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Small change Olympic Games rarely change politics of host nation
By now, most Olympic-ologists consider it a foregone conclusion that Beijing will be chosen Friday to host the 2008 Summer Olympics. The assumption is that despite China's dreadful record as an arbiter of justice and a friend of humanity, it would be out of order to withhold the honor of hosting the Games from the world's most populous nation. Actually, those who support Beijing usually fall into something of a contradiction. Although they argue that politics should not be factored into matters Olympian, they also maintain that if you give China the Olympics, then Chinese political policies will improve. The argument is supported by the claim that South Korea's democratic transformation was hastened once Seoul was awarded the 1988 Games. Perhaps. Then again, the Olympics are often given more credit than they deserve. There are many examples which suggest that the Games have had no substantive effect whatsoever on politics. The Berlin Games of 1916, for instance, were called off after Germany invaded Belgium and France. No nation wanted the esteem of hosting the Olympics more than Japan did in 1940, when Tokyo was first awarded the Games. But that didn't stop the government from invading China -- thereby forfeiting the prize it had so desperately wanted. When the Games came to Mexico in 1968, anti-government riots were put down with brutal slaughter, but the country's unforgiving one-party leadership ruled on for decades. Did the 1976 Montreal Olympics bring more brotherhood to Quebec? Not quite. Separatist movements only accelerated in the years that followed. Did anything in the Soviet Union change because the 1980 Games were held in Moscow? Please. Rather than being some sort of agent of metamorphosis, the Olympics tend to be a pretty picture postcard that, once mailed, has no lasting effect. The infamous Nazi Games of 1936 are still recalled as a propaganda victory, but their aura quickly faded. What the Berlin Olympics did do, however, was present the Nazi government to the world as an established regime -- like it or not. Similarly, if more happily, Tokyo 1964 and Munich 1972 served to ceremonially welcome Japan and Germany back to respectability. Whether the Seoul Olympics changed South Korea is debatable. But there is no doubt that the Games introduced South Korea to millions of people as a new and serious national entity. To be sure, the argument that the Olympics should be utilized as some sort of enticement to make bad governments be nice may have more validity now that they bring so much visibility. Were it 1936, the Nazis could not get away with tidying up the nasty truth so easily before the Games. But, really, if we're going to play the game of making the Olympics a reward, then isn't it better that we hand them out to countries after they've gone straight? Rarely does sport change bad things. What it does best in our lives is help us forget bad things. The Antwerp Olympics of 1920 are perhaps the best model. They were held in a country that had been devastated by a war just finished. The U.S. team sailed to Antwerp on a ship named the Princess Matoika. Before our team came on board in New York, the Princess offloaded its cargo from Europe. That was 1,800 coffins of U.S. soldiers killed very near to where our athletes, who took their place on the ship, would go to compete in the Games. These commentaries, which appear each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, are posted weekly by CNNSI.com
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