something I said

Aye, what topsy-turvy times we know.

Would Phidippides have any idea what we mean by Olympic in 2008? For that matter, do we have a clear idea?

The sporting event that was invented in 1896 seems to have taken its name from Olympian as a reference to something of great stature, possibly superhuman. In that regard one might think of Olympic as something heroic, involving struggle, self-sacrifice and some sort of noble cause.

So when the modern Olympiad appears to revolve less around personal endurance than around a bizarre sytem of ever-larger urban development schemes and patronage coupled with craven politics, it’s easy to read the following snippet as a return to the proper values of heroic struggle. Not in ancient Athens, but in today’s Paris.

At the start of the relay, a man identified as a Green Party activist was grabbed by security officers as he headed for 1997 400-meter world champion Stephane Diagana, who was carrying the torch from the first floor of the Eiffel Tower.

The man was tackled before he got close to Diagana.

The procession continued but, soon after, a crowd of activists waving Tibetan flags confronted the torchbearer on a road along the Seine River. The demonstrators did not appear to get close to the torch, but its flame was put out by security officers and brought on board a bus.

Less than an hour later, the flame was being carried out of a Paris traffic tunnel by an athlete in a wheelchair when the procession was halted by activists who booed and chanted “Tibet.” Once again, the torch was temporarily extinguished and put on a bus despite protesters’ apparent failure to get close.

The torch was put out for the third time when police interrupted the procession as a precaution because they spotted a crowd of demonstrators on a nearby bridge. [National Geographic]

Someone draws an apt parallel with the alpine character of Tibet, and to the struggle between authoritarian rule, local resistance and spontaneous action.

“One would almost think oneself in Lhasa,” said Jean-Paul Ribes, leader of the Support Committee of the Tibetan People in France, who was among the thousands massed on the Trocadéro. “It snowed last night, now the sky is blue — and police are everywhere.”

 

Many protesters — demonstrating against China’s human rights policies in general or for a free Tibet, or simply advocating a boycott of the Olympics in Beijing — echoed a headline that was emblazoned across the front page of the leftist daily Libération, under a picture of the Olympic rings restyled as handcuffs: “Liberate the Olympic Games!” [NY Times]

This reads like a new form of Olympic event while remaining closer to the original motivation for running to Athens, in the struggles between various mythical figures, the socio-political context of ancient games, or in the current geopolitical struggles over Tibet, both moral and physical. The torch relay has other historic connotations of epic struggle, so the controversy of this year’s relay has plenty of precedent. The struggle has occurred partly in London, where

police circulated among Tibetan demonstrators ordering them to remove T-shirts and confiscating Tibetan flags in an apparent breach of a promise from Met commanders that police would not intervene to prevent embarrassment to Beijing. Yonten Ngama, a Tibetan who has been resident in the UK for four years, was ordered to remove a T-shirt scrawled with three slogans, ‘China Stop the Killing’, ‘No Torch in Tibet’ and ‘Talk to the Dalai Lama’. “They didn’t tell me why, they just said I couldn’t wear it,” he said. Police on the ground declined to comment on the reasons for confiscating the T-shirt. [Guardian]

while a different kind of authority was evident in the behaviour of moral athletes

Once the torch had been lit it took less than five minutes for the protesters to make their presence felt. As it was about to be passed on to a red London bus a protester leapt from the crowd and was bundled to the floor by security personnel. This pattern was repeated throughout the day as the huge crowds that turned out for the 2004 Athens torch relay stayed away, leaving the streets to Chinese nationals, the regime’s detractors, battle buses hired by the sponsors and the massive police presence. At Ladbroke Grove, shortly after the flame had passed from the bus to relay runners, it was almost wrestled from the hands of TV presenter Konnie Huq. [ditto]

The moral olympics. What an idea. Would that the spectacle of athletics were rescued from institutions of civic, commercial and journalistic capitalism and recast as some kind of personal and moral struggle for peace, justice, and ethical standards. Peter Tatchell would get a silver medal.

Considered from that angle, the torch relay is turning into a PR disaster for the People’s Republic, and for authoritarian tendencies in London, Paris and elsewhere as protests in one city after another dominate coverage of the event, and a parallel human rights torch relay makes its way around the globe, nearly coinciding with the Olympic relay in San Francisco. That the organising committee dared to include San Francisco on the tour is something to marvel at.

True to form

the city board supervisors passed a resolution protesting China’s poor human rights record ahead of the Olympic torch’s visit to the city. The resolution asks city officials to express their disapproval when they receive the Beijing Olympic Torch on April 9. [SF Torch ]

Or, as San Francisco Chronicle opinionator CW Nevius put it

God only knows why San Francisco was picked as the only North American city for an Olympic torch run. Don’t they read the news?

 

Even longtime Olympics veteran Scott Givens, who headed up San Francisco’s 2016 bid to host the Games, says he knew there would be protests in this progressive city. “That’s what makes us all love San Francisco,” he said. “It is the democracy of democracies. That’s what makes San Francisco great.” [SF Gate ]

So true. And so right that the torch procession is subject to a different sort of heat.

Addendum

In China, government officials warned against attempts to disrupt the torch as it travels through Tibet on the most controversial leg of the tour.

“If someone dares to sabotage the torch relay in Tibet and its scaling of Mount Everest, we will seriously punish him and will not be soft-handed,” said Qiangba Puncog, governor of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, at a press conference in Beijing.

“For these separatist forces, the Olympics in Beijing will be a rare opportunity. Therefore they wish to create major troubles or incidents. I don’t doubt they will create trouble during the torch relay in Tibet.” [Guardian]

This might be a disproportionate response. ‘Sabotage’ is a very loose term. Is having a rally sabotage? We will have to wait and see. The threat of serious, hard-handed punishment in response to the equivalent of pie-throwing would be very disappointing.