Tight Race in Paris between the Olympic Truce and Reality
With the Olympics kicking off this weekend, the spotlight of a hairy world will be on the Paris: the city of light that happens to also be on the highest terrorist alert, and where the mayor is forced to swim in the Seine to prove that the water isn’t so toxic that it will kill you. And baguettes, they’ve got baguettes.
Can Paris make a good show this year? Well, it’s not like they hasn’t been through this before – this will be it’s the third time to host the games of the Olympiad, although the last time was exactly a century ago. In 1924, 3,089 athletes gathered for 17 sports and the media cycle was a bit slower: it took 57 years to release Chariots of Fire.
These days it’s a big, global to-do with big global hype that never quite delivers the ROI its promoters promise. But Emmanuelle Macron sees himself as a big, global leader – the surfing is happening in Tahiti, which is on the other side of the said globe - its about as far away from Paris as you can get without heading back. Macron also wants to show that France is the anchor of a non-chaotic Europe. Both notions beggar belief, but no more than the stories the French tell about the Resistance in World War II.
The hope for peaceful Paris games hinges on the “Olympic truce” called by the UN in 1992: It declared that competing countries abstain from attacks for the duration. It recalls the truce honored by the Greeks during the ancient games – which is swell, but ancients had a more transactional sense of divine retribution than modern society. All we’ve got is the UN, and they aren’t smoting anybody.
To wit: Russia has breached the truce in 2028 when it seized Georgian territory, then in 2014 when it seized Crimea from Ukraine, and then in 2022, when it invaded Ukraine proper. This year both Russia and Belarus have been sanctions and must compete as “neutrals” without flag or anthem.
Which is not to say that the trouble-makers have been taken care of.
In 1924 France was smug about a colonizing far-away territories, now those far-away people are colonizing France and all those migrants from the Levant and North Africa have developed opinions about this business in Palestine. For their part, not having a country didn't stop the Palestinians from running amok at the 1972 Munich games. This year the Olympic committee has so far resisted calls to sanction Israel over the War in Israel, but upheld a decade long ban of an Algerian judoka (judo) for refusing to compete with Israeli athletes. That’s the right spirit...
France is also dealing with a concerted effort by Azerbaijan – who aren’t a military power by any means but have a lot more oil money than you’d think – to disrupt the games online. They are also throwing money an uprising in the French south pacific territory of New Caledonia. Why does Azerbaijan care? Having been thrown out of its West African stomping grounds by Russian mercenaries, France is trying to throw diplomatic weight around in a region that used to be part of the Russian Empire. It backed Armenia in the fight they are currently losing to Azerbaijan. So Vladimir Putin will have opinions, too.
Even old Olympic success stories seem to be fading into the curtains this year. In 2018, the two Koreans fielded a single Olympic team. Six years later, after a spate of high-profile defections to South Korea, the North is threatening a nuclear strike while airlifting bags of crap southward. The North, along with Iran and the games 800-ton Panda – China – will all be sending nearly as many political chaperones as athletes. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. This isn’t to put a stop to the traditional Olympic Village orgy that breaks out every year, but to prevent defections.
What the Hell? Perhaps the Olympic truce will hold. Or, perhaps, this caterwauling is this the future shape of the Olympics: a celebrity UN - in tighter clothes and product endorsements - festooned with stupid and futile political gestures.
Still, the baguettes. That’s something.
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