Why we must boycott the Sochi Games

As plane-loads of Olympians skid to a halt on the icy tarmac of a sterilized Sochi, the time needed to organize an effective boycott of Russia’s hosting of this year’s Winter Olympics is sprinting out of sight.

Wrapped up in their fleeces, long-johns, and slathered in Deep Heat, each Olympian will find bizarre lavatory arrangements and half-built venues which remarkably hoovered up more cash than the previous 21 Winter Games combined. But behind this facade exists a sinister tirade of oppression, suppression, rights abuses, and terror threats.

However pragmatic or realistic one would like to be, the moral case for a boycott remains the same: imagining Russia as a cosy beacon of openness under that famous ringed flag trivialises not only the nation’s serious beaches of international law, but the oath imploring Olympians to “act against any form of discrimination affecting the Olympic Movement”.

Sadly, gay-bashing and fascistic ignorance is only a small part of a wider, international concern.

The debate, far from reaching a fever-pitch, has been quietly focusing on Russia’s ‘gay propaganda law’ which implies, in the words of Vitaly Milonov (one of the bill’s sponsors), that “some inadequate individual would invade a kindergarten” to promote a “non-traditional” view of sexuality. The law’s vague and dictatorial wording has been used as license for Moscow to crack down on pride marches and protests, but contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in doing so.

Stephen Fry’s remarkable open letter to the International Olympic Committee summarized the woes of scapegoating Russia’s LGBT community. “Beatings, murders and humiliations are ignored by the police,” he writes. “Any defence or sane discussion of homosexuality is against the law…It is simply not enough to say that gay Olympians may or may not be safe in their village.”

This makes it very clear that the barbaric legislation is detrimental to native Russians, and also to visiting competitors despite the mealy-mouthed assurance of President Vladimir Putin.

Yet this is a minute part of a larger, more nefarious role Russia is playing in the international sphere.
Consider the arming of Bashar al-Assad’s genocidal regime in Syria, or the diplomatic trolling of nuclear talks with Iran, or the subversion of a mass protest movement in the Ukraine, or the suppression of opposition activists and media within the motherland’s borders.

The inevitable response from sporting devotees will be as follows: Why should international sportspeople care about internal Russian politics, or give up their dreams of competing in the Games? Attending may even shine a light on Putin’s authoritarian rule. Politics and sport shouldn’t mix anyway!

I’ll begin with the latter protestation, dear reader, because it’s the easiest to shoot down.

Guardian columnist Benjie Goodhart addressed the idea of “uneasy bedfellows” prior to the 2008 Beijing Games: “Both [politics and sport] are partisan affairs, veering between indescribably boring and impossibly entertaining, occasionally erupting into violent conflict. They are characterised by large earnings and backhanders in brown envelopes, and can often appear boorish, loutish, testosterone-fuelled, primal, animalistic and competitive.”

No international activity exists within a vacuum. Just as art and politics are not mutually exclusive, sport and politics cannot help but brush up against one another.

If these two forces are inexorably tied, what is to be said for those sportspeople caught up amongst the debate, but feel too stifled to speak out? Critics would have us believe that athletes, even when confronted with the sinister horrors of Putin’s Russia, ought to simply get on with it.

We are training professional competitors here, not sending manufactured machines to represent the various flags of the Olympiad. To imply that their mouths be kept shut and consciences hidden is to imagine that our beloved athletes are less than human beings, only robots bred and conditioned to win.

A few brave participants have broken ranks against the symbolic cone of silence, but most insisted they would attend the games in order to “shed light” or “have a conversation” around Russia’s numerous abuses. Ostensibly, these sentiments are tied to the IOC’s all-inclusive code of ethics, but ignore the obvious.

‘Propaganda’ laws targeting the LGBT community were enacted six years after the decision to host the games in Sochi, and anyone wanting to protest such barbarism will have to knock on the door of the FSB (a Soviet relic that parades as an intelligence agency) to obtain a permit. Further, very open threats have been issued from the hinterlands of Dagestan and the mountains of the Caucasus in the form of bombings targeting civilians. Fatal detonations have been carried out within the last two months just north of Sochi.

Any reasonable chance to debate Russia’s suitability has long since gone stale. The only action left at our disposal is a boycott.

It would be a brave act in solidarity with the various oppressed Russian communities who stand for a “non-traditional” way of life. Far from being drowned out amongst the roar of the “primal and animalistic”, a boycott gives a clear, effective voice for those believe this nervous spectacle is simply not good enough. And how else can we make absolutely sure that Olympic teams will be safe from the wild incantations of the jihadists hiding in the forests?

In closing, I’ll adapt Stephen Fry’s above quote: It is simply not enough to say that anyone will be safe in Sochi.

(Edited by Kyle Pule. All images from AP.)

Follow James on Twitter: @James_ARobins