this is a little message to all you fans of sports who have no idea what the big picture is :P
Since the dawn of time, sports has been an age old favourite past time for many people across the globe. Whenever a match took place it was a big deal. People would rush to finish off all their work and put their game faces on cheering for their respective sides. Words would be exchanged and things may have gotten ugly during a game but once it was all over, back to routine they went. This little ritual was what I like to call a concept known as "the politics of sports". One of the classic example of this would be the tension that would rise when there was ever a cricket match between Pakistan and India. An example for all you non desi people out there who dont follow cricket, take the example of Man City vs Man Utd match. Oh and there is always my personal favourite; when one of the stadiums in Saudi Arabia accidentally played the Lebanese national anthem when playing against Syria (that was a big ouch!).
Ah yes, those were the good old days when sports was still seen as sports. moving away from that trip down memory lane lets have a look at how the world is today. there is politics to your left, right, ahead of you and oh look out from behind there is some there too. politics is everywhere!!! take the 2008 Olympics as an example, when Tibet was ready to boycott entering China over clashes of human rights ... it involved the governments and the Dalai Lama.
hmm... not a convincing enough example, well lets go back to cricket then and find one there! the Zimbabwe cricket team went on strike and refused to play because of the disagreement over voting procedures and President Mugabee's policies. the South African cricket board had to come in and intervene, making the assertion that the team must keep politics out of sports HA! As if!! There will never be what I call a "separation of sport and state"
I am convinced that international relations is relationship management that starts on the national scale and we are just marriage counsellors to politics.There's no avoiding it, we may like to avoid financial, friends, family, belief etc matters in relationships, but they keep flaring whether you like it or not... so I guess we have no choice but to take the sports and the politics.
The way I see it, the concept of "the politics of sports" has become obsolete and has been taken over by a new face; "the sports of politics". basically, the world loves politics to such a great extent that it has become a sport for them!
Since the dawn of time, sports has been an age old favourite past time for many people across the globe. Whenever a match took place it was a big deal. People would rush to finish off all their work and put their game faces on cheering for their respective sides. Words would be exchanged and things may have gotten ugly during a game but once it was all over, back to routine they went. This little ritual was what I like to call a concept known as "the politics of sports". One of the classic example of this would be the tension that would rise when there was ever a cricket match between Pakistan and India. An example for all you non desi people out there who dont follow cricket, take the example of Man City vs Man Utd match. Oh and there is always my personal favourite; when one of the stadiums in Saudi Arabia accidentally played the Lebanese national anthem when playing against Syria (that was a big ouch!).
Ah yes, those were the good old days when sports was still seen as sports. moving away from that trip down memory lane lets have a look at how the world is today. there is politics to your left, right, ahead of you and oh look out from behind there is some there too. politics is everywhere!!! take the 2008 Olympics as an example, when Tibet was ready to boycott entering China over clashes of human rights ... it involved the governments and the Dalai Lama.
hmm... not a convincing enough example, well lets go back to cricket then and find one there! the Zimbabwe cricket team went on strike and refused to play because of the disagreement over voting procedures and President Mugabee's policies. the South African cricket board had to come in and intervene, making the assertion that the team must keep politics out of sports HA! As if!! There will never be what I call a "separation of sport and state"
I am convinced that international relations is relationship management that starts on the national scale and we are just marriage counsellors to politics.There's no avoiding it, we may like to avoid financial, friends, family, belief etc matters in relationships, but they keep flaring whether you like it or not... so I guess we have no choice but to take the sports and the politics.
The way I see it, the concept of "the politics of sports" has become obsolete and has been taken over by a new face; "the sports of politics". basically, the world loves politics to such a great extent that it has become a sport for them!
Since we have Olympics fever, let's go back to the 1936 Summer Olympics, which was hosted in Berlin, Germany. During this time, Hitler's Nazi party was promoting their "Aryan Race" as the superior race. Hitler wanted to use the Olympics as a vehicle to showcase the claimed "superiority" of "Aryan" athletes. However, we all know how that worked out; James Owens, a Black American track and field athlete, won four gold medals. By doing so, he discredited the Nazi Party's claims to superiority. You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Owens.
ReplyDeleteThe Olympics are definitely political. I don't think anybody can deny this. It's a huge platform, and it's a chance for nations to show off their affluence, posture and position themselves as superior to their competition, and generate goodwill. It's also an opportunity to boost economies. I'm sure there are other added benefits both obvious to the astute, and concealed from public knowledge.
Politics aside, the spirit of the Olympics will always remain symbolic of peace, excellence, and and the ability of nations to gather together under the banner of sportsmanship and fair-play. Also, olympians will always remain a source of inspiration for us to always push to be the best we can be, proving that hard work does pay off. Sure, politics will always exist to muddy the waters. However, the opportunity to witness athletes from around the globe compete as equals, will always steal the show. Just as James Owens cut through the Nazi propaganda machine, and proved to the world that no single race can lay claims to superiority based solely on genetic makeup.