BREAD
and CIRCUSES
It’s been a difficult
year for Socialists in Olde England. Hopefully the last of the little
Union flags will flutter into obscurity after the ‘Paralympic
Games’. This icon of patriotism can then return to business as
usual as a symbol of the exploitation of the majority and the
persecution of the poor. By coincidence in an attempt to escape the
ubiquity of sport on TV I stumbled upon the movie ‘Spartacus’. In
its depiction of one of history’s earliest class struggles ( the
slave revolt in ancient Rome) it struck me as ironic that I had just
been watching the raising of the Jamaican flag in victory at another
gladiatorial arena - the London Olympics. Ironic, of course, because
ethnically and culturally Jamaica was a product of the British slave
trade. Africans were taken to the Caribbean to slave on the sugar
plantations. Despite their ‘emancipation’ in the 19th
century and Jamaican ‘Independence ‘ in the 20th
(celebrated in parallel with the Olympics) here we still had the
spectacle of gladiatorial competition in a vast arena - but are they
still just slaves performing for their masters?
Amid the euphoria of
the heroic performances of ‘team GB’ many would be incredulous at
the depiction of the Olympic Games as a continuation of the Ancient
Roman policy of ‘Bread and Circuses’. If the Emperor could
provide entertainment for the Roman mob in the gladiatorial arena
they could be distracted and controlled. Similarly the original ethos
of the Modern Olympiad (individual excellence and international
brotherhood) has been perverted into a grubby orgy of nationalism and
profiteering that through marketing has become just another agent of
consumer distraction. The athletes have to prostitute themselves to
nationalism and advertising to be allowed to partake. They are, like
most of us, slaves to consumerism. Even the mighty Husain Bolt has to
confine himself to meaningless macho poses rather than articulating
anything of significance - such is the power of the authoritarian
sports officialdom. What a contrast to the truly heroic activities of
the likes of Jesse Owens and the black power salutes of the sixties
(happy days!). Wouldn’t it be magnificent to see an athlete reject
the geographical accident of his birth place and the commercial
imperative as defining him or her. International sport has become
entirely politicised as is clearly demonstrated by the insistence of
the establishment that sport and politics don’t mix (whenever this
kind of platitude is used you can be sure of its complete political
integration with bourgeois values). And now we come to the ’legacy’
of the London Olympiad - the moral propaganda attempt to justify the
vast cost.
The reintroduction of
the competitive sporting ethos to schools is one of the promised
legacies of the games. This is to replace the perceived ‘prizes for
everyone’ liberal ethos. To the surprise of some Socialists are not
opposed to competition in sports. The infantile ego can be indulged
as long as sport is seen purely as fun and entertainment. Any attempt
to introduce such a relationship into adult life should be treated as
ridiculous. Capitalist propagandists continue to infantilise human
relationships in this way trying to convince us that we are all
competitors rather than interdependent. Ever since mankind looked
back at the ‘Earthrise’ from the moon in 1969 we see our shared
home as hanging precariously alone in the awful emptiness of space.
We had the chance to ‘grow up’ as a species and leave the our
brutal childhood of international competition (war) behind us. That
this has not been achieved is testament to the power of the
propaganda machinery of capitalism. Every time a parent induces their
child to identify with the flag and to see others as competitors they
betray human potential. Because the ego of the young is so easy to
manipulate in this way many of us never mature emotionally and are
easy prey to consumerism and its sick competitive values so essential
for the survival of capitalism. Unfortunately sport has become one of
the most important elements in this perversion of human values.
Spartacus may well recognise the slave mentality of many
international sportsmen and women. We still await the arrival of a
famous socialist sporting hero - but perhaps this is just a
particular fantasy of mine that is in reality an oxymoron!
Written by, and published on behalf of, WEZ.
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