Sports diplomacy issues (6): power and humility

Sports diplomacy issues (6): power and humility

Dr. Gilles Klein, 05 May 2017

 

  

Pathway

Within a context of recurring economic crisis, raising funds for access to sport for world-wide Youth, notably through the construction of sports infrastructures, can be qualified as an illusion of power. Nevertheless, making the young people of developing countries understand the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through sports education assumes some humility. Between risk of power and admission of humility, everyone makes their pathway and tries to leave some mark.

Day

As an introduction to this Friday's diplomacy issues, I would like to mention a day in which someone attempted to convince me of the appeal of the first pathway before that the reality led me harshly back to the second. A day in Benin, in which my friend Pierre Dansou and colleagues of the national institute of Youth, physical education, sports introduced to me the city of Ouidah, a coastal city forty kilometers from Cotonou.

Ouidah

Ouidah has two characteristics which were the reason of our excursion. On the one side, the city has been one of the main selling and embarkation centers for slaves in the framework of the trade realized by the Occident. On the other, in January, it is the meeting area of voodoo followers to celebrate the voodoo national festival set up in 1993. The day of our visit, slavery and voodoo allow me to understand that the power illusions do not weigh in face of the humility that everyone needs to show.

Voodoo

Let us start with the voodoo power. The institute’s colleagues explain: in Benin, the voodoo community represents around 60 to 70% of the whole population and festivities were introduced due to the lack of worship by the ancestors. Ever since, in Ouidah, it is the voodoo festival every January 10th. The city dignitaries lead the festivities, in which several delegations from the country, neighboring countries, and the diaspora take part. In the street, on the beach, they celebrate gods and goddesses of water, thunder, iron, night guards or ghosts. That day, there are ceremonies, processions and animal sacrifices.

Ceremony

The day of our visit, through a kind of cultural hazing, the colleagues decided to induct me to that tradition: “would you acquire the power for you and your endeavours. If the king recognizes you, you can yourself become a king”. A challenge highlighted beneath the question. That is why I declared myself ready to respond to what I suspected to be the local ceremony of cultural induction. Among the voodoo traditions, the cult of Royal Python is among the most exotic, if not impressive.

Python

In 1717, Benin was the object of a local war by two opposing kingdoms. At stake was the control of the river and its marshy area comprised of multiple streams. The waterways above were all the entry points of trading European merchants. The defeated king of Ouidah took refuge in the forest to escape the warriors who pursued him. He was protected by the pythons which attacked his opponents and was then saved. In honor of his protectors, he erected three huts in the forest and one totem. We visited the temple inhabited by pythons of all sizes.

Royal

A curious neighbor was, in fact, awaiting me in the damp darkness of the temple. Entering the main hut, once the eyes became accustomed, the ground seemed to be moving. When the torch lit up, it was an “Indiana Jones effect”. On the ground crawled more than a hundred Royal pythons. At that time, you have trouble forgetting that a man is not prey for these carnivores. However, you really are facing a collection of these small-sized snakes – one meter eighty – with a massive and muscular body, and with a brown appearance marked with beige spots.

King

The guide repeated the questions posed by my colleagues. I said then that I was ready to take on the challenge. He seized the Royal python considered to be the most beautiful specimen of the colony. He placed the snake around my neck and gave me this instruction: “wait until the king accustoms to you. If it considers you, it will straighten and fix you in the eyes. If you keep the look, then you also you will become a king, successful in your endeavors." At the fatal moment, I clearly remember its tongue movements and its eyes covered by a transparent scale. Furthermore, I didn’t become a king of anything.

Humility

The power illusion was substituted by work in humility – from Ouidah downtown to the Non-return door, on the slaves' road. The tourists discover another patrimonial element, the deportation history. Ouidah was one of the main hubs of the slave trade during the XVIIIth century. Your steps follow those of chained African deported crowds. The former Portuguese Fort São-Jão-Batista-de-Ajuda, transformed into a museum, where one discovers the objects of the slave’s everyday life – chains, firearms, canons. The auction square in Ouidah, where the slaves were selected and branded with a red-hot iron. The Zomaï huts where they were kept in pens before embarkation. Place Zoungbodji, they turn around the “Non-return tree” for the return of their souls after death. The memorial, built above the captives’ mass graves, for those who died before deportation.

Door

And then, the end of the slaves' road, after five arduous kilometers, this long beach, both sumptuous and sad, where the waves slam against the dunes. It is dominated by the Non-return door erected in 1995 by UNESCO, where the slaves embarked to the Americas. To complete the humility work the guide punctuates: « You shall imagine the pain of these chained people by feet and neck, on this swampy road, full of cactus, Scorpios and snakes. Half died in transit”. But where is the sports diplomacy?

