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Geopolitics

Games Of The Absurd: Beijing’s Olympics Of Politics And Pandemic

With both fans and diplomatic dignitaries missing, it’s an Olympics that recalls politically combustible Games of the past. COVID-19, like it did for the Summer Games in Tokyo, will also help haunt the premises. The good news is that the athletes will most likely take over our attention as soon as they hit the ice and snow.

Games Of The Absurd: Beijing’s Olympics Of Politics And Pandemic

The Winter Olympic Games open in Beijing shrouded in controversy

Hannah Steinkopf-Frank

-Analysis-

The Olympic script includes the invoking of the spirit of friendly competition as a respite from geopolitics.

Yet the global sporting event has long struggled to separate itself from the biggest social and political events of the day: from the 1936 Berlin Games during Hitler's rise to power to the Black Power salute at the 1968 Mexico City Games to the PLO killings of Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972. There were also major tit-for-tat U.S. and Soviet boycotts of the 1980 Moscow and 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games.


This year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing fit squarely into this history, with the compounded impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and accusations of human rights abuses chilling a chance for worldwide celebration.

Keep asking about Peng Shuai

As Sam Borden, a senior writer for ESPN, recently wrote, “Can we be grateful that during a scary and wearying pandemic, we will be able to watch and be inspired by amazing performers on a nightly basis? Can we? What if we remember that the show we're captivated by is being put on by a nation which regularly censors free speech.”

Borden also cited the recent case of Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai, who has effectively disappeared from public view after accusing a senior government official of sexual assault — a reminder, as we saw at the recent Australian Open that sports and politics are a year-round reality.

But these Olympic Games were already set to be something altogether different, with French weekly magazine Courrier International calling it the “Games of the Absurd."

Courrier International - France

The weight of a boycott

Stadiums will be eerily empty, with close to 3,000 athletes from 91 countries staying in a quarantine bubble and competing without large audiences. But beyond fans, the Games are also going to be short on dignitaries: The United States was the first country to announce a diplomatic boycott of the event on Dec. 8, citing concerns over the treatment of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang, and has since been followed by Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia and several other nations.

While athletes from these places will still compete, many global leaders and other representatives hope their absence will send a strong message to China as the whole world tunes into the Games. Engin Eroglu, a German politician serving in the European Parliament, criticized the EU stalling on a collective diplomatic boycott. Eroglu wrote in EU Observer that “It cannot be acceptable for EU leaders and officials to pretend it is business as usual whilst China continues its crackdown in Hong Kong, on the Uyghurs, and fuels tensions with Taiwan, directly flouting the values of integrity, respect, and friendship that the Olympics are supposed to embody.”

Other countries are snubbing the Games due to their own domestic issues with China; India announced a last minute diplomatic boycott after a Chinese soldier involved in a 2020 border clash with neighboring India appeared as an Olympic torchbearer. Arindam Bagchi, a spokesperson of India's Ministry of External Affairs said it was regrettable that China had politicized an event like the Olympics.

Der Spiegel - Germany

A friend in Putin

But the Olympics are also an opportunity for China and its allies to make their geopolitical weight felt. Russian President Vladamir Putin is making the most of his attendance at the Games along with his country’s 212 athletes, having met Friday with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Putin is clearly trying to strengthen his relationship with the Chinese leader. But he’s also publically distinguishing himself from boycotting countries the U.S. and U.K. that have also been the leading powers criticizing Russian military buildup on the border with Ukraine.

But where does this leave the thousands of athletes who have dedicated their lives to pursuing Olympic dreams? Most of the skiers and skaters steer clear of politics and plenty of fans would prefer to keep the focus on the sports itself.

Still, the Games are a kind of golden trap.

Joongang Ilbo - South Korea

A golden trap

In Swedish dailyDagens Nyheter, sports journalist Johan Esk writes that even for the Swedish athletes who have openly criticized China, bringing home a medal will make them pawns in China’s propaganda project.

Still, we won’t be hearing much of anything from the athletes the next two weeks that isn’t about speed and snow. This is largely due to Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter that prohibits participants from displaying “political, religious or racial propaganda.”

Some have argued this rule violates athletes' right to freedom of expression, and even seems ironic when many consider the Games themselves to be a propaganda tool for the Chinese state. Clearly, it’s a heavy burden when you are competing not only for yourself, but for your country. And while this year’s Olympics might be particularly colored by the geopolitical context, there are only three colors that really matter — and they begin with gold.

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Society

Welcome To Umeå, The Swedish City Designed By And For Women

Umeå in northern Sweden is a veritable feminist city. And the initiatives go much deeper than just policies and promises — they shape how the city is built.

Photo of pride parade

Women's pride parade

Karl De Meyer

UMEÅ — For years, this university town in northern Sweden has been working towards building a city truly made for women as much as men. The task is a lot more difficult than you might first imagine. In addition to ensuring safety in public spaces, the municipality also aims to correct the biases inherited from the past.

In the Umeå town hall square, the movement is symbolized by a striking sculpture. With its muscles flexed, a sharp feline glares angrily at passers-by from a pedestal set on metal rods that signify the bars of the cage from which it has just escaped. Blazing red, the sculpture by artist Camilla Akraka, which Umeå residents have dubbed "the puma" since its unveiling in 2019, was commissioned by the municipality as an allegory for the#MeToo movement.

Its title, "Listen," means that even in a country known to be very progressive and ahead of the curve on gender equality issues, there is still work to be done.

"In Umeå, we do not have an equestrian statue of a king or a general, but an angry feline who has reason to be," says smiling Linda Gustafsson, in front of the "puma", while readjusting her hat as the first flakes of the season flutter in early November.

The gender studies graduate bears a rather unique title: she is one of the two "gender equality officers" at the town hall. The position has existed since 1989 in Umeå, the country's 13th largest city with a population of just over 131,000, almost a quarter of whom are students.

So when conservatives called for the removal of the "puma" during the municipal election campaign, which was held at the same time as the parliamentary elections in September 2022, the Social Democrats made it clear that the animal would remain in its place if they were re-elected.

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