London, England-The past sixteen days, this city has buzzed with elation and pride. Families draped in Union Jacks packed the tube, strangers talked to one another and for the first time in a long time Britons joined together in unfettered joy. It was a blessed relief to put aside the troubles our nation faces and feel a new patriotic emotional high every time a team GB medal was clocked. Even the infamous, intransient British summer cooperated. It was the best showing for the UK since 1908. The elation was a poignant counterpoint to the psychic tiredness from which Britain suffers.
The theme of the games has been ‘inspire a generation’, i.e. future gold winners and there has been a lot of talk about legacy, but the reality is likely to be different. When the flags are folded away and the post Olympic blues set in, we will be back to dealing with serious debt, ill fated policies conjured up by an increasingly corrupt and morally depleted political class, and the continuing struggle to ascertain what the UK now is and stands for.
In the late 19th century when French nobleman and educator Pierre de Coubertin founded the modern Olympic Games, the Jesuit trained educator viewed sport as an educational tool to encourage mental discipline and physical strength alongside intellectual development in order to create a well-rounded, virtuous character. It was England and its playing fields in Rugby School that inspired de Coubertin to employ sport as a tool in the formation of moral and social strength. Practically, he also believed sport better prepared men to fight in wars, like the Franco-Prussian war where France was humiliated in defeat.
This was an age where moral character was actively nurtured through religious education. The Olympic motto citius, altius, fortius – faster, higher, stronger, came from de Coubertin’s friend, Father Henri Martin Didon, a Dominican priest and headmaster of Arcueil College in Paris. Part of the Olympic creed, ‘the most important thing in the Olympic games is not to win but to take part’, came from Missourian Episcopalian Bishop, Ethelbert Talbot from a speech during the 1908 games.
It was Christian endeavour that underpinned the British Empire and brought a better life to countless millions through rule of law and Christian missionary activity. But the left has successfully convinced us and much of the rest of the world that these values are worthless. It was not perfect, nothing ever is where human beings are concerned, but this loss of striving for virtue is now costing us dearly.
The failed Labour experiment of multiculturalism is wearing on the British psyche
Britain now puts a celebration of humanism and its attendant materialism above altruism. The left has eaten away at traditional British values, relegating our way of life to the whims of a politburo of pan European socialism courtesy of the EU. The failed Labour experiment of multiculturalism is wearing on the British psyche. It demands a moral equivalency of cultures where values are often diametrically opposed and impossible to reconcile. We have no ‘American Dream’ or constitutional guarantees of freedom to shelter under. Our papers are full to bursting with stories of people and institutions behaving badly because they have lost their moral compass. We are overloaded with debt that threatens to further demoralize the next generation. Is it any wonder why we find relief and pride in a group of people who strive for physical excellence in games that won’t tolerate cheating?
Cathal Kelly writing in the Toronto Star made the observation that Canada, placing a miserable 36 on the medal table, didn’t need gold medals to define their international relevance. ‘Nobody needs to win anything for Canada. Canada is fine on its own’ he wrote. Tell that to the athletes. It is and always has been about , or as cyclist Bradley Wiggins put it after winning his fourth gold out of a total seven wins over his career, ‘What’s the point of having seven medals if they’re not the right colour?’ That’s the kind of thinking countries have paid trainers a fortune to instil into their athletes. Losing with grace is also important, but loss is not in the mind of the champion.
Over the years politicians have used the games to showcase national power, as we saw in the tussle for dominance between the Soviet Union and the US during the Cold War. Today it is China rising and they are going to any lengths to put their athletes on the podium. Witness Chinese diver Wu Minxia who was told after her gold medal win that her mother had cancer and her grandparents died a year ago, or their participation in the badminton match fixing scandal.
There is a lot of talk about the legacy of these games, not just in getting the country to participate in sport, but of the regeneration of a rundown part of London that will now theoretically house businesses and affordable apartments, i.e. social housing. The dream of host cities is always that somehow if you build the stadium, the kids will come. It didn’t work in Sydney, Athens and the bird’s nest in Beijing stands idle. Sport comes from the grassroots in schools with PE teachers noticing talent and ambitious parents encouraging it.
