Tracksuit diplomacy

The run to Beijing is turning out to be something of an obstacle race. So far, the poor Olympic torch has met with protests in London, Paris, San Francisco, and elsewhere, and there is even talk of a boycott in the air. In part this is due to the global appeal of the Tibetan cause, which is itself the result of the Tibetan refugee diaspora and, perhaps more importantly, the iconic persona of the Dalai Lama. I was in Switzerland three weeks ago and quite a few windows were flying Tibetan flags. One would be pardoned for thinking it was Dharamsala rather than Bern.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge was quoted by the BBC as saying that 'public opinion around the world does not want any boycotts', and that 'the Olympic Games are about the athletes themselves and athletes are innocent'. I think Rogge is wrong on both counts.

First, I wonder how he can claim to speak for public opinion worldwide. Certainly Gordon Brown and Angela Merkel, neither of whom will be attending the opening ceremony, would beg to differ. Add to that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Nicolas Sarkozy (who at the time of writing begs to defer), and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who apparently has 'other engagements'. The opinion of the Bernese flag-flying public is not known but there are no prizes for guessing.

What I find really myopic is, however, Rogge's second point that the Olympics are about athletes. What he means is that sport and politics are two different things and should be kept separate; as China put it, sport should steer clear of 'irrelevant political factors'. Judging by the spate of correspondence I've come across in the news, this view is apparently shared by a host of rent-seeking sporting organisations.

They should know better. In truth, sport and politics have always been faithful bedfellows. I was living in Britain when England played Pakistan at Lord's some years ago, and I well remember the hostile reaction of many British people at the fact that people of Pakistani origin who had been living in Britain for decades and had British citizenship, supported Pakistan rather than England. This apparently brought into question their allegiance to Britain. Very few people argued that it was 'just cricket', and they were wrong.

Sport is directly linked to national identity and, therefore, to politics. First, in a nod to what anthropologists call 'banal nationalism' (which, they argue, is not at all banal - I know, I know), sporting events usually translate into national character competitions. It's amusing to hear, say, people discussing national football teams - the Germans are disciplined, the English fair to a fault, the Italians scheming, the Maltese small but big-hearted, etc. Second, athletes and their individual attributes - diligence, discipline, strength, fair play - become in many ways the embodiment of the national spirit.

I'm tempted to say that sport lends itself nicely to this kind of sleight, due to its implicit triumphalism, but it's an arguable point. Fact is, however, that totalitarian regimes especially have historically shown themselves fond of sponsoring sporting prowess. So much of this was true of Franco's Spain, the Soviet obsession with medals, and the Reich Sports Office, that it is hard to labour the point. The 1936 Olympics, portrayed by Nazi propaganda as a showcase of Aryan supremacy and wonderfully filmed as such by Leni Riefenstahl, were no doubt the paragon of this convergence.

The model was perhaps set by the ancient Greeks, for whom sporting prowess was directly linked to bellicosity and success on the battlefield - useful attributes to have when you inhabit a political landscape of warring city-states. When de Coubertin revived (and re-invented) the Games in the 1890s, he did so partly out of national interest - the ghost of the Franco-German War of 1870 still needed exorcising - and partly to pursue what we would today call a 'cosmopolitan' programme of bring nations together in a spirit of friendly competition.

Today's Olympics are no different. Opening ceremonies are true to de Coubertin's spirit in that they are choreographed to transmit a sense of national greatness (of the host country) as well as one of cosmopolitan exchange - both very political ideas. This time round we can expect a spectacle that rubs in Napoleon's words: 'Let China sleep, for when it awakens it shall shake the world'. What Chairman Mao didn't do, enterprise and industry have done, and what better way to showcase it than the Olympics? Not least because, thanks also to the new technologies of communication, billions of people worldwide will be tuning in. No wonder the British satirical magazines are having such a field day lampooning the massive overspend for the 2012 London Games.

All of this has consequences for sportspeople, and most of the time they're good ones. When I worked in the civil service, one of my colleagues was an athlete (not on the work front though) who as such enjoyed special leave in order to be able to take part in international competitions. I also paid for his flights out of my taxes. I remember fuming why, even though I too had pastimes, no one had thought of granting me special leave or sponsoring my travels. The answer, of course, was politics - he was a 'national' athlete, my pastime was my business. Sportspeople enjoy a state-sponsored infrastructure that, say, artists, can only dream of. Of course they're always telling us it's not enough, but we know that game.

Like all relationships, this one has its downsides. What we're witnessing with the Olympic torch and the boycotts is a case in point. I can understand the disappointment of athletes who train long and hard only to see their dream dented by 'meddling' politicians and activists who want their mountains back. Trouble is they can't have the nice running track, the stadiums, the special leave, the national anthems, but not the politics. It's a classic case of the proverbial cake.

mafalzon@hotmail.com