live aus PyeongChang (16). Claim and reality: IOC as the bearer of world peace
GANGNEUNG. Meine gestrigen Anmerkungen zum Friedensnobelpreisthema habe ich für Play the Game ins Englische übertragen, soweit ich es vermochte. Dies sei auch hier zur Diskussion gestellt:
In the International Olympic Committee (IOC), there is a growing gap between appearance and reality, claim and reality. The huge contradictions cannot be ignored. There is the reality of doping, and not only emanating from the Russian state doping system, but also from the various forms of ‘Olympic crime’. Especially in connection with the Olympic Games in Sochi, the medal count of which will still be shaken up for years to come, the IOC has shown that it does not protect the clean athletes. Athletes around the world have lost confidence. However, everything will change now, the promise sounds.
The gloomy headlines that have dominated the Olympic world for many years are met with energetic, yet desperate attempts to invoke lofty Olympic ideals. When the need is biggest, old Coubertin once again must come to rescue.
In PyeongChang, at the XXIII Winter Olympics in the southern part of the divided Korean peninsula, the IOC promotes itself as an angel of peace. „Peace and reconciliation“, it is called in February 2018. In the summer of 1988, when Olympia first appeared in South Korea, it was put more simply, in the Buddhist sense, „peace and harmony“.
In 1988, hundreds of white doves died in the Olympic flame at the opening ceremony in Seoul. Since then, no living pigeons have been released at the ceremonies. On the 9th of February, at the opening ceremony in PyeongChang, instead, a massive peace dove was formed by human bodies.
The symbolism is clear.
Sentimental headlines cover for fundamental problems.