38 Research Essay: “Displacement between Powers”
Tristan Ball
Instructor Alexis Kopp
English 1023
15 December 2021
Displacement between Powers: A Research Paper on Imperialism in the Olympics
Every two years, people around the world get excited about the Olympics, a worldwide sporting event that brings together many nations and athletes. Beyond the display, the Olympics reveal a hidden layer of imperialism still defining global power and communication structures. No one sees the preparation that takes place before the Olympics in residential areas that causes mass displacement. No one sees the thought that goes into every display element to fit with a country’s preferred image. No one sees the fight for power among nations for which the Olympics becomes a platform. People only see what is displayed and broadcasted. However, the Olympic games are a cultural phenomenon used to disguise and further imperialist efforts.
When the Olympics moves into a city, it ushers in with it a rapid period of displacement for many inhabitants in their home spaces and dwellings. In fact, gentrification and soaring real-estate prices linked to the Games have displaced more than 2 million people in a timeframe of 20 years (Johal). Such gentrification happens in areas that disproportionately affect people with lower incomes. The Olympics targets these areas specifically because it is the easiest place to afford and receive access to despite the fact that access to stable and affordable housing is more significantly needed by lower-income inhabitants because they have limited places where they can reside. Housing spaces that are not converted to fit the image of the Games can also rise exponentially in value. The rise in value is due to the lack of access to housing in other places in the area as well as the increased focus on the area. The Olympics brings with it an environment that is bad for the original inhabitants of the area hosting the event. Moreover, The International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not have an outstanding record when dealing with related violations. The Olympics prefers a magnificent sporting event over the loss of human rights that come at the expense of creating such an event. The IOC often avoids scrutiny as the blame usually falls on the host countries and cities to protect its inhabitants. However, the Olympics are often corrupted from the very beginning of their selection process. For example, the Olympics were accused of corruption in the 1996 Games for choosing Atlanta only after Coca-Cola, one of their largest sponsors, intervened (Shingal).
Oftentimes these lapses in judgment can lead to serious consequences for the host cities. Choosing an unprepared city inevitably leads to the mass displacement of people in those areas. Additionally, the event can create an environment in which workers in those areas are not compensated fairly or paid at all, causing delays in paychecks, denial of payment, or even lowered salaries. The worst of these violations falls on migrant workers that come in to find new economic opportunities. Ironically, such opportunities often put the Olympics, an international entity, in violation of international human rights laws. According to Assistant United States Attorney Ankur Shingal,
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (‘UDHR’), which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948 guarantees that “everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others” and that “[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.” (585)
This statement shows that the International Olympics Committee is complicit in human rights abuses that are a result of the games. This concept is simply a reflection of 21st-century imperialism. The international community is no longer worried about the effect that an effort to achieve exceptionalism creates. The Olympics is willing to strip down residential areas in a conquest to obtain capital – a micro-level of imperial ideas in the Olympics. Many cities fight on the international stage to become host cities, but such disputes often negatively affect the residents who are caught in the crossfire.
The Olympics has a complex history with the inaccurate and harmful portrayal of other cultures to the international community. Historically, the Olympics has been used as a tool for justifying imperialism. The Olympics has its origins using anthropology in the third modern Olympic games through events that were staged to portray whites as “scientifically” superior. This was a method of justifying America’s imperial thought in the early 20th century (Keys). It would not seem as radical to invade a foreign country and colonize them if the Olympics proved the colonizers were scientifically superior. With this end in mind, the Olympics became a tool for justifying national conquests on an international stage. The United States could project itself as an archetype of freedom while violating individual freedoms around the world.
These days historians treat such spectacles as an outrageous charade or an embarrassing part of history (Keys). However, inaccurate depictions remain. The Olympics have simply shifted the way the event uses aboriginal populations to justify existing institutions. Indigenous groups are often involved in Olympic ceremonies, but never freely expressing their culture. Instead, indigenous people become a type of branding for the ceremonies. Countries use indigenous people to brand themselves as multicultural; however, ceremonies still often present Natives in an uncivilized way. Indigenous scholars find “Indigenous peoples have been positioned as the ultimate Other, as the greatest impediment to the… nation-building process, yet not part of it.” (Adese). Relatedly, the magnitude of this portrayal is phenomenal. The Olympics is a spectacle seen by millions of people internationally. The Olympics are still used to justify the imperial aspirations of the state under the guise of multiculturalism. Sociologist Jennifer Adese finds that “Through this lens multiculturalism can be understood as a tool through which the nation has sought to conceal its intolerance while maintaining its core ethnic genus, reinventing itself free of its colonialist past” (484). Bearing this in mind, it becomes evident that the Olympics has not freed itself from its colonial past. Efforts to distance the history of Olympic representations of indigenous populations from the current games are disingenuously constructed. The most recent Olympics have just shifted the way they use cultural representations. Even in the current games, races are stripped of their voices to satisfy the imperial state.
