Olympics sport and moral ethics dilemma

Feb 21 2008 by Catherine Jones, Western Mail

As a coalition of Nobel Prize winners and international athletes calls on Olympics host China to abandon its support for Sudan, Catherine Jones reports on the age-old issue of whether sport and politics mix

IMAGINE, four years from now, if British troops are still in Iraq as the UK prepares to host the Olympic Games.

What if, as the global sporting occasion draws closer, a handful of countries announce they are refusing to take part in an event hosted by a nation which is participating in what they believe to be an illegal war?

Would Britain feel piqued that by boycotting its big event, others were deciding the nation’s policies, moral and political, on their behalf?

Would it see they had a point about human rights and the preservation of human life and decide to withdraw from the conflict? Or would it take the view that sport has little to do with politics and should remain simply an arena where physical prowess is put to the test?

“I think sport and politics are both inextricably linked and uneasy bedfellows – when you think about it, the Olympics are naturally politicised,” says Dr Calvin Jones, senior lecturer at Cardiff Business School, whose work focuses on tourism, sport and economics.

“It was used as a political tool by South Korea to bring itself on to the world stage. It was used by Los Angeles to make a statement about the vibrancy of the place and cement the local mayor’s position.

“The Olympics is inextricably linked to politics. It may be hosted by a city but the country’s bid is typically presented by a head of state and has to have the backing of the government.”

With the approach of the Olympic Games in Beijing this August, a letter of protest, organised by a group of Nobel Peace Laureates, is demanding that China stops trading with Sudan, whose regime is considered responsible for the carnage in Darfur.

Signed by eight Laureates, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu as well as many international public figures, it criticises China’s President Hu Jintao for providing succour to a government “that continues to carry out atrocities against its own people”.

Human rights activists have accused China, said to buy around two-thirds of Sudan’s oil exports and which sells weapons to Khartoum, many of which end up in the Darfur conflict – of being partly responsible for Darfur’s chaos.

Around 200,000 people are believed to have died in the region in the past five years, mostly black Africans at the hands of Arab militias alleged to operate with government backing, and rape and sexual violence continues against women.

Following on from the withdrawal of the Hollywood film director Steven Spielberg as artistic adviser to the 2008 Games, the Laureates’ letter – which states China has a “special role to play in ensuring that its actions this year are commensurate with the Olympic ideals of peace and international co-operation” – has further brought to the fore the uneasy of alliance of sport and politics.

But beyond support for those who highlight and call for an end to such atrocities, should sporting events be employed as catalysts for political debate?

Looking at past attempts to use sport as a tool for bringing the world’s attention to a particular country’s moral standards, does the threat of boycott really pack such a powerful punch?

When the US boycotted the 1980 Olympic Games, did it achieve anything more than a tit-for-tat riposte by the Soviet Union four years later when the Games were held in Los Angeles?

Dr Jones says, “It depends what boycotters want. In the case of China, the best-case scenario would be that having had the light shone on them, the government says, ‘We are going to give Tibet back and stop the death penalty,’ but that obviously isn’t going to happen.

“If the objective is to spotlight the country’s abuses – and if the involvement of Steven Spielberg draws attention to this – then it’s done the job, and might be considered part of a much longer process.

“I don’t think there’s any sense in which a boycott will change things. South Africa is one case where a sustained boycott by a large number of countries – unfortunately ours was not among them – was part of a wider global disgust which hastened the dismantling of the apartheid system.”

With international human rights groups sensing the Olympics can be used as a platform to embarrass China into using its influence over Khartoum – Amnesty International is saying Britain needs to show it truly believes global human rights do not come second to trade deals – the controversy seems likely to dominate the run-up to the August games in Beijing.

But if such an event as the Olympic Games serves to highlight unacceptable behaviour, where is the cut-off of what’s acceptable and what’s not?

The US has described the Darfur conflict as “genocidal” and China is no paragon – the death penalty and detention without charge is common – but is Britain or the US really in a position to point the finger? Shouldn’t the US and the UK be boycotted until they both get out of the Middle East? How far do you take it? Should the Champions League final be boycotted if it included a team from a regime that is participating in the occupation of Iraq?

