** This is the fourth in a recurring series, in which I offer some modest proposals – in the venerable tradition of Jonathan Swift – for American and international politics. **
The Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, also known as the Summer Olympics, are about to kick off in Paris. For the first time in several weeks, attention paid to sport may eclipse the attention paid to politics – and that is an eminently good thing. The Summer Games are taking place for the 33rd time since they were revitalized into their modern version in 1896. The only times that this quadrennial event did not occur as scheduled were during the First and Second World Wars and the recent coronavirus pandemic (Japan's 2020 Games took place in 2021.) The Olympics bring together men and women from every corner of the world to compete in a wide variety of athletic events, ranging from gymnastics and swimming to team sports like soccer and rugby. It is an event that is intended to bring a level of international comity and fellow-feeling, while still allowing nations to battle it out in a figurative sense rather than a literal one.
This mission of peace and global unity was idealistic in 1894 when the Games were reconceptualized by the Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin, and it remains so today. The Olympics have not brought about a one world government, a lasting era of international calm, or a broad sense of peace and harmony among nations and peoples. In fact, they have often been used to settle political scores on the sporting field, extending chasms instead of bridging them. The most infamous example of this is the 'Blood on the Water' water polo match between Hungary and the Soviet Union in December 1956, just a month after Moscow's brutal crackdown on Hungarian anticommunist revolutionaries. The match was obscenely violent and saw the two sides replaying Budapest street battles in the pool in Melbourne, Australia. The viciousness of that match has not been equaled since, but that does not mean that such international rivalries have cooled.
Despite this failure in achieving its primary and original goal, the Olympics have served as a beloved international sporting event that does indeed bring people together in watching the competition. In this way, it serves as a healthy vessel for nationalistic sentiment and a source of patriotic pride for people as varied as Germans and Ghanaians, Afghanis and Australians, and Cambodians and Colombians. But the Olympics could be so much better. Its flaws are significant and missed opportunities abound. We should rectify that by bringing the Olympics into a new century stronger than ever and built to last even longer than the original iteration, which ran for over a millennium from circa 776 BC to 393 AD.
In that vein, here are some modest proposals to Make the Olympics Great Again.
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