The modern Olympic Games have never merely been about the exhibition and celebration of sporting excellence and physical strength and endurance. They have also existed to promote established political power and private economic interests. This has been particularly apparent in two specific phases: the 1930s, and nowadays.
Some of the most iconic images of the Games clearly situate them in the political arena. One thinks most obviously of the Berlin Olympics of 1936, when the Games served as showcase for growing Nazi power and propaganda. Former International Olympic Committee chief Juan Saramanch was famously a member of Spain's fascist Government, which does not appear to have been a coincidence. Nor is it a coincidence that the ritual of the torch relay was revived in Berlin. Baron von Coubertin, the founder of the modern Games, declared that Berlin 1936 lived up to his highest ideals. Tracy Emin's comment that vintage Olympic posters "look a bit fascist' unwittingly hit the nail on the head.
The Olympic motto of faster, higher, stronger' reflects the origins of the games in an age of imperialism. The philosophy of 'Olympism' celebrated an interplay of beauty, religion and sport with values such as amateurism, physical excellence, ultimate symbol of what the Games are really about, the massive Westfield shopping centre.
As for the IOC itself, its power has grown immensely. It presents prospective host cities with thousands of pages of mindbogglingly expensive demands which cannot be refused, and is famously hugely corrupt, secretive and unaccountable. It is of course not the only major sports body to act in such a way, but it is by far the biggest and most powerful force in the mega-event industry.
More recently, major sporting events have been used by states as a tool of 'soft power'. The Beijing Olympics were said to be China's coming out party as a leading global political and economic force. In an age in which competition is seen as the ultimate end and meaning of all human endeavour, such events also serve as showcases for 'world class' destinations for high-end tourism and international investment, thereby boosting the image and the economy of major cities, with the success or failure of the event conflated with the interests of the city.
Propagandists for the Games boast of the new infrastructure, conveniently ignoring the fact that almost all of it will remain, in the terms defined by David Harvey, disembedded from the fabric of the city: privately owned, over-priced and underused. Many blanch at the corporate interests which will inevitably dominate coverage of the sporting events, not to mention the ostentatious sponsorship of every single aspect of the Games by a handful of the world's most powerful corporations. The event is also an opportunity for speculators to take over huge tracts of land for private development, leading as we have seen in China, South Africa and currently in Rio to the forced eviction of local residents and
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businesses in an effective land-grab which enables the carrying out of often longcherished projects of social cleansing. None of this is within democratic control; decision-making is in accordance with the agreement handed over to the Olympic Development Authority, which also imposes whatever legal changes it likes, generally unscrutinised by local and national media who are recruited as cheerleaders and embedded within the Olympic machine.
The Olympics are therefore a bonanza for certain powerful economic interests which overestimate the public benefits of the games in terms of employment and tourism and underplay the economic and social costs while crowing about the supposed legacy, and all this takes place in a fervid atmosphere which might be usefully compared to the shock doctrine identified by Naomi Klein. Within an Olympic city - even before the host is chosen, given that the candidacy process is long and exorbitant - a coup effectively takes place, and any chance of democratic accountability about the real benefits and costs goes out of the window even as the costs spiral out of control. An armoury of repression is unleashed against those who stand in the way of the production of a glossy spectacle. This was seen most notably in Mexico in 1968, when hundreds of students were massacred just days before the Games began, but continued behind the scenes in the run-up to Beijing 2008 with huge amounts of forced evictions. As Rio prepares for the double whammy of World Cup and Olympics similar stories emerge from there, and the authorities in London have made it very clear that they will come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who dares to disrupt the Games here. Everything must be swept under the carpet before the cameras start rolling - local people in Beijing were specifically requested by the authorities to stay at home for the duration of the event, so as to keep out of the way of the important foreign guests!
The myriad of injustices which the Games bring about and represent have long been both contested and exploited for publicity, most famously in 1968 with the black power salutes of the US athletes, and more tragically in 1972 in Munich. Vancouver and South Africa have shown that there is a growing awareness of the travesty of mega-events and campaigns have grown against their hosting in specific cities. Such events represent a focus for genuine anger against the model of neoliberal development which is forced on cities. Clearly it is far too late to stop them going ahead in London, but the presence of the Occupy movement suggests that they will be a The massive increase in security - indeed, the militarisation of the Games - is no accident in an age of insecurity and austerity. Young people in particular are deeply unimpressed that the promised jobs never materialised; the games will instead be staffed by an army of volunteers and 'interns'. The authorities are terrified that a repeat of last summer's riots could spoil their glittering ceremony. Global financial chaos mixed with the effects of brutal government cuts could well present a perfect storm as August approaches. In the words of a summer rioter interviewed by the Guardian:
"We know how much they treasure 2012. They cannot lock everything up. So if they don't fix things by 2012, there's not going to be a good Olympics. The whole point of the Olympics, yeah, is to see people perform. If they don't fix it by the Olympics, they won't be safe to perform. Regardless if they try and lock us [out], nah, they can't do that, we'll find a way to get in. So, they won't run smoothly for that. All of this, all of this recession because you want to waste money on Olympics. It will go to waste. It will definitely go to waste because the athletes ain't going to be safe."
No-one reading this will wish harm to the athletes. But it does look as if the Olympics and the surrounding events will be the focus for disruption and unrest. Any form of opposition to the five-ring circus has to be seen as a good thing, and those on the left can help put a spoke in the wheel of the Olympic juggernaut and ensure that 2012 goes down in history as the Resistance Games.
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