By sheer fluke (some friends of mine couldn’t use their tickets) I attended the Paralympics athletics events in the main stadium on the 4th September. It being one of the few major sporting events I have been to in my life, I am not going to pretend expert knowledge of major sporting events. I was a punter. But it didn’t stop a few questions about the nature of the beast presenting themselves to me.
As I neared the Olympic Park, growing numbers of increasingly enthusiastic pinkly-dressed people were on shepherding duty. Their mirth was relentless. Unstoppable. Disney-like. If you’ve ever been to one of those theme-parks, you’ll know the peculiar brand of slightly sinister, slightly aggressive euphoria I’m talking about. Did the team-leaders expect visitors to believe that all the volunteers were as happy as their behaviour implied? Of course not. Am I therefore requesting grumpier helper-outers at future Games? Nice try, but no. Crucially, I do not believe the Games Makers were insincere in their jollity. The Olympics is a carnival. It is a temporary period of festivity. The Games Makers’ behaviour might in some ways better be thought of as a performance.
It also means that after a short time, nearly everything and everyone gets put back in its box, usually with a few minor or medium-sized changes. Hence, no, there is not going to be an epidemic of volunteering. Some will volunteer a bit more or at all but there isn’t going to be a revolution championing work as its own reward. Saturnalian activities can simply enforce the norm they apparently undermine. Booing Theresa May when she presented medals as the crowd did on the night I was there was received in all the good humour she could muster, but could the fact that she didn’t seem upset possibly suggest that popular support from the country at large is not one of her top priorities and that she’ll carry on regardless? I shall not elaborate further.
The evening’s competitions were interspersed with medal ceremonies. Came the voice of the stadium commentator; ‘And the gold medal is presented to so and so of the Russian Federation. As is customary, would those who are able please stand for the national anthem of the Russian Federation.’ What a division of loyalties was there. On the one hand, I wish to celebrate the individual athlete’s success. On the other, I can think of few things I would less rather do than stand for the national anthem of a nation whose government I despise. The same went for athletes awarded gold medals whilst flying Iran’s colours. I don’t suggest that Putin or Ahmadinejad would regard it as a serious diplomatic crisis if I was seen deliberately sitting, but what was the moral thing to do? Does it even matter? For my part, I stood for all the anthems but distinguished between those for which I stood up straight and those for which (and only to a product of the British private school system would it occur to protest with such a pathetic gesture) I put my hands in my pockets.
JS
CastingBroadly 