The Olympics become a battleground for soft power and hegemony between nations on an international level. The Olympics become a breeding ground for gross nationalism. The Olympics encourage almost a fascist level of national pride. In fact, the Olympics was used by fascist Adolf Hitler to promote his ideas of white supremacy. In this light, the Olympics stray from a contest of athleticism to a conflict of national identities. Every country is pitted against each other in a war over their own ideals. National pride can be a dangerous part of the games. In many cases, international politics and Olympic sports have become intertwined. Sports can be used as a tool in creating emotion in national subjects. The emotion created behind the games can lead to increased levels of national pride that can create loyalty to a nation. This emotion can lead to blind loyalty or national prejudice (Morgan). It’s easier to dismiss an entire nation’s ideals if it’s in the context of “just a game.” However, it’s important to analyze how these biases spill over into the international context. For example, Sandra Collins uses a case study of the Olympic Games from Tokyo, Seoul, and Beijing to illustrate the way that the Olympics are a form of soft power. Seoul uses the Olympics as a platform for their own self-depictions to combat Western hegemony. In the Seoul ceremonies, there was an increased effort to create a powerful image for their country. This was constructed to battle Western representations of the nation. Oftentimes, the country will challenge international presumptions and projections made by another country. This can be used in a positive light to fight against the hegemony of other nations, but can also affirm the hegemony of the international order. The whole event becomes a battleground for the imperial struggle for power through the spectacle of the Olympic games. And in turn, the Games become enmeshed with cultural representations and global capitalism (Collins). A country affirming itself on the international stage via the Olympics is a grab at soft power for other representations. Some would argue that the Olympics can be used as a force for political change in a place (Neubauer). Neubauer argues that in a stage of international capitalism, the Olympics can be used to change oppressive regimes, but this argument is contingent on the Olympics bringing scrutiny from the international community to the host city. However, this argument does not affirm the necessity of the Olympics. It is important to question whose international validity is being imposed on and at what cost. It becomes evident that the Olympics are a hegemonic structure at the expense of those at the bottom. The Olympics brings a political and global economy behind it, resulting in a battleground for hegemony with heightened nationalism.
The Olympics are a long-standing tradition that will most likely be around for years to come. However, it becomes necessary to understand the true context behind the Games. In many cases, the Olympics take a toll on the low-income inhabitants of the host city, and the Games are used to justify and amplify racial images on a global sphere in a harmful light. This is due to the need for affirmation to create soft power inspired by the Games. It is time for the international community to rethink the current concept of the Olympics and de-imperialize the Games.
Works Cited
Adese, Jennifer. “Colluding with the enemy? Nationalism and depictions of ‘aboriginality’ in Canadian Olympic moments.” The American Indian Quarterly, vol. 36, no. 4, 2012, p. 479+. Gale In Context: High School, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A322190775/GPS?u=j061910001&sid=GPS&xid=ca6512ce. Accessed 2 Mar. 2021.
Collins, Sandra. “Asian soft-power: globalization and regionalism in the East Asia Olympic Games.” Proceedings: International Symposium for Olympic Research, 2010, p. 163+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A268478168/GPS?u=j061910001&sid=GPS&xid=0bcb2f8e. Accessed 4 Mar. 2021.
Johal, Am. “OLYMPICS: GENTRIFICATION DISPLACES RENTERS IN CHINA AND CANADA.” Interpress Service, 8 June 2007. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A164644491/GPS?u=j061910001&sid=GPS&xid=7ede69e4. Accessed 26 Feb. 2021.
Keys, Barbara. “The 1904 Anthropology Days and Olympic Games: Sport, Race, and American Imperialism.” Journal of American Ethnic History, vol. 30, no. 4, 2011, p. 107+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A397135374/GPS?u=j061910001&sid=GPS&xid=9338097. Accessed 5 Mar. 2021.
Morgan, Craig. “Blatant nationalism has a long history in Olympics.” Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, 28 Feb. 2002, p. K3079. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A92635303/GPS?u=j061910001&sid=GPS&xid=72316762. Accessed 26 Feb. 2021.
Neubauer, Deane. “The Beijing Olympiad: The Political Economy of a Sporting Mega-Event.” Olympika: The International Journal of Olympic Studies, vol. 16, 2007, p. 99+. Gale In Context: Biography, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A175877052/GPS?u=j061910001&sid=GPS&xid=0c4425c3. Accessed 3 Mar. 2021.
Shingal, Ankur. “The olympic curse: protecting the olympic dream for host cities and their inhabitants.” The Indonesian Journal of International & Comparative Law: Socio-Political Perspectives, vol. 1, no. 2, 2014, p. 572+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A440823264/GPS?u=j061910001&sid=GPS&xid=b8da9ce0. Accessed 28 Feb. 2021.