Olympic Nation
I don't much like my country these days, indeed haven't for the last week or so. Is it simply a case of me being an anti-Olympic no-fun grinch? Maybe.
Or maybe it’s something else.
One of my fathers-in-law (there have been several) once recounted to me how when he was choosing a country to come to after World War II, he deliberately picked one without a flag of its own.
Peter, Jewish, had grown up in what was then Czechoslovakia and spent years in death camps where most of his family perished. He met his future wife in a displaced person's camp in Austria after the war. As they contemplated life anew, Peter noted that Canada at the time had no real national flag, but rather flew the British Red Ensign. This suited him as he wanted to be in a country without flag waving crowds filled to the nines with beer and nationalistic fervour. He never again in his lifetime wanted to hear mobs chanting their country's praises.
Peter has been dead for a long time now, but I thought of him this week, especially on Sunday, the final day of the 2010 Winter Games. He was a gentle man who adored sports of all kinds, but would, I'm sure, have been appalled by the crowds roaming the streets draped in the Maple Leaf, roaring out "Oh Canada" at the drop of a hat (or a puck). He would have been repelled by those chanting the galling "Go Canada, go", and high-fiving total strangers as if all shared a bond of anything besides temporary nationalist fever.
Peter, like many Canadians native born and not, did not wear his love of country on his sleeve. He found a more subtle way to express his sentiments in just being a good family man and citizen and by being involved in his community. He was, in his own way, a quiet patriot like most Canadians have always been.
The Olympic circus spectacle changed for a time the nature how we celebrate our country. Some of the hoopla was simply the juxtaposition of Team Canada winning hockey gold over the Americans at the end of the Olympic party. After all, we view hockey as "our" game and have more than a passing ambivalence to the Yankees in general, so beating them was particularly sweet.
But there was certainly more at play than a gold medal for a bunch of highly-paid professionals. Those who think we need to be more demonstrably patriotic will no doubt be pleased by the flags flying everywhere on cars and buildings, by the crowds singing the anthem, by the costumes and faces painted red and white. The hyper-patriotism we normally decry in our southern cousins came home to roost as Canadians discovered they could be just as mindlessly nationalistic.
It was, perhaps just for a long moment, a descent into a different way of thinking about one's country, a default to a form of patriotism that might best be described as basically juvenile in nature. It is superficial as most mindless patriotism born of spectacle normally is.
The families dressed in red and white strolling through the downtown sites surely enjoyed the party, but in the euphoria of the moment likely failed to realize the bill that they and their kids would pay: A deficit provincial budget before the Legislature this week will feature cuts to services that these same kids will now not enjoy. The same children who skipped along the streets will never hike Eagleridge or savour real wilderness in the Callaghan. They will, however, need to be damned sure that they don't scamper down the wrong mean streets of the Downtown Eastside, the latter just as desperate and drug-filled and just as unlikely to find relief as before the circus came to town.
Soon the Olympic financial hangover will set in, the budget merely driving home what so many expected and now dread. The Liberals will find some way to pretend it could all be worse but for the Games, but only the most brain dead boosters will buy this spin. The rest of the public will just suck it up, the same way they do all the other lies and stupidities that governments at all levels toss at them. They will do their best to not let reality spoil the happy memories of a 17-day party, a party that gave them a transient sense of patriotism.
A mature form of patriotism, in Canada or anywhere else, would have a very different character. Much like being a parent responsible for one's children compared to a 20-something with no responsibilities out clubbing on Saturday night, a mature society would take care of its duties before partying. A mature society, one to which true patriot love could adhere, would have found a way to address poverty in a comprehensive way, would have sought real solutions to 1st Nations aspirations, and would fund the arts as if they really mattered, not just as backdrops to a sports party. A mature society would see more value in putting millions into medical research than into Olympic opening ceremonies, ceremonies that are all circus and really have nothing to do with either sports or the needs of our daily lives.
The Olympic circus, now thankfully gone, has revealed that we are nowhere near being a mature society and all the faux patriotism of the last 17 days won't make us so. Waving the flag at a street party doesn't equate to doing the hard work of trying to effect change one block at a time. Chanting "Go Canada, go" is not the same as the daily grind that the folks at the 1st United Church on Hastings go through trying to find a way to keep a roof over the heads and food in the bellies of 300 homeless people. It's nowhere the same as the battle that a number of groups fight day-by-day against the kind of poverty that simply shouldn't be allowed to exist in our city. Some in the media and public slam APC, DERA, PIVOT, Carnegie and many other groups for their activism, yet all of these have done vastly more for their fellows than all the mealy mouthed politicians combined.
