The Legacy of the MegaEvent

 (I wanted to title this post ‘The Dark Side of Eurovision’, but considering the misadventures of Humperdinck and Jedward in Baku last week, that seems perhaps a little obvious.)

And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley

Euro 2012. Eurovision 2012. The Olympics 2012. A magnificent spectacle of sportsmanship, fair play, and beautiful people in little shorts (and a few grannies in headscarves if that floats your boat). A chance to show support for your country, have a few beers, paint your face an alluring and slightly terrifying array of red, white and blue, and to admire said beautiful people in little shorts (we all do it). I’m not a sports fan per se but have always rather enjoyed the benign mass hysteria that sporting and musical events offer.

Except that they are no longer benign; a worrying trend has begun across the world in preparation for massive sporting events and the consequential influx of extra millions into countries poorly equipped to deal with such occasions. Azerbaijan and the Ukraine this summer alone have elucidated the fact that a country’s human rights record is not reeeeaaallly considered before ‘awarding’ it the honour of hosting such a spectacle.

In India a few years ago (yes, on my gap yah, get over it), I came across thousands of flyers in Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile, declaring how wonderful it was that the upcoming Olympics were being held in Beijing – ‘finally,’ they cried, ‘China will be forced to answer for their crimes against humanity in Tibet; the eyes of the world upon them will hold them to account.’

Nope. What it really meant was that China had been accepted into the international community once and for all. It was beginning to cost too much not to. And now that China is amongst the world’s largest economies, it is becoming more and more difficult to critique them for even the smallest digression. Recently, a British citizen with severe learning difficulties was executed in China for carrying heroin. Despite the fact that he had been unwittingly trafficked by Eastern European smugglers (which elsewhere in the world, if proven, carries a greatly reduced sentence), and despite his disability (which according to numerous human rights treaties, makes execution of that individual illegal), China carried out the execution. The UK/China convo went something like this:

UK: Um, can we have our bloke back, please?

China: No.

UK: Pretty please?

China: We’ll stop making shit for you.

UK: Ok. We’ll take four millions iPhones, then, please.

The life of just one man would cost too much to fight for; Tibet will never be free.

During the build-up to the Games themselves, Beijing, rather than using the opportunity to increase transparency as promised when awarded the event in 2001, instead extended arbitrary detention periods and arrested anyone who they thought might disrupt the harmonious image of China they wanted the world to see. Journalists, activists and protestors were kept under lock and key.

What were they protesting? The forcible removal of street children and the homeless from their families, for one thing. This ‘beautification’ is a particularly hideous practice and has happened and is happening everywhere from South Africa to Russia to Brazil. It fails to provide for the people it removes, who are often taken without any consideration for their families who might be nearby, without compensation and without adequate protection wherever they end up. It is a quick fix for a problem which is not quickly fixable. It solves none of the issues which result in chronic homelessness and can cause profound psychological distress and more deeply entrenches poverty as those displaced are ostracised and left with nothing.

And Londoners thought that having to use a different tube line was just about the WORST THING EVER.

Brazil is another country on the up, and it has two shiny upcoming events to prove it. The Rio World Cup of 2014 and Olympics of 2016 have provided the impetus for massive and accelerated development. Development! Mass employment and greater living standards for all! Hurrah!

Erm, no. What it means is the forced eviction of hundreds of thousands of the city’s poorest from their homes. The slums of Rio, the favelas, are huge, sprawling, makeshift communities, and are now being razed to the ground to make way for roads and car parks. People are forced out at a moment’s notice, given no compensation or any claim to the land which may have been theirs for hundreds of years, and given no adequate replacement housing. Considering the billions being poured into development and industry, a bit of cash to put a roof over children’s heads doesn’t seem too much to ask.

Another example is Qatar, and its ongoing building projects for the 2020 World Cup, which is resulting in the chronic exploitation of the Bangladeshi workforce, whose passports are taken away on arrival. Who are paid the below the minimum wage, and far below what was promised when they left home. Whose vital remittance money sent home to their families leaves them with nothing to live on. Who are forced into squalid living conditions and treacherously long working hours.

Another example is Sochi, Russia, where the Winter Olympics of 2014 have already resulted in the arrest of journalists writing about Russian violations.

Another is London, during whose Games illegal prostitution and sex trafficking is expected to rise by two thirds.

Another is Saudi Arabia and its refusal to allow women to participate in this year’s Games, despite Afghanistan’s exclusion from the last three Olympics for precisely that reason. No prizes for guessing why women’s rights have fallen by the wayside in this particular example.

And still the international community smiles upon these countries. It is a fixed and insincere smile – these practices do not go totally unnoticed – but a State's ego does not recognise the difference, and even if it does, it doesn’t really care. These emerging super-economies can afford not to. And at the end, all that will be left are a few giant buildings that will jar painfully with the human desolation that surrounds them.

I don’t mean to ruin everyone’s fun (all evidence to the contrary; I do apologise). These events can showcase human achievements in the most positive light; who can forget Tommie Smith’s iconic black salute, or Jesse Owens soundly trouncing every member of Hitler’s Ubermensch? Sport is pure achievement, classless, raceless, and testament to hard work (although I’m fairly sure I’ll never be an Olympic hurdler, come hell or high water). But they come, apparently inevitably, with an unpleasant undercurrent. The world of realpolitik and foreign policy (in my opinion, shorthand for ‘we’re going to ignore everything naughty that so-and-so does because if we have a go they might not let us build our bomb/spaceship/Lord of the Rings theme park next door’) is used to being the centre of attention, and to a certain extent I can appreciate the difficulty of squaring human rights concerns with economic policy, geopolitical alliances and very sensitive international relationships; but I’m personally not sure a singing competition should be included in that already very broad definition. Just sayin’.

PS. Lord of the Rings theme park? Hellooooo Frodo.

PPS. This video says it much better than I ever could; do give it a watch.