The Olympics

The Olympic Games are on. I read about their coming on the Internet. I also “watched” bits and pieces of them via the same medium. That’s the best I could do because I don’t own a TV. When some friends told me about the catwalk of pretty models in the opening ceremony, I almost instinctively went to Costco and bought the 60-inch TV they sold there. I didn’t. But I still love the Olympics.

Olympics1In this world of ours, which is one of constant conflicts and continuous wars, the Olympics are a nice reprieve from all that mental stress and physical danger. Athletes come to compete to win, just like in conflicts and wars. But they don’t bring guns and weapons, and they don’t try to kill each other. Many of them even become life-time friends.

I hail the Olympic Games as a fine forum where human beings can, every two years if you count both the Summer and Winter Games, gather and compete in precious peace and good fun. But it was not always like that.

Berlin, 1936

During that era, Germany had some of the best athletes in the world. Adolph Hitler knew that. Like a true narcissistic psychopathic child who was begging for attention, he hosted the Games in Germany that year to showcase to the world that the Aryan race was the boss on earth.

Intentionally or accidentally — probably the latter — to prove Hitler wrong, Team USA sent the ultimate party-pooper there. His name was Jesse Owens, a young handsome black man, who went on to take the gold in the 100-meter dash, 200 meters, 400-meter relay, as well as the long jump. Yes, that’s four gold medals in total. And in the process showed, by confident elimination, the arrogant and ignorant host and his “superior” cohorts who the real slow-mos
were, at least in those few historic days.

Munich, 1972

This was the infamous Munich massacre, during which 6 Israeli coaches, 5 Israeli athletes, 5 perpetrators (who called themselves Black September members), and 1 West German police officer were killed. Although a lot of people classify and remember this tragedy as an ethnic conflict (between Palestinians and Jews), it is a bit confusing when you learn that the leader of that attack, Luttif Afif, might be born of Jewish and Christian parents. Hate and erraticism are two things in life that elude the logic of this simple mind. But they are real and are frequently
and randomly found.

I brought up this kind of dark history not to sell hate and bigotry, but to remind ourselves not to repeat it. Let’s forget the murderers and perpetrators – most of them are dead and we don’t miss them. Don’t blame their children and grandchildren; they have nothing to do with it. Let’s not forget the heinous acts, however. We can’t afford doing them again.

The first Olympiad was held in about 8th century, BC in Olympiad, Greece. Since then the format, rules, events and other details have evolved and changed. In the current Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 11,000 athletes from 206 teams entered. (Some teams are not recognized officially as “national teams” by other “nations.” But let’s put that spat aside for a change, and that’s part of the beauty of the Olympics.) In comparison, the United Nations have 193 members. So we could safely say that 90% of the world is represented in the Games. That’s probably as much as you could do in bringing people together without bad intentions or bad consequences. Sure it only lasts about two weeks, but I’ll take it, and treasure it like Simone Biles’s first gold medal.

Olympics2

*** The End ***

 

(The dissemination of this writing is for non-commercial enjoyment only. The author reserves the copyright for himself)
 
Note: Click here to continue browsing other writings and works of Camillus Chan within this site

 

This entry was posted in 散文.

发表回复

您的电子邮箱地址不会被公开。 必填项已用*标注

此站点使用Akismet来减少垃圾评论。了解我们如何处理您的评论数据