Why we shouldn't politicise the Olympics

Sports events aren't the arena for politics. Protests at the Olympics, past and present, have only damaged their cause

By Oliver Duggan

Over recent decades there has been a heightened trend to use the Olympic Games, or any international sporting event, as a form of leverage by both states and NGO’s to advance their political goals. Such action is deep-rooted in the history of the games; there has rarely been an Olympics that hasn’t been disrupted by protests since Berlin 1936. This is not a phenomenon that resides just in the history books though. We need only look at the huge amount of controversy surrounding the 2008 Beijing Olympics after fears that it would be boycotted because of China’s appalling human rights record and the continuous illegal oppression of Tibet, to prove that this tradition is alive and well. Even more recent was the arresting of seven people in Vancouver on February 14th when a protest about the high level of homelessness in the area became violent. There is an odd tendency to just accept this as an intrinsic part of the events, which subsequently leads to a rather populist celebration of the importance of mass protest under the banner of ‘standing up for what you believe in’. However, we must remember that protesting isn’t always good and that when we look at the potential results of these actions it can often be harmful to their own cause.

So what are the potential outcomes of protests or boycotts at the Olympics? The first, and often most encouraged, is international condemnation of the problem, which some believe exercises such a massive amount of pressure that the problem will be solved. To show why this does absolutely nothing to help it may be useful to recall the example of Beijing. The fear was that the US and some EU states would stay away as a sign of condemning their actions. But that is all it is; a sign. Now I am not so naive as to suggest that international pressure does nothing, it certainly makes it uncomfortable for the targeted state. But to think that as a result China would leave Tibet and enforce the United Nations Commission on Human Rights lends far too much credibility to this act. States very rarely act as a result of international condemnation, especially when they have the Olympics as a rather convenient distraction for onlookers.

The other often-hoped-for outcome is that there will be heightened awareness of the problem in the international media, which will encourage the individual at home to take action against the problem. The major problem here is that the focus only lasts as long as the Games, in the best case scenario, and is often drowned out by the time of the opening ceremonies. By framing the protest to align with the games one is hoping that the media already in the area will give your cause more publicity, which is often the case. But the converse of that is it allows the media a rather comfortable ‘get-out’ date, meaning that they can provide a nice arch highlighting some of the protests and then leave feeling comfortable that they have done what was needed. Some may say that a bit of coverage is better than no coverage, but it is the consequence of this small amount of coverage that is harmful; it lets the government in question and the media ignore it from then on because they have already given it time in the proverbial spotlight.

The protests at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver last week had a slightly different, but equally misguided, aim. The hope in circumstances like the one this month is that the protests will embarrass the hosts so much that it will generate a localized response solving the problem and allowing the games to continue uninterrupted. This is perhaps the most commendable aim, but in some ways also the most dangerous. A localized response is likely to be incredibly short-termist, not just because of the political cycle, but also because they need to get the problem fixed for two weeks only. So when red tents were used to attract attention to homeless people in Vancouver the local government was forced to react by providing temporary shelters; a policy which deeply misunderstands the requirements of the individual and that fails to address the root of the problem. But such is the result when protests deliberately coincide with the Olympics.

In light of all this it may be justifiable to suggest that protests therefore unnecessarily detract from the Olympics and, as a result, adversely affect both the competition and their own cause.