The flag wavers have gone back to their normal routines and comfortable lives, the flags conveniently parked in the garage until Canada Day and the next celebration of their "patriotism". John Furlong, VANOC's CEO, will go on to an Order of Canada and some chi-chi job at the IOC or one of the Olympic sponsors. Gordon Campell and Gregor Roberston will bask in the post Olympic party glow.
Meanwhile, the homeless are still on the streets along with those who care about them. Eagleridge is still gone and Native elder Harriet Nahanee still dead, and environmental hero Betty Krawczyk still missing 10 months of her life, both for trying to save it.
Who then are the real patriots?
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(12) Comments
I'm all for you putting forth your opinions on how things were done, and your best paragraph was the second to last. I agree that those things were done carelessly in a fever of boosterism to 'get the job done'. But implying Furlong is Hitler and the people partying downtown on Sunday are all potential fascists is a mad dash through hyperbole into the inane.
What's worse, you call everyone who enjoyed the successes of the games immature patriots, like they don't know yet how to be a true Canadian; you imply that you do, that there is one kind of way to be patriotic about Canada and it involves being 'quiet' and 'mature'. You don't have any right to define what Canadian patriotism should or should not be, except for yourself; underlying this part of your argument is simple narrow-mindedness. I think you should try to open your mind and see what Canada is instead of seeing only problems waiting for your 'solution'.
You sound like a sore loser. What progressives in this country need to figure out instead is how to win.
The three posts illustrate the intent of my comments far better than I ever could. Had I dealt with the mindlessness of much of the Oly booster crowd in general, I'd have been blasted for ad hominem comments.
Happily these comments make crystal clear the differences between those who supported the Games and those who opposed. Not only different views of Canada, but different world views as well.
There is a clear line in the sand. I'm happy to be on the opposite side of it from these three.
In these Olympics, Canadians only paid attention to Canada
(Fort Worth/Dallas) Star-Telegram, Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010
http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/02/28/2003874_p2/in-these-olympics-canadians-only.html
By GIL LeBRETON
glebreton@star-telegram.com
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- After a spirited torch relay ignited pride in every corner of the country, the Olympic Games began and quickly galvanized the nation.
Flags were everywhere. The country's national symbol hung from windows and was worn on nearly everyone's clothing.
Fervent crowds cheered every victory by the host nation.
But enough about the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
At the opening of these Olympic Winter Games more than two weeks ago, Vancouver organizers expressed the hope that they could show the world a truly "Canadian Games."
That they succeeded in that, there is little doubt.
For 17 days we were barraged with Canadian flags, rode buses and trains with people in sweatshirts and jerseys adorned with Canadian maple leafs, and were serenaded at venues by Canadian spectators, lustily cheering for Canadian athletes.
The first Olympics I ever attended were also in Canada, the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal. For a kid not long out of college, it was a profound experience, seeing Lasse Viren, Alberto Juantorena, Nadia Comaneci-- the athletes of the world -- on the sporting world's grandest stage.
One of the speakers at that Olympics used a phrase that lingers with me still: the family of man.
There is no earthly event that reinforces that notion as well as an Olympic Games. For all of the latter-day Games' inherent commercialism, that ideal persists. I truly believe that.
It persists, despite the overwhelming chauvinism of the past two weeks.
They showed us Canadian Games, all right. And in most cases, nothing but Canadian Games.
I'm not talking about TV coverage. I have no idea what Bob Costas and NBC were televising back in the States.
But from the opening ceremony to Sunday's closing, from the tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili to Sunday's gold-medal hockey game, on the streets of Vancouver and at the Olympic venues, only a token nod was given to the rest of the world's athletes.
I was as surprised as I was disappointed.
Had the classic Canadian inferiority complex finally decided to bite back? Or was this a dark consequence of the Own the Podium program?
At the Games' outset, Canada's obsession with finally winning its first gold medal as a host nation was understandable -- quaint, almost.
But that story swiftly swept the luge tragedy off the front pages. There were no follow-up stories about investigations, memorials or retributions to the family.
Kumaritashvili himself was blamed for the fatal accident. The luge competition went on. Some Canadian lugers even callously complained about the shortening of the track.
And so the tone for these Games was set.
It was Canada's party, and no dead luger, no critical British tabloid and no visiting Americans were going to spoil it.
That attitude is regrettable, because a good, if not especially memorable, Olympics followed.
U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn won her cherished gold medal in the women's downhill, validating all the product endorsements and cover shoots she will have between now and 2014.
