Move The Olympics?

That is what is currently being urged by George Takei and other prominent athletes in the wake of the Russian Government's enactment of anti-gay legislation.  Unless they can show that this ugly law would actually have the effect of putting any athlete in harm's way, I disagree.

The Olympics are an honorable exception to my previous observation that sports should only be significant in our society for purposes of physical fitness and entertainment.  For over a century since their re-institution, they have served to promote international cooperation and good will, helping to put individual human faces on our concepts of other countries.  Given the fact that they provide a world-wide public platform for international relations, the temptation to politicize them is frequently tremendous, and almost always as misguided as it is counter-productive.

I admit to being an admirer of Jimmy Carter; I think his presidency gets a bum rap from most people.  But I have to agree with his detractors that his decision to have the United States boycott the Moscow Olympics in 1984, in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, was a real mistake.  It merely served to make the athletes of all the Olympic nations (especially the American athletes) victims of a tragedy in which they played no direct part.  It handed the Soviet government a propaganda weapon it did not deserve.  And it steadfastly avoided the question that John F. Kennedy directly and successfully confronted in the Cuban missile crisis:  how to use military means to confront a military assault on our interests while avoiding total destruction.

Our political interference with the Olympics was not limited to 1984 and Communists.  Consider the Munich Olympics in 1936, sponsored and organized by an even more odious government than that of the Soviet Union.  No one deserves a boycott more than the Nazis.  We didn't boycott them, of course, but we found a way to hand Hitler a propaganda victory, by denying two Jewish athletes (Marty Glickman, later to go on to fame as a sportscaster, and Sam Stoller) the chance they had worked for to compete and demolish the "master race" theory.  Of course, one of their replacements (Jesse Owens) did some damage to that theory.  But he also protested the exclusion of Glickman and Stoller, even though he benefited by it.  In doing so, and in competing, he showed more character than the nation he represented, AND showed that success can be both the best form of propaganda AND international relations.

If we take the next Winter Olympics away from Russia, who are we punishing?  The Russian people, who, living under an authoritarian government, can hardly be held fully responsible for the odious behavior of Vladimir Putin and his cronies.  Again, the Russian government gets a propaganda weapon it doesn't deserve.  And the anti-gay forces in the Russian population get yet another excuse to bully their victims--or worse.  Far better it would be to have openly gay athletes show up, compete, succeed, and have a chance to win the hearts and minds of the Russian people--and perhaps, just perhaps, soften the hearts and minds of its leaders.

The 2014 Winter Olympics should not be turned into yet another futile example of national posturing.  Nor are Olympic athletes, gay or straight, meant to serve as political pawns in the chess games of nations.  Let them go to Russia, and show both their skill and humanity.  That will do more to promote gay rights--in Russia and elsewhere--than any national boycott could possibly accomplish.