but the whole business is a charade and usually dull. Who cares about competition among BB-gun users! |
 A Stupid, Unjust, And Criminal War: Iraq 2001-2007 Father Greeley calls to task those who justified, planned and executed the war and reminds us that God weeps at the destruction of war, whether lives lost are ‘ours’ or ‘theirs.’  Order
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