Amid ascendant nationalism, Olympics’ internationalism endures

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The Olympic flag features rings, not halos. But when it was unfurled at Friday’s opening ceremony in Paris it had a halo effect, reflecting among other virtues the ethos of internationalism.

Yet geopolitically, it’s not globalism but nationalism that’s on the march. And not just in repressive Russia or China, which have hosted recent Olympics, but in the West, where the modern Games gained a foothold embodied by the International Olympic Committee’s official values, including “building a better world.”

But from “America First” to pan-European nationalism and beyond, building a better nation (let alone building walls around it) seems to be the sentiment pulling politicians and the public inward and rightward, clouding the aura around the Olympic Movement.

“We’re in a phase of looking toward what is going to be the future of the Olympic Games after having to bear through several Games hosted by political regimes that probably aren’t hospitable to many of the cosmopolitan human-rights views and values of the Games,” said Douglas Hartmann, a University of Minnesota professor of sociology who has written extensively about the Olympics.

Paris, Los Angeles in 2028 and then Brisbane, Australia, four years later — let alone upcoming Winter Games in Italy, the French Alps and Salt Lake City — are “an attempt for the kind of Western democratic world to reclaim some of that history and legacy,” Hartmann said. And yet, he added, “it comes at a very awkward time, not only because of the geopolitical complexities of mega-international sport, but uncertainties of politics and social order and global relations, grandly — especially the rise of anti-democratic forces and for right-leaning authoritarian orientations to power and governance.”

Those forces resulted in global freedom declining for the 18th straight year in 2023, according to the annual “Freedom in the World” report from Freedom House, a nonpartisan organization whose mission is “to expand and defend freedom globally.”

In its analysis, Freedom House states that “the rejection of pluralism — the peaceful coexistence of people with different political ideas, religions, or ethnic identities — by authoritarian leaders and armed groups produced repression, violence, and a steep decline in overall freedom in 2023.”

Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state, stated it even more starkly last week at the Aspen Security Forum. Referencing the era between world wars, Rice said that there has been the return of “the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: populism, nativism, isolationism and protectionism.”

IOC President Thomas Bach isn’t a horseman but a swordsman (and a gold-medal one, winning in fencing at the ‘76 Montreal Games). But Bach, in a speech on Monday, also acknowledged the ill illiberal winds blowing from every direction.

“We are witnessing a new world order in the making,” he said. “Historic disruptions are upending the system of international relations that has been in place since the Second World War. The trends are unfortunately clear: decoupling of economies; beggar-thy-neighbor; narrow self-interest trumping the rule of law; ‘Global South’ vs. ‘Global North.’ Everywhere you look, multilateralism is on the back foot. In this new world order, ‘cooperation’ and ‘compromise’ are sadly considered disparaging terms.”

These trends, continued Bach, “are deeply disturbing to us because they are going straight against our mission to unite. Grounded in and united by our Olympic values — we must be ready to face this sea change.

“We are prepared,” he said, “because we are not only multilateral — we are global. The Olympic Movement is a global movement. In the Olympic Movement, we are all equal. There is no ‘Global South’ or ‘Global North.’ We have 206 National Olympic Committees that all enjoy equal rights under the Olympic Charter. What is more, we are living in solidarity with each other. Solidarity — this core value defines our Olympic community.”

What also define the Olympic community are the very national committees referred to by Bach. Indeed, internationalism aside, the entire endeavor is organized around nations — not other distinctions like ethnicity, class, race, religion or sub- or transnational groups — but countries, whose Olympians floated down the Seine during Friday’s parade of nations.

“What’s particular about the Olympics,” said Hartmann, “is that nationalism is the kind of collective that’s the intermediary between the individual and the world that’s celebrated.” But “when national differences across countries become so divisive and conflictual that we can’t interact, that’s an ongoing problem. But I think the one you’re also seeing is the decay of national identities, or the rise of fragmentation and segmentation, polarization within countries, within democratic countries that had, we thought for a long time, at least a common national identity with a commitment to certain kinds of liberal democratic principles. And I think that’s not a given right now. And that’s what I think is kind of scary for the [Olympic] movement, but also in the world context.”

Hartmann could have been describing a number of nations, including the host one, where a recent snap election saw the electoral center snap between far-right and far-left movements, and where an arson attack on at least three high-speed rail lines partially paralyzed Paris just before its glorious moment on the international stage.

Or, of course, the U.S., disunited in a political polarity not seen since the 1960s — or even the 1860s, for that matter.

That might be just one of the factors fractioning enthusiasm for the Games, according to a Gallup poll, which states that only 35% of the country plans to watch “a great deal or fair amount,” down dramatically from 48% in 2016 and the 60% average from 2000 to 2012. (Gallup did not measure the pandemic-delayed 2021 Tokyo Games.) Just as with the concurrent campaign for president, there are sharp partisan divides, with Democrats (46%) much more likely to watch compared with Republicans and independents (31% each).

If Gallup’s data reflects ratings by Nielsen, it will be a lost opportunity for Americans to have a shared experience that they enjoyed in a more placid past, when the Olympics weren’t a red- or blue-state event, but a red-white-and-blue United States one.

Maybe Minnesotans, who historically have strongly supported the Olympics, will buck the trend. They’ll have plenty of reason to cheer, given the dozen Minnesota athletes and coaches, and the 16 athletes with Minnesota ties competing for their home countries.

Minnesota has mostly resisted the rising nationalism that’s increasingly defining our world. Welcoming those from other countries, often in desperate straits, has an honorable history here. So some in the North Star State may also find their athletic heroes on a squad that could use a boost amid this geopolitical era marked, and marred, by anti-migration movements fueling the rise of right-wing parties worldwide: the Refugee Olympic Team of 37 athletes representing the more than 100 million displaced people worldwide.

And most profoundly, representing the Olympic spirit, which like the Olympic flame itself should be a beacon lighting the way to a more hopeful world.