Just when the Olympic Games had seemingly reached the bottom of its own sordid barrel along comes this current abomination in Beijing..Still, in its own inimitable fashion, China’s doing us all a favour by exposing, once and for all, the rotten soul of this global paean to mass nationalism dressed as some supposed glorious coming-together of the world’s young athletes..Maybe it was once in Ancient Greece, but it has long since cast aside that innocent mantle. Nowadays, what’s left in its wake makes the make-believe world of the Hunger Games look benign in comparison..In the movie at least the various combatants could run about outside with some sort of freedom. That’s not allowed in Beijing, where a COVID-zero policy means the few outsiders even allowed into the city are strictly confined to closed-loop bubbles in case someone might cough or sneeze out of turn..Sadly for the Chinese leadership it isn’t possible to stage the Games without actual athletes so they’ve little option but to let them in. Still, at least they could ban foreign spectators and warn handpicked locals allowed to attend they can clap but not cheer. .Speaking of warnings, overseas athletes have been told to toe the line and, under no circumstances, say or do anything detrimental to the Communist regime: anyone contemplating some podium protest in the mode of Tommie Smith’s black power salute in 1968 Mexico, should think again, unless they fancy reliving the trauma of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor..Oh yes, the two Michaels. Who could forget them? Well, lots of Canadian athletes currently bending the knee and performing for the Chinese political elite for a start. .Such moral flexibility is forgivable in the young: not quite so easily brushed aside however when it comes to the government of Canada, which would have us believe imposing a diplomatic boycott of this Beijing shindig because of human rights concerns will have President Xi Jinping and his cronies shaking with trepidation. .But of course, Canada wouldn’t do anything more, no matter how many of our citizens China might arrest and throw in jail or how many ethnic minorities are re-educated in camps on its soil. Money talks, morality walks: nowhere is that better displayed than at the Olympics..Of course, the lords and masters of this grubby global business, the International Olympic Committee, manage to smother any abuse beneath the tiresome refrain of bringing the world together. Really? Will we feel an extra degree of warm and fussy kinship with fellow humans everywhere when the Olympic torch is extinguished in a week or so?.(Oh, by the way: it was the Nazis, at the 1936 Berlin Games, who introduced the now-famous torch relay. Yep, Hitler certainly knew a thing about marketing.).Speaking of those Games, we’ve been brainwashed into believing the event was a repudiation of the odious ‘superior Aryan race’ theory, promoted by the Nazis. Total poppycock, of course. .Jesse Owens’ remarkable performance in taking four gold medals is the cornerstone of this flight of fancy. And yes, no doubt Hitler and henchmen were less than pleased to see a US black man take four gold medals. .But they would have been delighted that German athletes were triumphant, winning almost twice as many medals as the nearest competing country, while almost every athlete gave the Nazi salute while parading past Hitler during the opening ceremonies..Who knows, if the world had said: ‘stick your Games where even Goebbels can’t find them’ and refused to attend en masse perhaps such a dramatic slap-down might have averted the second World War. .But no, then as now, the Olympics were never about bringing people together in any spirit of shared humanity. They are about power, money and nationalism, cleverly cloaked by the athletic efforts of innocent dupes and spurred on by gawping spectators everywhere, all reassuring each other it’s about faster, higher and stronger. .Stick a fork in them. The Olympics are well past done..ChrisNelson is a Calgary columnist..
