Olympics

For A Workers’ Olympics!

July 23, 2021 Nathaniel Flakin, Left Voice. Create! Germany, Olympics, Sports, Women's Rights

We need a Workers’ Olympics as an alternative to the bourgeois Olympics! This might sound like an empty slogan, but the International Workers’ Olympiads took place from 1921 to 1937. The workers’ movement had always organized its own sports competitions. The Workers’ Olympiads let workers from all over the world exercise and compete together. Participants did not march under national flags — instead, everyone used the same red flag as the universal banner of labor.

German Olympic Gymnastics Team Will Wear Unitards In Protest

July 23, 2021 Greg Evans, Indy100. Resist! Olympics, Protests, Sports

Germany’s women’s Olympic gymnastic team will wear unitards at the Tokyo 2020 games in protest against the “sexualisation” of the sport. The team will wear full-body outfits that cover their legs from hip to ankle. This is an obvious difference from the traditional leotard which usually leaves the entire leg and hip exposed on the female gymnasts. The unitard, although breaking from conventions, doesn’t defy the rules of the competition.

The Tokyo Olympics Are In Peril

July 8, 2021 Dave Zirin, Edge of Sports. Resist! COVID-19, Olympics, Pandemic, Sports

Ten thousand people. That’s how many Olympic volunteers quit their posts in Tokyo, with the games just 50 days away. That is one of every eight volunteers needed to pull off the 2021 (still called the 2020) Olympics. This is just the latest warning sign that, despite the Panglossian protestations of the International Olympic Committee, this summer’s Games are in peril. Japan is currently wrestling with a coronavirus upsurge and less than 3 percent of the population is vaccinated. According to polls, as much as 80 percent of the country does not want to host the games, for fear of it exacerbating this omnipresent public health crisis, currently classified as a state of emergency. The masses of Tokyo want to postpone or cancel the games, but the government says it’s the IOC’s decision, not the host country’s, sovereignty be damned.

Olympics Chiefs Relax Protest Rules For Tokyo Games

July 3, 2021 Deutsche Welle. Educate! Activism, Athletes, Olympics, Racism

The decision came amid calls to relax rule 50.2 of the Olympic Charter, which states: "No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas." The International Olympic Committee (IOC) had promised to review the rule after the Black Lives Matter movement gained global support.

‘Suffocated’: Art Becomes Form Of Protest Against Olympics

June 19, 2021 AP, Indian Express. Resist! Arts, COVID-19, Japan, Olympics

Miwako Sakauchi stands in her studio and brushes spinning swirls on torn cardboard and drawing paper, using the five colors designated as symbols of the modern Olympiad. Titled ‘Vortex’, her paintings show the “anger, fear, sense of contradiction and state violence” over the residents evicted and the trees felled so enormous Olympic stadiums could be built, Sakauchi said. “I can’t think of it as a ‘festival of peace’ in this situation. It’s totally nonsensical.” The Japanese public mostly opposes holding the Tokyo Olympics next month during a pandemic, polls have shown, even though outward dissent such as protests has been small. One little-recognized outlet where people have expressed their frustration and fear over the Olympics has been art.

From PyeongChang To Lasting Peace

February 17, 2018 Hyun Lee, Zoominkorea.org Educate! Olympics, Peace Movement, South Korea

Sometimes, art can point to answers that the stuffy logic of policy wonks cannot. Those who have truly felt, even for a passing moment, the pain of seventy years of artificial national division, probably felt a stir in the pit of their hearts at seeing the ninety-year old North Korean statesman’s rare display of emotion. The sense of excitement at the fleeting inter-Korean reunion, followed by pain and sorrow at not knowing when or if the two Koreas will ever meet again, is shared by Koreans on all sides of the division. And therein may be the answer to the perpetual and seemingly unresolvable conflict on the Korean peninsula. That shared sense of longing for reunification will ultimately prevail over threats of maximum pressure and a “bloody nose strike.”