Evan Lysacek struck a blow for U.S. men's figure skating, giving legendary coach Frank Carroll an Olympic champion for the first time.
Texas-based Olympians fared well, winning five medals, which is as many as Finland, Japan and Italy.
Speedskater Chad Hedrick of Spring earned silver and bronze medals, Denton's Jordan Malone won a relay bronze in short track, and the Dallas Stars' Brenden Morrow (gold) and Jere Lehtinen (bronze) are going home with hockey medals.
But a lot happened that didn't make the front pages of the Vancouver newspapers or find its way into the Canadian TV network's opening montage.
Norway's Marit Bjoergen won three gold medals, a silver and a bronze in cross-country skiing to become the ninth athlete to win five medals at a single Winter Olympics.
Skier Maria Riesch finished in the top 10 in all five Alpine events. Her native country, Germany, won at least one medal on every day of this Winter Olympics.
American short track speedskater Apolo Ohno won three medals, giving him eight and making him the most decorated U.S. Winter Olympian of all time. But that's nothing -- Norway's Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, at age 36, won two biathlon medals and now has 11.
Canada's rush to the victory stand over the Games' final week resulted in a Winter Olympics record for a single nation, 14 total. The U.S. hockey team can take solace that its silver-medal finish Sunday was the Americans' 37th medal, also a record for one nation.
But for the most part, the most underappreciated soul at these Olympics was an American or a European on the medals stand.
Yes, every host nation cheers lustily for its native Olympians. But never in my experience to the extent that we saw here, where the rest of the world's athletes were little more than drink coasters at the party.
South Korean Kim Yu-Na's dazzling gold-medal performance in women's figure skating, for example, was overwhelmed here by the attention given to Quebec's Joannie Rochette, whose mother tragically died.
Chief organizer of the Games, John Furlong, mentioned Kumaritashvili briefly in his Closing Ceremony remarks. But the hosts' insensitivity had long ago been duly noted.
At a news conference Saturday, for example, someone asked Ken Melamed, mayor of Whistler, where the luge run was located, if the village planned some sort of memorial to the luger from Georgia.
Why, yes, the mayor said, "We have to find a way to acknowledge Nodar... and the Canadian athletes that have done well."
See? They don't get it.
The Vancouver Games' ticketing policy didn't help the partisan scene at the venues. To order Olympic tickets through the Vancouver 2010 Web site, a buyer had to have a Canadian address.
China sold 6.8 million tickets to its 2008 Summer Olympics. Vancouver only made 1.6 million available. The Canadians wanted to "Own the Podium," but organizers made sure that they owned the grandstands at each venue as well.
I'm still mystified that Canada fans were able to grab what seemed to be 98 percent of the tickets at the hockey venue. Olympic crowds have always been more inclusive.
In his closing news conference Sunday, IOC president Jacques Rogge acknowledged that there were "teething pains" as the Vancouver Games began.
"There was an extraordinary embrace by the city of Vancouver," he said. "Something I've never seen before."
There was embracing, all right, but then Canadians have always had the reputation for drinking a lot of beer. The loose marijuana laws only added to the nightly revelry in the downtown streets -- which, frankly, seemed to have little to do with the Olympics.
Canada wanted to hold a party, and the Canadians did. The gold medals only seemed to fuel them.
Team Canada hockey jerseys became the uniform of the streets. Maple leafs were either hanging or on clothing everywhere.
One thing I never saw: a simple flag or shirt with the five Olympic rings. Not anywhere. After 15 Olympics, that was a first.
I didn't attend the '36 Olympics, but I've seen the pictures. Swastikas everywhere.
No political reference is meant, just an Olympic one. What on earth were the Canadians thinking?
An Olympic host is supposed to welcome the world. This one was too busy being (their word) "patriotic."
"Now you know us, eh?" chief organizer Furlong said.
We thought we did two weeks ago. Now, I'm wondering if Canadians can even recognize themselves.
Nice party. But so was 1936.
Gil LeBreton, 817-390-7760
Irony, indeed, Teebird, for me to be quoting Americans, especially in light of my comments about us behaving like them. I have to admit, you got me on that one (just not the other stuff).
As to your comments to "just go away": Boy oh boy, I can't tell you how much I'm hoping to do exactly this. Seven years is a long time to give to any cause; more that enough in fact. So right or wrong, I'm trying to finish up my Olympic adventure, post my last thoughts, then head off to more productive pastures.
Be well...
Hey Canukistani:
It wasn't the final book end, merely the penultimate one. Wait for the last installment due in a day or so.