The aim of the Games today is the same: to promote peace and harmony among the various nations of the world through friendly competition. Of all the establishments in the world today, the Olympics is the one institution that has been relatively free of disharmony and violence.
However, in the last century, there had been a few incidences that reminded world citizens that despite the advancement in other fields of endeavor, humanity still has some ways to go in realizing the true spirit and meaning of the Olympic Games.
Below are a few of those incidences:
1936 Games
- The leader of the host country, Adolf Hitler, wanted to use the Olympics to further his philosophy of Aryan supremacy; he received a number of winners at the Games, but quickly departed just before Cornelius Johnson, a black American athlete, who won the first gold medal for the United States was to receive his award. When reminded by the Olympics officials that he must receive all winners or none at all, Hitler opted not to acknowledge subsequent foreign winners. Most notable among the athletes Hitler is said to have snubbed was Jesse Owens – another African-American four-time gold medalist.
As luck would have it for Owens, he was not only snubbed by the arch-white supremacist, but also by the President of the country for which he won all the gold medals: President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt never invited Owens to the White House, nor did he send any letter of congratulations to him for winning 4 gold medals for the United States.
1972 Summer Games
- Eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage in Munich, West Germany, and subsequently murdered by members of a Palestinian guerilla movement, Black September - a splinter group from Arafat’s Al Fatah Organization. What followed the incident was not unpredictable: the Israelis responded with a string of kidnappings and assassinations of their own; airstrikes, invasions and bulldozing of Arab homes also followed.
1996 Summer Games
- Another white supremacist, Eric Robert Rudolph, placed a bomb at the Olympic Park in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, during the Summer Games held at that venue. The explosion killed Alice Hawthorne, a spectator and wounded 111 others. A Turkish cameraman, Melih Uzunyol, who ran to the scene following the blast, died of a heart attack.
Like in most senseless violence, Mr. Rudolph’s motive for the heinous crime was not clear. When finally caught in 2003, he reportedly railed against abortion rights, gay rights, and of course, other non-Aryans of the world. How his act related to the Olympic Games is anybody’s guess.
There were a few other minor events involving the Olympics in the last century that could also be considered to be inconsistent with the spirit of the Olympics; events like boycotts and protests by some governments or groups for one political reason or another. But what makes the above-listed incidents more poignant is the fact that they are chronic issues that have plagued the world for over a century and no persons or governments seem to know how best to tackle them.
While it is clear that peace and harmony can never be legislated, the Olympics is the one avenue where humanity can still practice the principles of fair and peaceful competition – a prerequisite for peaceful coexistence among the various peoples of the world.
Sources:
The New York Times Archives
William Ekpa - William Ekpa majored in Computer Science and has worked for several Information Technology firms as a consultant ever since he left ...
