Olympians, Gladiators and Self-Victimizing Athletes
(UPDATED VERSION)
1. Playing the Victim vs. Playing Fair
The Olympic Games are regarded as the world’s most important sports competition, attended by athletes representing more than two hundred nations, including independent countries, dependent territories, and — for the first time at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — refugee camps.
The spirit of the Olympic Games, both in their ancient and modern editions, has been consisting in building a peaceful and better world by promoting understanding and tolerance, friendship, solidarity and fair play. In the ancient times, postponing conflicts and hostilities until the Games were finished was known as the Olympic truce.
Due to their increased importance, the Olympic Games have offered athletes a much more solid platform of popularity that, in turn, was used justly by most athletes, most of the time, to promote their sports and countries. Unfortunately, not always and not all athletes did so.
Some American athletes, taking advantage of this huge personal popularity platform, have chosen to play victim instead of playing fair.
2. Olympians vs. Gladiators
Originally, the Ancient Olympic Games (believed to have had their inception date in 776 B.C.) were religious and athletic festivals held every four years at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia, Greece. The legend says that Heracles, one of the ancient heroes, and his father Zeus, are the progenitors of the Games, giving these athletic competitions a divine aura. The participants in the Olympic Games — the Olympians –, and especially the winners of the events, were admired and immortalized in poems and statues. They enjoyed fame and respect for ever.
The ancient world has also invented the gladiatorial games (between 310 B.C. and 536 A.D.), believed to have an Etruscan origin, but perfected by the Romans during their Republic and Empire years. Gladiators, unlike Olympians, were with a few exceptions slaves or socially marginalized people, scheduled to entertain audiences in violent confrontations with other gladiators, condemned criminals, and wild animals. Their shows in martial ethics, in fighting or dying well were also highly admired and acclaimed. For this reason gladiators were celebrated in art, and their value as entertainers was commemorated in precious objects throughout the Roman world.
Olympians and gladiators were both competitors and entertainers, but their vision on their skills and mission was different. Olympians competed for glory and represented their city-states (and, later on, countries), and their generosity made them dedicate their victories to their communities and, ultimately, to gods. Gladiators, on the other hand, were fighting for themselves, in order to stay alive, and often times hate was an efficient tool for strengthening their will to acquire victory.
3. A Muslim-American Athlete and the Hijab
The 30-year old New Jersey native Ibtihaj Muhammad is a US Olympic saber team member whose hijab (and her religious convictions) have become more relevant than her sporting skills.
Her parents, born in the United States and converted to Islam, sought out a sport for Ibtihaj to participate in, where she could be fully covered and wear a hijab.
On Monday, August 8, 2016, during the Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics, the hijab poster girl was defeated by Cécilia Berder of France in the second round of the women’s individual saber event. This has not stopped her to attract a gigantic media attention for “being the first woman to wear a hijab while competing for the United States in the Olympics.”
It’s fine to wear a hijab and have personal convictions. It’s even constitutional, as part of the First Amendment. However, when asked by BBC Sport about the current political situation, marked by Islamic terrorist attacks both home (in Dallas and elsewhere) and overseas (in France, Belgium, and Germany), Muhammad said: “As a global community, we have to work harder to change our current situation. It is an unhealthy one” where “a lot of it is misunderstanding. Misunderstanding of religion, of what different societies need in order to thrive.”
In a The Daily Beast interview she declared that she was not safe in the U.S.
Moreover, despite the fact that her only (bronze) Olympic medal was won with the U.S. team, she was quoted by the same BBC Sport as saying: “Competing at the Olympics was never a thought of mine. I never considered it or thought about it. But this is a defining moment in my life. I am excited to represent not just myself, my family and my country — but also the greater Muslim community.”
This attitude outlines a trend according to which average Muslims would “now feel more connection and affinity with their religious counterparts across the world than they do with their fellow countryman at their local social club” (see Maajid Nawaz’s article, “Why Haters Play the Victim Card”).
Ibtihaj Muhammad has lived the American dream. She is a Duke University graduate, met with President Obama, gave the then-First Lady Michelle Obama a fencing lesson, and represented the country at the Olympic Games. And yet she chose to play the victim card instead of playing fair.
Rather than acting as true Olympian, the Muslim-American fencer chose to adopt a gladiatorial way of thinking. Come to think of it, the Latin originated word “gladiator” means exactly that, a “swordsman” (from the Latin gladius, “sword”).
The problem is this: if Ms. Muhammad is not a slave, nor a marginalized person, then she is a fake gladiator. A fake gladiator playing a new Olympic Game: the victim card, where hate is more efficient in survival fights against other “gladiators” or wild animals. And this, in the end, is not fine.
