As the reader of this article is
likely to be aware, the Greatest Sports Extravaganza Ever, also known as the
London Olympics has begun today. If the reader is interested, I hope that he or
she will derive great pleasure from it. Despite what I’m going to tell you,
please don’t assume I have any desire for you to sacrifice or modify your plans
in any way. What I’m going to say applies to me alone.
So this is what: I’m launching my
personal, one-man boycott of the London Olympics. I shall not watch a
single moment of it on TV. I shall not read about it on the Internet or
newspapers. I shall avoid any and all mention of it, unless said mention
involves some actual or "planned" “terrorist attack” which can be
conveniently blamed on Iran and/or Syria (and, no, I would not rule out one).
The first Olympics I was old enough
to potentially remember was Moscow 1980. You know, the one which was boycotted
by the West because of the Soviet “invasion” of Afghanistan. I did not actually
remember that because back then TV was virtually nonexistent in India (to my
non-Indian readers, it may come as a surprise to know that television in India
is essentially a phenomenon that began in 1982). I do remember seeing some
photos in the papers and magazines, but that’s it.
The next Olympics was the one in Los
Angeles in 1984, which was boycotted in turn by the Eastern Bloc (as it was
then) with the exception of Nicolae Ceaucescu’s Romania. By then there was TV,
and I remember two things about the opening ceremony. First, the wild cheers
the (primarily American) spectators gave the Romanian team, for “doing the
right thing”; five years later they would cheer equally frenziedly when
Ceaucescu was summarily shot after a farcical kangaroo trial. The other thing I
remember was the guy in a spacesuit and Buck Rogers jetpack who came flying
through the air and landed in front of Ronald Reagan. As for the rest, in 1984
I was thirteen years old and there were more important things going on in my
life.
And to date, after that, I’ve never
really been very much into either competitive sports in general or the Olympics
in particular. Sports, for me, means, you know, sports, as in fun and games – not a business or some kind of
gladiatorial contest to be vicariously enjoyed. So, actually, I last had any
contact with sports when I threw the
hammer back in college and managed to come in last in the 400 metres.
So, it won’t be a stretch to say
that my contact with the Olympics has been intermittent and shallow at best,
somewhat like an inept rower repeatedly catching crabs (and, yes, I am an inept
rower who repeatedly catches crabs). Once in a while I became briefly
interested in particular athletes, usually one per Olympics: for instance,
Hossein Rezazadeh during the Olympics before last, Usain Bolt last time. But
though I cheered for said athletes, and ignored the others, it did mean that I
at least watched the events in which said athletes participated. This time I won’t
be doing it, though.
This time I am not going to take any
part in the Olympics, as a spectator, at all.
These are my reasons:
1. The
sponsor: The sponsor for these Olympics is
a company named Dow Chemicals, which has contracted with the International
Olympic Association till 2020 and in particular with the London Olympics.
So what?
This: Dow is the same firm which
supplied the Empire with Agent Orange[1], which was sprayed as a
defoliant on the jungles of Vietnam, as a consequence of which children are
being born deformed to this day. Dow has refused to compensate its victims,
among whom are an estimated 4.8 million children.
Also this: the same Dow Chemicals
later acquired Union Carbide, the company responsible for the Bhopal Gas
Disaster[2] of 1984, in which an estimated 25000 people were killed,
and as a result of which more deformed kids are being born to this day. Dow has
refused liability for the crimes of Union Carbide, though knowing perfectly
well what baggage it was taking on when it purchased the company; something I
have called[2]
saying, in effect, that if you knowingly buy stolen
property, it’s yours no matter what the original owner might think.
It might seem that even a cigarette
company or a cocaine cartel would be a better sponsor, or at least a less harmful one, but David Cameron says
Dow is a “reputable company”[1]; and David Cameron is, allegedly, an
honourable man. At least he’s honourable enough to be Prime Minister of
Britain, gracing the same 10 Downing Street once inhabited by the charming and
meritorious Tony Blair.
