The Winter Olympics

The Winter Olympics this year start on February 12th in Vancouver-Whistler in British Columbia, Canada. Along with its preparations on a grand scale and massive advertising, the event is increasingly getting marked by protests against it where the protesters are demanding not to hold Olympics on the stolen native land. The peaceful protests against these Winter Olympics are being dealt with the usual police brutality. The protests are however not being reported by the mainstream media. The threat of land-grabbing and displacement of natives is very real and is not only true for the natives but also for the urban-poor who too would get displaced. Historically, all native land in Canada has been acquired by the government (Canadian or colonial British) by some treaty with the natives. British Columbia has a unique position in this regard. The natives in British Columbia historically have no agreement or treaty with the Canadian government (or prior colonial British government) to give away their lands; consequently, the only way to take that land is by force. The natives as a result are being forced out of their lands to create the venue for the Winter Olympics. This is being achieved largely through contracts given to private corporations. The corporations are not only driving indigenous people out of their homes but are also causing considerable damage to the environment. The profit-making goes without saying; the exploitation during sporting events like the Olympics is usually veiled by the fanfare associated with the event and it goes relatively unnoticed in the outside world. "The history of the Olympics is one rooted in displacement, corporate greed, repression, and violence", states the Olympics Resistance Network (ORN), a coalition of native rights and anti-poverty groups. Canada is following the pattern. It was among the four countries (the other three are the US, Australia and New Zealand) that voted against the against the 2007 United Nations resolution to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Ambassador John McNee of Canada had said his country was disappointed to have to vote against the Declaration, but it had “significant concerns” about the language in the document. Still the UN adopted the historic resolution, which is not binding but is considered as a big leap in restoring ancestral lands, resources and traditional way of life to 370 million indigenous people around the world.

Winter sports are expensive, they usually require a lot of gear, training to play and people who play it usually come from the rich sections of society. The pattern is easily extendable to the tournament of winter sports like the Winter Olympics, where the participation is mostly from rich countries of global north. The club is exclusive; the sports included in the Winter Olympics (like alpine skiing, luge, figure skating, skeleton etc.) are not played by most countries in the world. The participation is mainly from North America and Western Europe. The only exceptions are China and a couple of Eastern European countries like Ukraine, Belarus and Estonia. The very concept of the Olympics of including and spanning all continents as represented by its symbol is absent in spirit from the Winter Olympics. The Olympics promote harmony through sports bringing all races and people of the world together in a single event. The Winter Olympics is pre-dominantly white. It should be called some other sporting event rather than ‘Olympics’; like ‘International Winter Sports Contest’, ‘Winter Games’ or better still ‘NATO Sporting Event’. It has come to be an event for rich nations and a particular race (one would hardly ever see an African American on a ski slope). Holding it at the expense of indigenous people by forcibly taking away their lands makes it even more appalling.

Other than the issue of natives and its exclusive character, the Winter Olympics pose the critical issue of environment. To make it an attractive tourist place, the landscape is being changed dramatically. The expansion and construction of highways, bridges, ski-resorts, hotels and Olympic venues have already destroyed a lot of land and mountains. The untouched mountains are essential to the survival of people, but a sharp increase in the development of ski-resorts has contributed to severe damage of the eco-system. Despite their portrayal as being eco-friendly, ‘low-impact’ tourism ski resorts cause large-scale ecological destruction to the mountain habitat. Most ski-resorts also use fake snow that contaminates the land and nearby water. The provincial government of British Columbia is willingly funding and giving away contracts worth billions of dollars to corporations for developing the infrastructure which essentially means greater resource exploitation, mining, logging, extraction of natural gas etc. All of this is being done on stolen native’s lands, subsidized by the government to attract investments and in turn give the corporations millions in profits.

Meanwhile the funding for social services, healthcare, education etc. is being severely cut down. This is yet another manifestation of misplaced priorities of the governments around the world.