Coup

Returning to sports! The Sotchi Olympic Games are the theater of our alternative, opposing the power diplomacy to that of humility. The diplomacy through power is illustrated by Vladimir Putin. Organizing this event, he realizes a triple diplomatic coup: enhance Russia through sport on the international stage, affirm his personal charisma then attempt to make everybody forget the difficulties of the country, at the risk of losing his bet.

Enhance

The word shop window is a recurring theme in this blog. Sotchi was a shop window coming at the right time for Vladimir Putin. In 2007, when the international Olympic Committee (IOC) awards Sotchi the organization of the Winter Olympic Games, the Kremlin’s strong man declared: “Finally, Russia is back in the global arena as a strong state, a country to which the others must pay attention”. The one who described the disappearance of the Soviet Union as the worst geopolitical catastrophe of the XXth century, shows that his Russia, that he leads, is back. Sport can help him achieve it. In 2014, in power for 14 years, Vladimir Putin made sports events one of his strategic priorities. It is the same willingness to celebrate the power of a system in which the Games in Moscow in 1980 were boycotted. It is the largest event in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. According to the analyst Maria Lipman, for Putin it is “to show that Russia is able to impress the whole world organizing a great sports festival, building infrastructures, welcoming guests” from the whole world.

Affirm

Sotchi, is also the affirmation of a personal power: “I personally chose that area” insists Putin. Through Sotchi, the latter maintains a strong man’s image at the diplomatic level, sitting on a strong man in the first meaning of the term. He appears as sporty and reckless. He is not concerned by suffering in hockey. He fishes with a bare torso in Siberia. It is a cult of force and physical skill through sport. A cult that extends to a strong sports system. Sotchi, has a delegation of 226 Russian attendees, 2 less than USA, but comes top of the ranking with 13 gold medals. Giving back power to his country, he is looking at maintaining his own legend in history. The political scientist Dimitri Orlov wrote then: Sotchi is “a Putin’s personal project, who thinks of history and what one will write about him”.

Forget

But Sotchi, it is also the shop window that would hide the shop and back shop. In 2007, Vladimir Putin’s popularity is nearly 80% positive opinions and the growth of Russian economy reached almost 8%. However, in 2014, the situation changed. Economic growth is just over 1%. The Rouble collapses against the dollar and euro. The increasing human rights violations are denounced by the Pussy Riots and NGOs. The sports performances are suffering from doping accusations.

Risk

The strong comeback is not without risks. Admittedly, the shop window shines with all its lights. But, the criticisms are multiplied due to the cost of these Olympic Games. To this day, with 50 billion US dollars, the Sotchi Games remain the most expensive shop window for a country. Otherwise, the gloss fails to hide the back-shop dealings. Critics also suspect the corruption relating to the Pharaonic expenses in the area which is only a few hundred km away from the unstable North Caucasus Republics. An area that is without sports infrastructures. These criticisms got Putin a little bit nervous. The analyst Dimitri Orechkine described the Sotchi’s stake thus: « In the best case, the Olympic Games will show Russia as a country such as the others. But there is more chances to face a failure than harvest benefits”.

Cannibal

Like Vladimir Putin, Ole Einar Bjoerndalen also has a winner’s temperament. In Sotchi, the Norwegian biathlete is 40 years old. There he becomes the most decorated of the Winter Games. A success that does not alter his legendary humility. Let us start with the successes. He counts so many, that the press refers to him even as a cannibal. He is the one who devours the trophies. Let us judge! 93 successes in World Cup, 19 world titles, 6 Crystal Globes, 13 Olympic medals. He breaks the record of his compatriot, Björn Daehlie, the greatest cross-country skier of all times who says about him: “the others did not think that the “old” was able to do that”. He was always able due to two major qualities: his great professionalism and a great humility.

Humility

It is to his extreme professionalism that the best biathlete in history owes his longevity. He was the first to impose on himself incredible workloads during training, at the rhythm of 900 to 1000 hours per year since he was 15 years old. He has been the first to innovate: shooting coach, mental coach, exclusivity contracts to use special waxes. The competition is a spur that allows him to constantly renew himself. He achieves his tasks of a professional with a great humility, very much appreciated by his peers and the sports institutions. A quality that is of great use in representing his country in IOC, once the Sotchi Games are finished. A great humility for not taking a long time to announce his retirement in 2016.

Submarine

Vladimir and Ole have doing diplomacy through sport in common. The first, through the power he demonstrates, is looking to have Russia recognized as a strong country on the world stage. The second, through his longevity, his work, his humility asks us to look to the construction of lifestyles and their transmission to young people. After all it is only sport! Between Russia and Norway, at the diplomatic level, the problem lies elsewhere. In February 2017, Norway is concerned about the increase in the sophistication of the Russian military equipment. The Norwegian military has difficulties in detecting the modern Russian submarines, which for them, could threaten this Scandinavian country. There is hard power more than the soft one through sport.

Next: 12 May 2017 – The stadium's diplomacy.