When it was announced that Dow would
be sponsoring the Olympics, there was considerable disquiet in India, and calls
for boycotting the Olympics. But today’s India is no longer the nation which
once had had the spine to shun sporting contacts with the apartheid regime in
South Africa and the Zionazi pseudostate, so one always knew a boycott wasn’t
going to happen. Even so, there was at least the likelihood of a symbolic boycott;
by, for instance, staying away from the opening and closing ceremonies. But
even that was too much for the invertebrates who comprise our national
government, so the talk of any kind of protest quietly vanished. (And
meanwhile, Dow is eager to invest in India, and the unelected so-called Prime
Minister wants “Indian to progress even if Bhopals happen”; wonder if that had
something to do with it as well.)
In an effort, however symbolic, to
shame Dow, the handicapped children of the survivors of Bhopal held a “Special
Olympic games” of their own, in which[3]
children suffering from
cerebral palsy, partial paralysis and mental disabilities parading in
wheelchairs and walking with the assistance of others around an outdoor stadium
in the shadow of the old pesticide plant. One of the competitions was
called "the crab walk": three children who were unable to stand
propelled themselves down the 25-meter (sic) racecourse with their hands.
This made not a ripple in the corporate-controlled
circus which runs the Olympics, of course; but in my considered opinion, it
would be invidious of me to break with these people and the deformed kids in
Vietnam to have anything at all to do with an event sponsored by Dow Chemicals.
Just because my government is too supine to do anything about it doesn’t mean I
have to be stained with the same guilt.
2. Britain. Regular readers of mine will be
long familiar with my views on Britain. Yes, I have a great many British
friends, and I speak English better than any other language, but that doesn’t
mean I can have anything but contempt for Britain as a nation. As I’ve said
elsewhere[4], in the last decade alone,
it was Britain
which was
the prime mover in the destruction of Libya. It was Britain which legitimised
George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq by joining in it with enthusiasm, and
continues to help occupy Afghanistan. It’s Britain which continues to openly
host, shield and protect Russian mafia oligarchs and Chechen terrorist
warlords. It’s Britain which is about to host an Olympics sponsored by Dow
Chemicals, responsible for the manufacture of Agent Orange, which to this day
maims Vietnamese children, and which is now the owner of Union Carbide,
responsible for the Bhopal gas disaster... None of this is surprising. To those of us whose nations
suffered under the Union Jack(boot), British hypocrisy and mendacity are so
familiar that we’d be astonished by anything else coming out of Perfidious
Albion.
With Britain straining at the leash
to participate in an invasion of Syria and helping to arm and train terrorists even as we speak, holding an Olympic
Games in this mendacious, warmongering little tinpot pseudo-nation which still
yearns for its long gone imperialist glory and attempts to achieve that by
acting as the loyal tail of the Empire is a travesty.
Britain might get other peoples’
money via cable TV royalties and the like; it will not get any of mine.
At this point it might be claimed –
as it very often is – that politics is separate from sports, and should be
separate. To this I respond most humbly and reasonably: hogwash. Sports has everything to do with economics and
politics these days – its entire structure is built around money and politics.
It’s only after political and monetary requirements have been satisfied that
any sport gets to be played, if at all. And today, sports events go only to
countries in official favour. A few months ago, the Formula One took place in
Bahrain[5] while the Empire’s favourite tyrants were shooting protestors
with hunting rifles; was that, or wasn’t it, a political act? How would Britain react if a sports meet were to
be scheduled tomorrow in Damascus?
I must say I like the horrible – but
entirely appropriate – mascot, Wenlock, With its giant staring eyeball, it’s so perfect a symbol for the modern self-styled “free
world” that it can’t be improved upon.
So, enjoy your Olympics, during
which I hope nobody will be murdered by Scotland Yard for the “suspicious
circumstance” of being brown, like the late Jean Charles de Menezes[6].
But you will enjoy them without me.
Sources:
