Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
December 20, 2021
I love the Olympics - the pageantry of the Opening Ceremonies, the camaraderie of the Closing Ceremonies following two and a half weeks of international competition, the flags, the anthems, and although I fervently root for the United States, when a victor emerges from a small or unexpected country, those too, are compelling stories. I can’t get enough water polo during the summer games, and it’s curling in the winter games that captivates my attention.
When the Biden administration announced earlier this month a diplomatic boycott of the games, they didn’t go far enough. Not sending American officials to Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympics sends a tepid message at best. It instills no fear in the host country. The right message would be a total and complete boycott of the XXIV Winter Olympic Games. Days later, Canada and Great Britain also announced their decisions of a diplomatic boycott as well.
That message would be, a despotic regime such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), for all its human rights abuses, for imprisoning about a million minority Uyghurs in concentration camps, for clamping down on rights heretofore enjoyed by Hong Kong, for saber rattling toward Taiwan, for a still unfree Tibet, for Covid-19, does not, in any way, shape or form, deserve the honor of hosting the Olympic Games.
The CCP should not be rewarded for its atrocious behavior. When a pro-democracy Hong Konger such as Jimmy Lai (among others) is jailed for protesting, and the newspaper he founded,the Apple Daily, is shuttered by the government, that is not the sign of a transparent society. When Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter publicly criticizes the CCP, and the end result that Chinese state television pulls all Celtics games from their airwaves, is not demonstrative of a country moving toward increased freedoms for its people.
Kanter, who on Monday November 29 became an official American citizen and legally changed his name to Enes Kanter Freedom, has called upon the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to pull the 2022 Winter Games from Beijing. In addition to the numerous reasons mentioned above, Freedom specifically took up for Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai. In a text on November 2 Shuai levied allegations of sexual assault against former Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli. Subsequent to that text, it disappeared from the internet by no action of Shuai’s, followed by rumors of her disappearance from the public eye. Shuai is a former world number one tennis player in doubles competition as well as winner of two major titles and a three-time Olympian.
Consequently, upon word of Shuai’s sexual assault allegeations and disappearance, the Women’s Tennis Association pulled all of its future tournaments from China. Such a decision is likely to “cost women’s tennis hundreds of millions of dollars in future revenue” according to WTA Chief Executive Steve Simon, as reported in The Wall Street Journal, on December 2. “If powerful people can suppress the voices of women and sweep allegations of sexual assault under the rug, then the basis on which the WTA was founded - equality for women - would suffer an immense setback,” said Simon.
Although Shuai eventually made what were clearly staged public appearances, Simon remained unsatisfied. “While we know where Peng is, I have serious doubts that she is free, safe, and not subject to censorship, coercion, and intimidation,” he said.
Simon may have a point, as on December 20 Shuai claimed her initial allegation was misunderstood, that she was never under house arrest, and that the CCP is not watching her. The WTA responded with a statement. “We remain steadfast in our call for a full, fair, and transparent investigation, without censorship, into her allegation of sexual assault, which is the issue that gave rise to our initial concern.”
In a sleight of hand misdirection, the CCP accused the WTA of politicizing its decision to pull tournaments out of China, and accused the United States of grandstanding regarding its announced diplomatic boycott. Feigning the wounded party, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said, “This severely tarnishes the spirit of the Olympic Charter.” As if the behavior of the CCP for decades is a sterling example of fair play and sportsmanship.
Enes Kanter Freedom applauded the actions taken by the WTA, called on other major sports leagues to do likewise, and for the IOC to move the upcoming Beijing Olympics scheduled to run February 4-22 of next year. “All the gold medals in the world aren’t worth selling your morals, values, and principles to the Chinese Communist Party,” said Freedom.
“It’s time to wake up and speak up. Someone has to do it. So many athletes, actors, singers out there - they’re scared - they care too much about their money. They care too much about their endorsement deals. They care too much about what the teams they play for are going to say. It should be morals and principles over money. People’s lives depend on this. This is so important - especially with athletes - so many out there that idolize us - if we don’t stand up against this dictatorship, who will?
The Chinese Communist Party does not represent the Olympic values - excellence, respect, friendship, and they are a brutal dictatorship. They engage in censorship, they don’t respect human rights, and they hide the truth. There’s a genocide happening; there are millions of people in concentration camps getting tortured and gang raped every day. To put the Olympics in a country like this, it’s unacceptable. I feel like we should… push to move the games somewhere else,” said Freedom.
IOC Vice President John Coates offered a weak-kneed statement. “We have no ability to go into a country and tell them what to do. All we can do is to award the Olympics to a country, under conditions set out in a host contract.” What the hell does that mean? Beijing should have never been awarded these games in the first place. The behavior of the CCP has been well documented for decades.
