Click on the video above to watch Bill Carol, Professor of Sociology, Social Justice StudiesUVIC open the event and introduce the panel.
Click on the video above to watch Christine O’Bonsawin, Director of Indigenous Studies UVIC, speak to the audience at The Olympic Torch: Symbolism and Politics – A Panel Discussion
Click on the video above to watch Tamara Herman, an organizer with no2010 Victoria, speak to the audience at The Olympic Torch: Symbolism and Politics – A Panel Discussion
Click on the video above to watch Denis Pilon, Assistant Professor of Political Science UVIC, speak to the audience at The Olympic Torch: Symbolism and Politics – A Panel Discussion
Click on the video above to watch part one of the question and answer session at The Olympic Torch: Symbolism and Politics – A Panel Discussion
Click on the video above to watch part two of the question and answer session at The Olympic Torch: Symbolism and Politics – A Panel Discussion
Click on the video above to watch part three of the question and answer session at The Olympic Torch: Symbolism and Politics – A Panel Discussion
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Videography and Video Editing by Andrew Ainsley
February 10, 2010
With the Vancouver 2010 Olympic games around the corner, the University of Victoria’s Social Justice Studies department hosted a forum entitled, “The Olympic Torch: Symbolism and Politics – A panel discussion”, which took place on February 4th. B Channel News brings you this forum as a six-part video series.
The forum began with a clip from Leni Riefenstahl’s ‘Olympia’, a documentary covering the 1938 Olympics in Berlin. Riefenstahl, a personal friend of Adolf Hitler, was commissioned by the Nazi regime to produce political film propaganda glorifying Nazism in Germany. “Olympia” was commissioned by the International Olympic Committee to showcase Hitler and Germany’s presentation of the 1938 Games. The film premiered on Hitler’s birthday.
The selection shown presented the first torch relay, which ran from Mount Olympus to Berlin. The 1938 games were much more lavish than any games before, bringing performance and spectacle to the sporting event. Olympia has extensive coverage of the games and glorifies sport and athletic prowess, but is laden with imagery and propaganda, standard to that developed by Nazi regime and Riefenstahl’s other works.
“It [the film] captures the larger role that the Olympics has played in modern times; a spectacle. Or as what we call in political science; the mobilization of bias. The control of public space and the defining of what is the public will at any given moment and who are the people, who are invoking it. These efforts to create spectacle and to mobilize bias are meant to justify decisions and to rule out other possible decisions.
So it’s very important, it’s not just imagery, it’s not just something that’s going on. I think there are profoundly political objectives behind things like the Olympics,” said Denis Pilon, assistant professor of political science.
A clip from this film was recently used by the Vancouver Olympic Committee in Torch relay promotional material. Hitler and images of swastikas were edited out in the version shown to athletes to motivate them for the relay. After independent media covered this story, sparking negative reactions, VANOC removed this segment from the website ‘Torch of Fire’.
“And they knew what they were doing, they blanked out the Nazi salutes because they wanted to invoke the authenticity of the footage to justify what they were doing; make the link between history and what we are doing here; making history in British Columbia. But to do it in such a disgusting fashion, to use a film like this with its connotations, to knowledgeably make that decision, shows you that there really is no shame in today’s world. That anything can be invoked to serve the modern ‘brand’,” said Pilon in his presentation.
Speakers addressed issues with the Olympic Games not generally focused on during the celebrations taking place around the country. The forum looked at indigenous struggles against the games in Canada; historical and current and organization against the 2010 games locally. Speakers also discussed what some of the opposition to the games involved, the cost of the games, what that will mean to the social needs and political present of the province, and provided an analysis of ‘Olympic culture’.
“I remember sitting [after the torch relay] and really asking myself what the Olympics are about. I think of course it depends on who you talk to. It’s very interesting to look at why there is so much advertising and there is so much promotion and why all these journalists were going to such great extent to present us [no2010 activists] as horse hating, people hating, mean activists. And obviously where there is propaganda there is an interest to protect. And the Olympics’ Movement website (www.olympic.org) is quite up front about it. It said ‘As an event that commands the focus of the media and the attention of the entire world for 2 weeks every other year. The Olympic Games are one of the most effective international marketing platforms in the world reaching billions of people in over 200 countries.’ That pretty much wraps it up,” said Tamara Herman with No2010 and VIPRG.
Speakers at this forum were Tamara Herman, an organizer with No2010 (Victoria anti-Olympic organization) and Research Coordinator of the Vancouver Island Public Interest Research Group. Christine O’Bonsawin, Director of Indigenous Studies and Dennis Pilon, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Victoria; have both been made contacts for UVIC on Olympic related issues.
“They are trying awfully hard, surely if the public support this sort of things they wouldn’t have do it quite so much, they would have to spend so much of our money policing the event and squelching any kind of discourse. So why are they so ham fisted? Why not let the people who like the Olympics do their own thing and let those who don’t like it alone? Let those who don’t want to be a part of it, kind of rest in peace. Where here is where the spectacle side comes in because the spectacle, the mobilization of bias is absolutely crucial to obscuring the private purposes of mega events. They must insist on a buy in precisely to obscure that not all are benefiting. They have to scream that much louder, that we all should be proud because in fact not everybody is getting an equal opportunity to participate in this and not everyone is benefiting equally from it,” said Pilon.
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