Paralympics

The Sacred Truce of Ancient Olympics

During the Ancient Olympics a Sacred Truce called “Ekecheiria” was instituted during the month of the Olympiad. Although the political rivalries were constant between the city-states of Greece, they never interfered with the conduct of the Olympiads. The city-states would lay down their arms and all Greek fighting would cease. Death penalties would not be carried out either. “Ekecheiria” allowed safe travel of all athletes to and from Olympia.

Black and White picture of Ancient Olympics runners

Ancient Olympic runners

The revival and the failure

“We are living in a world where real peace is becoming increasingly elusive, driven away by gun fire, coups d’état, bombings and antipersonnel mines”

(Fekrou Kidane, 2001)

The modern Olympic games do not carry the same characteristics with the Ancient Olympics. During the 100 years since the Olympic revival the event has faced three Olympiad cancellations as a result of the two world wars.

Black and white photograph of the torch arrival during the 1936 Berlin Olympics

1936 Berlin - Olympic torch arrives

The political influence is very strong and we have may examples of this. The Olympics of Berlin in 1936 were subject to Nazi propaganda. In Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984 there were outrageous political interventions from the great forces. From the Mexico City until the Los Angeles Olympics, five Olympiads had been victims of infamous boycotts, mass murders and other atrocities.

While the spectacle of the Olympic Games has remained, the actual Olympic Spirit has been lost

because of the failure to operate the games independently of the global political and cultural environment that is surrounding them. (Henning, Real, Segrave and Chu, Tulloch).

Who is to blame?

Various authors (Henning, Hoberman, Jennings, Toohey and Veal) find the core of the problem to be the whole IOC constitution, which has failed to erase the barriers of nationalism, racism, sexism, and religious persecution. The IOC lacks the ability to demonstrate structure, legislation and control. The constant domination of western countries in the Olympic movement has created a strong national-cultural inequality.

The SRI (Sponsorship Research Institutional) has conducted two surveys in 1995 and 1999 in only six and seven countries respectively to declare that 60% in 1995 and 85% in 1999 of those questioned identify the Olympics as generating world peace and harmony. The fact that these surveys have excluded a minimum of 190 other participating countries and have focused on the few wealthy and dominant ones shows that their results are inaccurate to prove the least.

The UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, has continuously appealed to countries in war to impose ceasefires during the Olympiads, but a speech is rarely strong enough to persuade. For example, the Bosnian war in 1992 did not cease during the Olympics of Barcelona, although Samaranch and the leader of the Bosnian Serbs Radovan Karadzic agreed on a ceasefire. The military forces of the latter were considered responsible for the horrible massacre of the Sarajevo bread-line in the Vaso Miskin street just a few days later, and they continued the shelling of Sarajevo (1984 Winter Olympic host). Mass murder continued during the Olympics where Bosnia participated for the first time.

Coloured photograph of Bosnian Muslim and Croat prisoners held at the Keraterm concentration camp by the Bosnian Serbs

Bosnian Serb held Keraterm death camp

Searching for a solution

The Hellenic Olympic Committee in view of the Athens 2004 games made official the effort of reviving the Cultural Olympiad with permanent headquarters in Ancient Olympia, (Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Metrorama 20/7/01). Such a work will last for four years until 2004 and shall try to bring the lost spirit of the Olympic games. It will include concerts of Greek and foreign artists, conferences, theatrical plays, displays, dedications etc. The desire is to bring the Ancient Olympic spirit into light and promote the idea of revival of “Ekecheiria”.

Since the political fiascos of the 1980s, there has been an increased effort by Greek and foreign conveyors to return the Olympic games to their home country, Greece. The concept holds to the fact that if the games find a permanent home on neutral ground, cultural and political rivalries could cease.

The leader of the Opposition Parliament of Australia, Kim Beazley has supported the view that the Olympic games should find a permanent home, acknowledging that place to be Athens. He claimed that such an effort “should help bring back their (Olympic Games) prestige, which has faded and limit its commercialization and corruption” (Newspaper Kerdos, 13.7.2001).

Author Brian Martin shares this opinion when analyzing the “Ten reasons to oppose the Olympic games”, and presents it as one of the ideas for the strategic change of the Olympic games. Such an action would remove “the politics of site selection, in which making special gifts to IOC members has become routine”.(See the related article).