Political games
Tessa Jowell, the Olympics minister, says it's wrong to use the Darfur issue as the grounds for boycotting a world sporting event that brought nations together. She was speaking following news of Steven Spielberg's Olympic snub. But there's nothing new about this story: politics have always been involved in the world games. When nations compete as nations, then national and international politics will inevitably become an issue. Perhaps Tessa Jowell has her eye on the 2012 London games and is concerned that those games will also face some boycotts. We'll be talking Olympic politics on tomorrow's Sunday Sequence, with guests including Olympic athletes and political analysts. That item begins after the news at 9.00 am. In the first half-hour, from 8.30 am, we'll be talking about Rowan Williams, the US presidential race, and the big ideas movies nominated for Oscars at next week's Academy Awards.
Comments
It should come as no surprise that a minister in charge of the Olympics would oppose a boycott. After all, if there is one, there might be great pressure for Britain to be a participant and of what use would a minister of Olympics be if there wasn't a team going to one. With the Olympics only once every four years, this might be her last chance to be in one but if she lasts until 2012, there might be retaliation by those who feel snubbed this year.
Putting aside for a moment that the Olympics is a place for less than first class atheletes to test the latest designer steroids and other performance enhancing drugs to see if they can evade detection and win an underserved gold medal or an opportunity for corrupt local construction contractors to make vast windfalls at local taxpayers cost and local commuters inconvenience by building vast edifaces whose real world lifespan value will be only two weeks (endless reassurances to the contrary), it is a chance for the aggreived to make a loud clear political statement to the world and to the host nation in particular. For example, it would be a chance for major nations to tell the entire population of China that they are not happy with China's government because it is an active participant in the genocidal murder of two million people in Sudan, a message they cannot get across to the Chinese people any other way due to restrictions on other modes of communications such as unfettered access to the internet the government tightly regulates. I can see why Teresa Jowell might be put off by that. After all, she can never tell what message people from other nations might want to send to the population of the UK in 2012 about events embarassing to Britain the 大象传媒 does not want to discuss. How about starting with the hypocritical corruption BA engaged in with 2 billion dollars in bribes to Saudi princes to win 40 billion in military contracts they might have lost to American contractors that will not be investigated? I could see an American boycott over that.
Tessa Jowell knows all about what is right and what is wrong when it comes to the selfish interests of the London Olympics was it right that Northern Ireland should suffer because somebody in government failed to do their sums when making the initial bid to host the games in 2012 by creating a shortfall or was it a falsified bid to get the games to London.
Northern Irelands athletes (if any are selected) should boycott this years Olympics in protest against 鈥淭he British Government鈥 under the guise of DCAL stealing over 拢40m pound which was allocated for good causes in Northern Ireland which was then reallocated by DCAL to the London Olympics 2012 without even a bleat never mind a shout or a chuckle from the Chuckle Brothers they probably were suffering from bellyache.