Korean Americans Call For Peace Beyond Olympics

February 10, 2018 Staff, Zoominkorea.org Create! Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, Korea, Olympics, Peace

Leo Chang — a scholar based in Amherst, Massachusetts, and a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea — hopes the inter-Korean cooperation will lead to peaceful reunification and self-determination: As a Korean-American who witnessed the horrors of the Korean War as a child, I am deeply hopeful that a successful Peace Olympics will facilitate the path to a new Sunshine Policy under the emerging international political milieu. And this new Sunshine Policy will bring about a peaceful accommodation, reconciliation, and reunification of the Korean peninsula as determined by Koreans themselves. The Sunshine Policy during the South Korean presidencies of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun had not only helped to set the stage for engagement with North Korea but also facilitated cross-border people-to-people exchanges for inter-Korean cooperation from the ground up.

US Misses Opportunity For Peace Progress At Olympics

February 9, 2018 Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance Educate! Mike Pence, North Korea, Olympics, South Korea

Vice President Mike Pence went to South Korea and missed the opportunity for further peace on the Olympic peninsula. The historic opening created by North and South Korea at the Olympics was an opportunity but Pence played the situation like a childish teenager. At a dinner dinner reception Pence went around the table and shook hands with everyone except the diplomat from North Korea. At the stadium Pence sat one row in front of the North Korean of the sister of President Kim Jong Un's sister. While Kim Jong Yo was so close to her he never even tried to speak to her. Anotger missed opportunty for peace. At the same moment, South Korean President Moon Jae-in shook hands with Kim Yo Jong, creating a historic moment and a photograph that gave hopes to many for peace between North and South Korea and movement toward unification and an end of hostilities.

North and South Korea Discuss Olympic Cooperation

January 13, 2018 Staff, Zoominkorea.org Educate! Diplomacy, Foreign Relations, North Korea, Olympics, South Korea

On January 9, high-level officials from North and South Korea met to discuss the North’s participation in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea in February. The inter-Korean meeting was held in the village of Panmunjom at the border of the divided Korean Peninsula. On January 1, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un expressed hope for reconciliation with South Korea in his New Year address. The next day, South Korean President Moon Jae-in proposed high-level talks with North Korea ahead of the Olympics. Ri Son-gwon of North Korea and Cho Myong-gyon of South Korea — the lead representatives of their respective states’ reunification committees — led the talks. The two sides came to an agreement about North Korea’s delegation to the Pyeongchang Olympics.

1968 ‘Black Power Salute’ Sparked Ongoing Miscarriage Of Justice

August 9, 2016 Allen Barra, www.truthdig.com Resist! 1960s, Justice, Olympics

By Allen Barra for Truth Dig - C. Robert “Bob” Paul Jr. was one of the most interesting sports figures you probably never heard of. He was born in 1918 and died near his home on Long Island in 2011. For much of his life, he was a publicist, first for his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, and later for the United States Olympic Committee (USOC). In an obit for Paul released by the USOC, longtime spokesman Mike Moran wrote: “With his death goes an important cornerstone of a long ago USOC and its remarkable history.” Mr. Moran was right. There was a book in Paul, and it’s a terrible shame that he never got around to writing it.

Olympics: Torch Reaches Land Of Tribe Facing ‘Genocide’

June 25, 2016 Staff, www.survivalinternational.org Resist! Brazil, Food and Agriculture, Indigenous Rights, Olympics

By Survival International. The Olympic torch is set to arrive on June 25 in a state where the Guarani tribe is widely feared to be facing annihilation due to systematic land theft, malnutrition, suicide and violence. The torch’s arrival in Mato Grosso do Sul in the southwest of Brazil comes as part of a nationwide tour before the start of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in August. It is set to be carried by Rocleiton Ribeiro Flores, an indigenous man from the Terena people, in the city of Dourados which is close to Guarani territory. Last week, one Guarani man was killed and several others – including a twelve year old boy – were seriously injured in an attack by ranchers’ gunmen on Tey’i Jusu community.

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