The time has finally come - Winter Olympics 2014 are about to commence.
The whole World awaits summer and winter Olympics with the great deal of anticipation. We all cheer our athletes, wishing them to overcome shortcomings and to be better than the athletes from other teams. The Olympics come very often with the great deal of controversy. 2014 Winter Olympics follow the suit.
They are very expensive, exceeding 50 million Euro, and organized in the usual Summer Russians resort, instead of Winter resort - as it would be expected. They have been, from the very beginning, the ‘pet’ project of the President Vladimir Putin. Done in a very Soviet way, defying the impossible, very hard on the local population and the environment.
We've heard already the horror stories, about the whole villages, destroyed or subjected to severe degradation of the livelihoods, because of the construction projects related to the Olympics. The new highways have been built, with total disregard to the local population, separating the villages, and cutting off the supplies. Just yesterday, I watched a very interesting reportage on France 24, describing one of these cases. The summer resort Sochi was completely unprepared for the Olympics. It’s estimated, that more than 90% of infrastructure had to be built. Thus, such an incredible price tag. Not counting, of course, the overwhelming corruption. Corruption is nothing new to Russians, inherited from Soviet Union and growing every day in the New-Old country. Looking from our perspective, one may say, it's not our business. It's not our business, until if it affects us, or our athletes.
Quite recently, Russia has introduced the anti-gay laws. When the whole World grows in acceptance of the gay community, Russia moves in the opposite direction. After the mass protest all around the World, against these ridiculous laws, Pres. Putin softened his position and welcomed members of gay and lesbian community to the Olympics, prohibiting only, what he called ‘gay propaganda’.
It didn't stop, what these laws released: a wave of violence against gays in Russia. Criminals and anti-gay militants started taking the law in their own hands and acted with impunity – I will leave it without further comment.
These laws are just the latest example of the treatment, being received by all the people who think differently or behave differently from what the Government would like them to think or behave, in Russia. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, when Russia put a new face on the old system, and pretended to accept the ideological change incorporating the market economy and talking highly and loudly about abuse of human rights in other countries, the dissidents and the journalists who were dissidents, or just tried to follow the truth, were disappearing. Many of them, disappeared and never resurfaced, and others turned out dead. The world protested, but as expected, it couldn't, and didn't produce any results. The Russian human rights record remained ‘spotless’ and untouchable, as in the Soviet Union.
For quite some time, Russia has been involved, in an un-winnable war with the Islamist extremists in Chechnya. In a Very Soviet way, Chechnya has been under siege by Russian military for years. No one in the free world sympathizes with the extremists, no matter what agenda, or political affiliation they may present. The Chechnya extremists want to separate from the Russia, and establish the Muslim state with the Sharia law in its extreme form. To prove their point, and force Russian government to accept their demands, they organized, numerous bombings, killing a great number of civilians as a result. They have been considered ‘terrorists’, by both Russians and the outside world.
In the 1980, during the Summer Olympics in Moscow, some countries of the Western world boycotted it because of what was going on in Afghanistan, and other Republics of, then, communist Russia. The Russian involvement in Afghanistan started on the full-scale in 1979. Even though the Russians were granted Summer Olympics before it started, when the war unfolded and no one could do anything about it, the World was outraged. Russians were isolated and punished for not respecting human rights and the international law. It was a slap on the hand but at least something was done to communicate the message to the arrogant Russians.
When Russia was granted the winter Olympics of 2014, all the human rights abuses were well known to the World. Of course not proven, since no one could actually investigate all the allegations, but the general consensus was set - even though they changed the name and the face, the modus operandi stayed the same.
I never could understand, why the International Olympic Committee granted the right to organize Winter Olympics (or the Summer Olympics, for that matter) to the Dictatorial State, like Russia (or China), just to satisfy the Dictators’ thirst for success, and in a way legitimize them in the eyes of the World. Let’s not forget that the same Committee granted the right to host the Summer Olympics to Nazi Germany (1936).
This right should the highest privilege, a reward for being a champion of Democracy, bringing the joy to all the people in the World including those who host the Olympics, and those who spent years to build the infrastructure. Instead, some migrant workers from the neighboring countries, who worked on creation of the Olympic Park in Sochi, were deported forcefully right after the work was done.
The reality is a little bit different. The conflict in Chechnya, spread to the surrounding territories, and can produce the real threat to the life and well being of all participants in the Olympics. There have been numerous warnings against bomb attacks, which can be orchestrated using the suicide bombers. In order to prevent this from happening, the Russian security forces, flooded all the Olympics facilities and surrounding areas in thousands. No one knows actual number of the security functionaries used to control the Olympics venues. The probability of attack by so-called ‘black widows’ is huge. Can all the participants be protected? Can all the visitors be protected? Can all the journalists be protected?
Two American warships are stationing right now on the Black Sea in a vicinity of Sochi. Filled with antiterrorist specialists, they are ready to react to any threat. I'm not sure if it makes me feel good about the safety of people in Sochi and surrounding facilities.
But what I am sure about, is that the winter Olympics of 2014 should have been organized somewhere else. They should have been organized in a country with much better record for human rights, and being able to provide the security without making it a police state. Because of what is happening, related to Chechnya and its extremists, the travel in this part of Russia is impossible without the permit. The heavy surveillance on the streets and the video surveillance in the hotel rooms, thousands of uniformed and plainclothes security officers, restriction of travels… Those who remember the Soviet Union can't help but recognize the state of affairs.
When the international Olympic Committee granted the right to organize Summer Olympics to China - another country with a ‘spotless’ human rights record (!!!), I had the same reservation. But at least in China there was no open war and no threat of terrorism.
The world in the second decade of the 20th century has become more violent and unpredictable. I don't think that this process will reverse itself. Taking this under consideration, we shouldn't create the situation when the terrorism would affect our everyday activities, or endanger the most peaceful endeavor like the Olympics - giving them to Russia created such a situation.
We can only hope that the Winter Olympics 2014 will be recorded in annals of history, as the celebration of brotherhood, well meant friendly competition, and all in all, joyful even - as it's supposed to be - not a blood bath.
Let the Games commence!
