(Beijing) There is a point at which to be “neutral” politically is to be complicit in the dictatorship, and Thomas Bach touched on it this week in Beijing.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
In a triumphant tone, the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) proclaimed on Thursday a “new era for winter sports, the face of which will be changed forever” thanks to the Beijing 2022 Games. will be quoted with delight at the 20and congress of the Chinese Communist Party next fall.
Why a new era? Because, according to the local government, 346 million Chinese have been introduced to the practice of winter sports. Think about it: 346 million people! “If only a fraction of them continue, imagine what that can do for sport,” the IOC President told us in the large conference room of the media centre.
True, when this country of “large numbers” gets down to a task, it can change the face of the world.
In these “green” Games, however, all the sliding events will be done on artificial snow, which will not return in the dry winter of the capital. What fraction should we really retain from the official high-sounding figure?
It is still the first time in Olympic history where the IOC President has had to answer questions about the safety of athletes who dare to express political opinions.
This did not arise in 2008, before the hardening of the regime. Even in Sochi in 2014, the stakes were low, no one questioned whether it was dangerous for an athlete to voice opinions, and I met the lawyer for environmental activists and Pussy Riot with no worries.
Let’s be clear: it’s not as if athletes around the world are burning to denounce the massive repression of the Uyghurs or the crushing of Hong Kong democracy. They come for their sport.
But we are still in dictatorial territory, where the imprisonment of publishers, journalists, dissidents and others for offenses of opinion are counted in the hundreds. What are the rules of the game, exactly?
The former German fencing champion at the Montreal Games replied that as soon as the Games were won in 2015, the question of freedom of expression and the rights of athletes was in the specifications. The topic has been “discussed several times since”, and there is “no reason to think” that things could go wrong if the athletes keep their reserve in three places: the competition site, the medal ceremony and opening ceremonies. But at press briefings, on social networks, at press conferences: there’s no problem.
An official from the Chinese organizing committee was still saying the other day that you have to respect the laws of the country when speaking out, a vague statement about equally elusive rules…
“Our rules are not unique, they apply to all areas of life; think of an actor playing Hamlet,” Bach argued as eyebrows rose on journalistic foreheads. “Would we see him interrupt his performance to comment on the stage? Once the play is over, he can say whatever he wants. »
Strange analogy, because no one thought that a tobogganer interrupted his descent to give a press briefing. The question is rather: can the IOC guarantee the safety of the athletes? As long as he “does not insult or violate the rights of others” by his remarks, he has complete freedom.
Let’s be serious, we don’t really fear police intervention. But the mere fact that the question arises is confusing.
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Among the sympathetic questions from the official Chinese media, there was of course the question of Peng Shuai, a three-time Olympian tennis player. Disappeared for two weeks after denouncing a former senior leader for sexual assault, she “reappeared” in controlled environments, then in a video chat with President Bach. He maintained that he would meet her as planned in private, because she will exceptionally be able to penetrate the health “bubble” in which we find ourselves. They will have an interview, and it will be up to her to say how she feels, and if she wants an investigation.
PHOTO ANDY BROWNBILL, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Peng Shuai
As long as she is not outside of China, this is obviously all a charade intended to hush up the affair. Surveillance here is permanent, it is a premise, an evidence. Under the guise of listening to the champion, how not to see that the IOC is used as an instrument to whitewash Chinese censorship?
Truly, Thomas Bach well deserved his bust in a park in Beijing, alongside those of Pierre de Coubertin, Juan Antonio Samaranch (President of the IOC when the Games were awarded to China for 2008) and Jacques Rogge (President when the 2008 games were held).
Let’s not forget that Xi Jinping was responsible for organizing the 2008 Games, which did not harm his rise to the presidency. He attaches great importance to the event.
On the repression of the Uyghurs, this Muslim minority victim of genocide according to many organizations, the IOC president says that it is not up to the IOC to interfere between States to decide on “political disputes” .
“If the IOC were to decide on political issues, in the end, the Games would only exist between countries that share the same points of view, and they would lose their universality and, therefore, their very mission.
“The Greeks understood this, and during the 1000 years that their Games lasted, they respected the truce to guarantee the passage of the athletes and the serene holding of the Games; the Romans wanted to politicize them, and that was the end of the Games for 2000 years. »
Will he take the opportunity to ask Vladimir Putin, present at the opening ceremony, not to invade Ukraine?
“I call on all nations to respect their unanimous commitment to respect the Olympic Truce. »
Those who have lived through Sochi will remember that Russia invaded Crimea during “its” Winter Games.
The IOC President is not the Secretary General of the United Nations, after all, who himself can only make wishes. António Guterres will be at the opening, moreover, as will the President of the UN General Assembly.
“The slogan of the Games is ‘Together for a shared future’, and it has been discovered even more that all the major problems of the world can only be solved through international cooperation, whether it is climate change or the pandemic. »
It’s all wonderful. But neutrality is not blindness.
Let’s not even talk about Berlin 1936. As long as we are neutral and “not interfere in political disputes”, would we hold the Games in an Afghanistan ruled by the Taliban? Of course not. But Afghan athletes are welcome, and that’s fine.
Because between the acceptance of all nations as participants and the invitation to organize them in a country that massively violates the fundamental rights of the person, there is a fundamental ethical margin. It is an association, a partnership that is then a question.
A line somewhere in the Olympic snow that has faded.