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Thursday, 16. March 2006
Put humanity before hubris at the Games
kippers7
07:52h
The contest to stage ever bigger and better events is out of hand, writes Simon Mann. HAS Melbourne missed a gold medal opportunity at these Commonwealth Games to really grab the world's attention — to make a real difference, launch something memorable, achieve something remarkable? But what Melbourne could have done was roll back the ever-escalating pressure to "outdo" the previous Games with increasingly lavish celebrations. It could have made a stand and acknowledged the gross inequities in the Commonwealth itself, put humanity ahead of hubris and challenged convention, just as it did during the 1956 Olympics. Then, Melbourne's simple gesture of allowing athletes to mingle with one another during the closing ceremony established a standard for the modern Olympics. In 2006, Melbourne could have returned the Games to a more simple, more sustainable celebration of the Commonwealth's trumpeted ideals of humanity, equality and destiny. It could have used its fleeting appearance on the world stage for something more meaningful and memorable than discordant and cliched representations of a city's way of life. Sure, Melbourne 2006 has nominated Plan Australia as its goodwill initiative, a Commonwealth Games first. Take Malawi, long racked by famine and political unrest. Its 12 million people have a life expectancy of less than 38 years, compared with Australians' 80. GDP per capita is just $US600 (Australia, $US30,000). Its infant mortality rate is 104 babies per 1000 live births (Australia, 4.8). More than 14 per cent of the adult population are infected with HIV (Australia, 0.1 per cent). Just 50 per cent of Ugandans can access safe drinking water. In Sierra Leone only three out of 10 youths can read and write. Half of Bangladeshi children under five are underweight due to malnutrition. There are not enough schools in Cameroon. Tanzanians and Zambians also bear grim statistics. In many Commonwealth countries, people die daily from basic illnesses, from diarrhoea, measles and respiratory infections, and from more sinister ones such as tuberculosis and typhoid, and from the most destructive of all, AIDS. Longer term, some face a threat to their very survival. Will Tuvalu exist in 2050, let alone compete at the 29th Games then, given the dire predictions of climate change? Don't get me wrong, the Games are worth having. They'll be great. Anything that brings so many nations together is worth celebrating in an era in which, increasingly, there seem to be more things dividing nations than there are uniting them. But could M2006 have stood for something more dramatic? The possibilities are endless. It's all very well including an indigenous component in the ceremonies — that's de rigueur these days, and so it should be — but without something more tangible in support, it risks being labelled as tokenism. Even a supposedly cosseted monarch knows it. "For many indigenous Australians there remains much to be done," the Queen said on Tuesday. A day earlier she drew attention to the AIDS epidemic. The creative director of last night's ceremony promised the spectacular would redefine what an event ceremony has to offer. If not, it would be labelled an "also-ran" and, he said, "Melbourne is not that sort of place." Maybe so. But M2006 was a challenge not just for Melburnians — after all, Canberra is stumping up the $50 million for the ceremonies. And, sure, Australians don't need to beat themselves up about this. It's just that maybe we could have done even better. ... Link |
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