And who decides who is boycotted and who is not? Surely no matter where the Olympics are held, somebody can cite valid reasons for a boycott.

Australia? Treatment of asylum seekers. Spain? Cruelty to bulls. Japan? Whale hunting…

Some may argue there is irrefutable evidence that sport can be used as a force for political good by citing Jesse Owens, whose four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics were a public dismantling of Hitler’s Aryan lunacy. More recently, South Africa’s 1995 Rugby World Cup victory saw Nelson Mandela present Francois Pienaar with the trophy, and later write, “It was under Francois Pienaar’s inspiring leadership that rugby became the pride of the entire country. Francois brought the nation together.”

China continues to insist that linking its human rights record with a sporting event would “politicise” the Olympics, but does the notion that politics and sport make uneasy bedfellows simply relieve everyone of any moral obligation?

And isn’t it inevitable that politics and sport go hand in hand in international competition when participants pull on a shirt to represent their country?

Dr Jones says, “A sportsperson is the same as any employee in that they have a moral obligation to do what they think what’s their best.

“The relationship between a sports governing body and government is not one that should be primarily guiding the behaviour of athletes.

“These sportspeople are adult, well paid, often well-educated, you can’t take away that autonomy from them.”

When Beijing was awarded the Games in 2001, China pledged to improve basic freedoms, yet a recent Amnesty International report was scathing of China’s current civil rights record and its support of the Sudanese government is unabated.

A city of notorious pollution where families have been ruthlessly evicted to build Olympic venues, Beijing has invested billions of dollars and its national prestige into what it hopes will be a triumphant showcase of China’s rapid development from poverty to rising industrial world power.

“To think 1.5 million people have been uprooted to make way for Olympic venues, there have been two or three high- profile suicides in Beijing as result of families being forcibly evicted, an entire harbour has been moved across a bay to provide a sailing facility”, says Dr Jones. “It does seem to me that the International Olympics Committee (IOC) is contributing to the problems while claiming it will make the country more accountable.”

China will doubtless host a successful Games which will serve to improve international opinion of a country whose government is a major abuser of human rights so shouldn’t international pressure be increasing?

While British Prime Ministers seem quick to kick a football to demonstrate their populist credentials, perhaps politics and sport are not really such a great match.

In that increasingly old-fashioned notion of chwarae teg (fair play), the mind-games world of politics will always dictate policy while sport, which focuses on physical excellence, is the pawn in a bigger endgame.

Governments – be they of Britain or China – have much to gain from sport. Securing the Olympic Games is an automatic boost to international reputation.

Britain’s hosting of the Olympics was a gift to the egos of politicians – while the taxpayer stumps up billions and Lottery money for good causes will be redirected – and all the while money has been spent in Iraq that would lift the developing world from poverty or fund research for disease.

Why do governments fund sport, at elite level or otherwise?

A country with considerable sporting success enjoys an enviable reputation, and it is widely acknowledged that spectacular events and victories lift a country’s mood (and allow governments to benefit from the “feelgood” factor).

Dr Jones says, “The idea of sport as a pure ideal is laughable. The IOC is innately a political organisation. Sport is reflection of society and we get good and bad. The early aesthetic of sport for its own sake only applies now in terms of grass roots because of sponsorship deals, largely private, and primarily not government-subsidised, certainly not in this country.”

If a global sporting event becomes an opportunity to take a pop at another country’s regime, how long will such games last into the future – a high price to pay for a spot of political grandstanding, surely?

“Governments don’t typically criticise each other,” says Dr Jones. “The UK is being very circumspect and George Bush has been very careful not to criticise China. The politicians obviously have responsibility to guide athletes in what they can and can’t do.

“In the best-case scenario what we might see is the IOC, as part of the bidding criteria, demand adherence to basic human rights, laws and environmental concerns. So if the IOC had said to China, ‘We don’t allow any country which has the death penalty or various legal protections’, China wouldn’t have been allowed to bid.”

Olympics political platform - page 2