The physical development as part of academic and spiritual formation that de Coubertin saw in English schools has been filleted out and replaced by a culture of participation. Children now get a ribbon for just being in the race. Real competitive sport has been relegated to the local sport club, with the odd exception of the so-called elite schools (private non- state run) who still cling to the traditional role of sport and have supplied a third of this year’s athletes.
The media and politicians are having a field day with this one, demanding more be spent on state schools, conveniently forgetting they are the very ones that chipped away at the structure that spawned competitiveness, competence and the emotional growth that comes with dealing with failure. We have become a culture uncomfortable with loss, and hell bent on soothing the sore with false pride, unearned instant celebrity, money and pleasure.
The pursuit of pleasure is indeed king as we saw in the closing ceremony. Certainly it was fun as parties usually are. Billed as a Symphony of British Music, it delivered. But beneath the great tunes, there lurked the symbolism of Britain’s decline, most poignantly seen in the giant Union Jack created by British artist Damien Hirst, of diamond skull and dissected animals in formaldehyde fame. The flag’s colours bled away from the centre crosses just as the culture is bleeding from its heritage.
Jessie J sang “ About the Money” while riding in a Rolls Royce – a company now owned by Germans. ‘We just wanna make the world change, forget about the Price tag’, she sang. We will hardly be able to once the reality of the financial crisis taps us on the shoulders yet again. We are told the majority of funding for the games came from charity and business. My bet is my council tax bill will be up for years to come. But who cares what we spent, Britain felt good for sixteen days.
And by all accounts so did the athletes. A record 150,000 free condoms were available to them and by some accounts, they made the most of it. Hope Solo, US women’s football goalkeeper reported, ‘I’ve seen people having sex in the open, getting down and dirty on grass between the buildings’. Gives a whole new meaning to Celebration Avenue - one of the many la la names in the Olympic village. Then there were the free massages, round the clock beauty treatment provided by Proctor and Gamble who trained manicurists to paint the national flag of every country present.
There was even free dental care. No wonder we had defectors from countries in Africa where good dentistry is a luxury for the rich. This kind of milk and honey is just too good to pass up.
Did money really have to be spent on neon signs in the village with words like ‘love and laughter’ or ‘live the dream’? Or how about the duvets with ‘excellence’, ‘respect’ and ‘friendship’ printed on them?
Compare this to the athletes from the 1948 games that had to sew their own vest and shorts. And when one would win a medal, their boss’s reaction was, ‘Oh you got a medal, now back to work’, as was the case with 91-year-old cyclist Tommy Godwin – trotted out by the Daily Mail to show us old school style humility.
European and Western countries kept to the original Olympic ideals for many years before a slide into a more materialistic yearning for gold and the huge money that goes with it. Heptathlon winner Jessica Innes will be set up for life with her projected £5million in sponsorships which pales into insignificance compared to the mega-bucks someone like Michael Phelps will haul in.
Money may not be what drives the athlete, but who would say no to it after a win? The argument is that they earned it for the years of hard slog. That may be so, but should public money fund these athletes in their formative years to reach an essentially elite status? In Britain, the state has spent £100million per annum since 1997. It has paid off on the podium; with increasing numbers of medals since Sydney, but where does it leave the rest of us? There are local sports clubs that have been created to be sure, but little of the Christian moral ethos grounded in the early games are given value in these clubs, which renders them as just another place for something to do.
The British are a good and generous people. Seventy thousand volunteers from all walks of life came forward to work at the games, camping outside. Over three thousand servicemen cancelled home leave and holidays after gruelling tours on the Afghan front to step in and bolster security when the firm hired to do the job failed to deliver. They joined the 13,500 already deployed to protect against a terrorist attack. They slept in derelict schools and warehouses.
On Sunday I drove through Richmond Park having to dodge everyone and his aunt on a bicycle. Olympic fever may have taken hold this month, but will it be there when the weather cools and our taxes start to rise? Where do we go from here?