The weakness of the IOC today is reminiscent of the inability of the American Olympic Committee to boycott the 1936 Games of the XI Summer Olympics - the Berlin Games - the Nazi Olympics. Inability or a lack of motivation on racial grounds. The 1936 Summer Games had been awarded to Berlin in 1931, two years prior to Hitler’s rise to power, and while Germany was still a parliamentary democracy, suffering that it was in the throes of the depression.
Hitler and the Nazis did a virtual 180 regarding the hosting of the Olympics - from initially opposing the games, whose motto was a “commitment to world peace and international understanding,” which clearly ran contrary to the Nazis positions of death and destruction, to becoming willing hosts of the “biggest and best Olympic party ever.” (1, 2) The games would become a tool for the Nazi propaganda machine.
Attendance at the Berlin Games would be the highest for the day and media coverage also reached its height. In addition to print and radio, the 1936 Summer Olympics saw the first live telecast - “live in black and white to athletes in the Olympic Village and to the wider public in 25 special viewing rooms located in Berlin and Potsdam. This was the first time a sporting event had ever been seen live on television screens.” (3)
After Hitler was installed as Chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg on January 30, 1933, his anti-Jewish decrees were instituted one by one. In that same year, the German Swimming Association banned Jews; Germany’s Davis Cup tennis team gave the boot to one its best players, as he was Jewish; and the German Boxing Federation barred Jews from fighting or officiating. (4) Also in April 1933 a Germany-wide boycott of Jewish-owned businesses ensued.
Ironically, the international boycott attempt began in the United States, “a nation whose professed commitment to equality of opportunity in sports.” (5) This was 1933. Not for another 14 years would Major League Baseball begin to integrate with Jackie Robinson playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Had the United States actually boycotted the Nazi Games, more than likely France and Great Britain would have followed suit. (6) This in turn might have encouraged other European nations from participating in Hitler’s Propaganda Olympiad.
Appeals to American Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage fell on deaf ears as he supported the Olympic Games, and that they should remain in Berlin. Also, take note that Brundage was “infamous for his racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism.” (7)
In an attempt to quell further boycott scuttlebutt, the Hitler regime issued a statement that Germany would uphold the Olympic Charter and welcomed “competitors of all races.” (8) But with Hitler and the Nazis, it was promises made, promises never kept. All of this talk of boycott until this point was still in 1933, and Brundage submitted that “the Games are not until 1936 and there… will be many changes in the next three years.” (9) For the Jewish community in Germany those changes meant going from bad to worse.
The trusting of Hitler where the Olympics in general and Jewish participation on the German national team in particular were concerned, should have been a harbinger of how he would deal with Europe in general, and Great Britain Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain specifically as Hitler inched closer to war.
In a fact-finding tour in 1934, Brundage received assurances “that there will be no discrimination in Berlin against Jews.” (10) That did not lessen the American Jewish community’s call for a boycott of the 1936 Summer Olympics. Yet, on September 26, 1934 the American Olympic Committee voted to officially participate in the Nazi Olympics. The vote of the AOC was unanimous. (11)
Although awarded in 1931, the IOC could have revoked that award of the Summer Games to Berlin, just as they should with Beijing now, in 2021. The 1980 boycott by the United States of the Summer Olympics in the former Soviet Union was justified, according to then President Jimmy Carter, because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The ongoing situation in China is worse. The Soviet boycott of the Summer Games in 1984 held in Los Angeles was simply a revenge boycott.
Move the 2022 Winter Olympic Games from Beijing to the joint sites of Lake Placid, New York and Montreal, Quebec. The two cities are amply equipped to host winter sports and are a mere 112 miles apart. Lake Placid hosted two Olympics the III and XIII games in 1932 and 1980 - the site of the famous “Miracle on Ice.” Montreal, which hosted the XXI Summer Games in 1976, has stadiums, arenas, and sites for all the ice sports.
As President Ronald Reagan often said, “it can be done,” and if not the official Olympic Games, then call them the Freedom Games. Let not history repeat itself. Boycott Beijing, cancel all the advertising, and do not even televise the games in the United States. If we stand up for nothing, we will most certainly fall for anything.
Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.
Sources/Notes
(1) Large, Clay David Nazi Games the Olympics of 1936. W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2007 (P. 12)
(2) Ibid.
(3) www.guinnessworldrecords.com
(4) Large, (P. 65)
(5) Large, (P. 69)
(6) Ibid.
(7) The Nation, June 25, 2020
(8) Large, (P. 71)
(9) Large, (P. 74)
(10) Large, (P. 79)
(11) Large, (P. 79-80)
