On the John
If you please sir, I’ve got a planet to win
Completed September 3, 2008
Now what?
Now that Michael Phelps has won his eight golds, now that Usain Bolt has set the Bird’s Nest a-flutter, now that USA Hoops has found Redemption and Shawn Johnson has balanced on a beam and Walsh-May have seemingly won a volleyball match for every citizen in China, what do we now with that Olympic peace and respect and dignity we claim to hold so dear? Do we discard it like a wedding dress? Set it aside until Vancouver 2010 or London 2012, or any other time that sports come calling?
The Olympics have always been a cause for international debate over the state of our world, but Beijing 2008 brought that debate to a higher intensity than any summer games since L.A. in ’84. Along with all of the normal world issues that come into focus during the Games, host country China provided a slew of debates and protests concerning their human-rights record, their censorship of the media, their expanding role in international political and economic doings, and their obsessive control over their own projected image, an issue that took further shape within the Games themselves.
Then there were the continuing non-Chinese related issues. On August 13th for example, the nations of Russia and Georgia had some of their citizens squaring off against each other in South Ossetia with guns and tanks and nasty intent while others of their citizens were squaring off in Beijing for a game of beach volleyball. Darfur, Tibet, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, the good ol’ U.S. of A.—the debate raged on: should the Olympics be a political-free zone, dueling nations momentarily squashing their differences in the spirit of unified competition? Or should they serve as a forum for political and social expression, a rare opportunity to discuss our worldly problems while the attention of nearly every nation on Earth occupies the same space with the same purpose?
Or, on the other hand, should we take one more step back and look at how ridiculous it is to embrace international peace, fellowship, cooperation, and respect in the name of a successful sporting event while failing to do so in the name of a successful planet?
Think of it: the Olympics are one of only two occasions in which the people of nations come together. Not the governments, the kings and presidents and prime ministers who gather for photo ops and lengthy summits and decide how we will interact, but the people. We, I, you, us. Citizens of the world joined together for peaceful competition. Only war brings the people of nations together with a similar consistency and stated purpose, that being the quest for human annihilation, 18, 19, 20-year-old soldiers who have gone through a training of their own…locate, aim, shoot…
I do not for a moment presume to understand the sacrifice made by soldiers. Theirs is a path I will never know. But I do wonder how our leaders can justify asking dedicated soldiers to march towards death and murder, to sacrifice their lives for a conflict not even serious enough to halt a game of beach volleyball.
The Olympics, then, are a showcase of human unity and human absurdity, a reminder of all we can achieve or destroy, depending on our mood. But what do they mean to the athlete? We say that Olympians are playing for national pride, and certainly the athlete has country, friends, and family in mind, but friends and family need not train, need not sacrifice, and when the time comes it will not matter how many of them are cheering. When you’re out there, you’re on your own.
At the moment of action, an athlete’s mind is occupied by only one thing: the next action. They do what they do not because of country or family or coaches but because the girl on the other side of the net is serving right now and here comes the ball. It’s all very specific, very single-minded and tunnel-visioned, and yet we’ve taken these specific acts of athletes in “battle” and bestowed upon them the responsibility of bringing the world together in peace.
Thus the Olympics might be proof that humankind views war as an inevitability, so much so that honoring the sanctity of the Games has become our last-ditch sinner’s effort to appease the Gods, to prove that we aren’t the life-sucking bastards we appear to be.
Or maybe not. Maybe our leaders anointed an act of little true significance as something holy to be respected simply because it’s an act of little true significance. These are serious men after all, serious men angling for Earth’s serious victories, ones earned in the real battles of nations, religions, ways of life, egos, reputations, weaponry comparisons and the like. The Olympics? That’s child’s play. What’s a gold medal when you are competing for control of the whole damn Earth?
Copyright 2008, jm silverstein