WWhen French historian Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the governing body of the modern Olympic Games, in the late 19th century, he framed the competition as a peace movement that could unite the world through sport. “Wars break out because nations misunderstand each other,” he he said. Competition, the reasoning went, would promote greater understanding and reconciliation between opposing countries.
More than a century later, Coubertin’s vision has not exactly come to fruition. Far from putting an end to wars, the Olympics were involved and even canceled for them. For although the Games are ostensibly apolitical, the world in which they operate is not. In fact, authoritarians past and present have used the spectacle of the Olympic Games for their own political propaganda. And despite Olympic officials’ insistence that the Games be strictly neutral, the IOC has on many occasions made decisions derided by some as partisan – most recently, its decision to suspend the Russian Olympic Committee in the aftermath of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine for Moscow.
The next Summer Olympics are expected to be “the most politically charged Olympics in decades”, says Jules Boykoff, an international expert on sports policy. Against the backdrop of two major land wars – in Ukraine, where Russia continues to occupy 18% of the country’s territory, and in Gaza, where Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas has leveled much of the Strip and killed more than 37,000 people, according to figures from the Hamas-controlled enclave’s health ministry, which are considered credible by USA and the UN — the 2024 Games, he and others warn, cannot be held in a geopolitical vacuum.
If recent international competitions are any indication, they are not wrong. From the Eurovision Song Contest to the UEFA Champions League, global events have included the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. But the responses were not identical: while Russia was summarily barred of several international tournaments and games following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 – including the Paris Olympics, where Russian and Belarusian athletes will be allowed to compete only as neutral participants – activists’ calls for Israel to be equally excluded have largely fallen over land.
The IOC, which previously rejected such calls on the grounds that the situation in Gaza is “completely different,” cites Russia’s violation of the Olympic Charter – specifically, the Russian Olympic Committee’s takeover of regional Olympic organizations in occupied Ukrainian territory – as the reason for its ban. “This situation cannot be compared to any of the other armed conflicts in our world,” an IOC spokesperson told TIME in an email.
Still, some critics argue that the IOC’s relative silence on Gaza represents a double standard. For although Israel has not annexed Gaza or taken control of its sports organizations, its military has destroyed much of its infrastructure, including its sports facilities. What little remains, like Gaza’s iconic Yarmouk Stadium, supposedly was converted by the Israeli military into a space to hold Palestinian detainees, a measure by the Palestinian Football Association reported as a “clear violation of the Olympic Charter”. At the end of May, the Palestinian Olympic Committee estimated that 300 Palestinian athletes have been killed since October 7, including the Palestinian Olympic football coach Hani Al Masdar and karate champion Nagham Abu Samra. For those who survived, the prospect of sport returning to Gaza is years away, if not decadesabsent.
Several Palestinian athletes qualified for the Paris Games, together with athletes from Israel, Ukraine and Russia. (Unlike the others, Russian athletes will not be allowed to compete as a team, nor will they be represented by any flags, anthems or other national identifications.) What remains to be seen, however, is how the athletes are received, both by other teams participants and each other. In previous competitions, athletes refused to shake hands, as was the case with Ukrainian Olympic fencer Olga Kharlan despised her Russian opponent, Anna Smirnova, at the World Championships in Milan last summer, and more recently when the Irish women’s basketball team refused the usual handshake with their Israeli counterparts in the EuroBasket qualifiers in February.
“I think athlete activism will reveal itself in ways we’ve never seen before,” says Shireen Ahmed, a journalist who writes about the intersection of sport and politics. “Not only will we have athletes refusing to compete against Israeli athletes, but we will also have protests in the streets, and people talking about divestment. This will be incredibly polarizing, and in an event that aims to unify, there will be resistance on all levels.”
When asked about the possibility of athletes holding protests or political demonstrations during the Games, an IOC spokesperson told TIME that “athletes cannot be held responsible for the actions of their governments” and that if something considered discriminatory occurs, the IOC will work with the IOC. the national Olympic committee and the international federation concerned to ensure that “swift action” is taken.
The spokesperson did not elaborate, although previous cases offer some clues. During the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Algerian judoka Fethi Nourine received a 10-year competition ban for his refusal to face an Israeli opponent. At the same Olympics, American shot putter Raven Saunders made the first demonstration on the podium when, after receiving her silver medal, she crossed her raised arms in the shape of an X, which she said symbolized “the intersection where all oppressed people meet.” . Although the IOC investigated the incident, which flouted the ban on athletes protesting during competition or while on the medal podium, it did not issue any sanctions. “When it comes to dealing with political protests,” says Boykoff, the IOC “has been inconsistent at best.”
Perhaps this is because, contrary to Coubetin’s view, the Olympic Games have always been considered, by both host countries and athletes, as inherently political events. This is what happened in 1936, when Adolf Hitler used the spectacle of the Olympic Games as a propaganda tool for his Nazi regime. This was also what happened decades later, when, during the height of the civil rights movement, American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos used a medal ceremony at the 1968 Olympic Games to organize a demonstration against racial discrimination in the Olympics. It was perhaps the most famous moment of political discourse in the country. the history of games.
On a Press conference Addressing the potential impact that the geopolitical scenario could have on the Paris Games, IOC President Thomas Bach referred to Coubertin’s founding credo, noting that in times of conflict it is “more important to have this connection and give this symbol of hope”.
Boykoff, for his part, isn’t convinced. “If they think this is going to end,” he says, “they are living in a fairyland even more isolated than I could imagine.”
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
