Dictators love sports

#257

My Dear Friend of Democracy,

The World Football Association FIFA recently announced that Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 FIFA World Cup.

Those in power in the oppressive regime in Doha will know how to use the event for their ends. It will strengthen their power, as Putin did with the 2018 World Cup, the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, or the Chinese rulers with the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.

Major sporting events are stages for authoritarian leaders and dictatorships. Always have been.

In 1936, the Olympic Games took place in Berlin.

Hitler's Nazi Germany presented itself to the world as a progressive country worth living in. Three years later, the Germans brought the greatest possible disaster upon the world.

The Olympic Games of 1936 contributed to the fact that in some parts of the world, it took a long time, too long, for Hitler's true intentions to penetrate the public consciousness. How can someone who invites the world into his home want to destroy the world? For a long time, many had no answer to that.

But that's precisely how it was. Hitler was monstrous. You just couldn't tell by looking at him in his smart suit at the Olympic Games in Berlin.

So what should we do?

Two things:

First, we can keep awareness alive of what the past has taught us. Namely, that sport has always been misused for political purposes, so we shouldn't allow ourselves to be manipulated again.

Second, we can boycott such events simply by ignoring them. FIFA and Co's business model is based on attention. Without attention, there is no revenue. This is the most effective way to get these profit-maximising machines to see reason.

And why this photo above?

I was hiking through Brandenburg (the state surrounding Berlin) at the weekend and came across this sign. It says that the path ends soon and that you should not continue because "there are no more paths cleared of ammunition". We were hiking through a former military training area of the army of the defunct GDR. Today, the area is a jungle-like nature reserve. However, I'm showing you the photo because of the coat of arms on the bottom right. It is the coat of arms of the municipality of Wustermark. Wustermark is located some kilometres outside Berlin and was home to the "Olympic Village" during the 1936 Olympic Games. - Isn't it crazy that a municipality has included an event in its coat of arms that represents perhaps the most significant abuse of sport ever? At least my hiking friend and I were very astonished. Perhaps, I sometimes think, Germany has not learned as much from its Nazi past as it seems.

See you in Europe,

Johannes