4. An African-American Athlete and the National Flag
The 20-year old Virginia native Gabby Douglas is a member of the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team. Her disrespect for the national flag and, possibly, her political convictions, have become more relevant than her sporting skills, too.
Unlike Ms. Muhammad, who won just one (bronze) Olympic medal (in the team), Ms. Douglas, although much younger, is a more accomplished athlete, earning three gold Olympic medals (two in London, in 2012, in the team and individual all-around; and one in Rio de Janeiro, in 2016, in the team).
In 2012, in an August 26 interview with Oprah Winfrey, after the Summer Olympics in London were closed, Douglas spoke about racist bullying and how it nearly made her quit the sport. She reported an incident where she had heard other girls at the gym say “Why doesn’t Gabby do it? She’s our slave” when chalk is needed to be scraped off the bars.
These claims were denied by the gym management and her other gymnast colleagues, like Randy Stageberg, who said: “The accusations that are being made against the gymnasts and coaches are just sickening. […] Gabby was never a victim, in fact many would say she was one of the favorites.”
In 2016, during the Tuesday, August 9 medal ceremony in Rio de Janeiro, Douglas found herself again at the center of controversy, after being the only member of the Olympic gymnastics team who did not place a hand over her heart as the national anthem played (a situation that she did not create during the medal ceremonies in London).
Some saw the gesture as pledging allegiance to the Black Lives Matter movement, as the medal ceremony took place on the two-year commemoration of Michael Brown’s death.
Like Muhammad, Douglas has lived the American dream. She is an accomplished athlete, a member of the national gymnastics team, a winner of multiple medals in the Olympic, world, and other international competitions. She starred in various TV shows, published her autobiography when she was 16, and was named by the Associated Press as the Female Athlete of the Year when she was 17.
Has Douglas chosen to think like a gladiator and play the victim card, too? She quickly apologized a day after the ceremony incident. But, without offering any explanation for her gesture, she continues to fuel speculations about possible political reasons. And, even with politics aside, the mere controversy remains.
Controversy appears to play a stronger role for some than the pride of representing a nation. Some of her fans were fast in replying that “the poor kid should be let alone because she did nothing wrong”. Oh, really?
Let us take a brief look at the U.S. statutes regulating the national anthem and the flag.
5. Laws and Regulations regarding the National Anthem and the U.S. Flag
The U.S. government laws and regulations on patriotic customs stipulate that, during rendition of the national anthem when the flag is displayed, all present except those in uniform should stand at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart.
The hand-over-the-heart gesture is a modification of the Bellamy salute, a right-hand-extended movement that was used in the late 1800s and early 1900s while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, which was created by Francis Bellamy.
In the early 1920's, the Bellamy salute was modified to the hand over the heart, in order to not resemble too much the similar salutes practiced in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.
In 1942, the flag code was approved during the F. D. Roosevelt administration (without any federal penalties provided if the law was broken).
The U.S. Code (Titles 4 and 36) specifies the circumstances for rendering the hand-over-heart salute. Thus, “[t]he Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag […] should be rendered by standing at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart.”
And: “During a rendition of the national anthem (1) when the flag is displayed […] (C) all other persons present [not in uniform — note added] should face the flag and stand at attention with their right hand over the heart […]”
Since the patriotic codes were approved, several politicians have broken the law, including the former president Barack Obama.
In 2007, the then-senator Obama was the centerpiece of a controversial photo that showed him at an Iowa fair with his hands at his side during the playing of the national anthem.
6. When Sportsmanship Is Not on the Podium
In the end, faith and personal convictions are irrelevant in sports. Sports are about who the best is, about who wins and who loses. Religious or political convictions have no bearing on competing skills, although media spinsters and politicians with agenda would like it otherwise.
On the other hand, sports are all about patriotism, especially in international competitions of the Olympic Games level. Therefore, athletes should expose their pride and generosity for representing their countries. They should not take opportunities to display hate, frustration, selfishness, or settle any type of personal account.
There have been numerous situations when people of sports (athletes and coaches) have chosen to emigrate elsewhere because they did not want to act as gladiators for their “masters” (a.k.a. dictator-presidents), but as Olympians for free-spirited nations.
Examples include the former coaches of the U.S. gymnastics team, Béla and Martha Karolyi, and Nadia Comăneci, a multiple Olympic-medal winner.
Nadia Comăneci was the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic gymnastics event.
All three defected from the former communist nation of Romania in the 1980s.
By comparison, Muhammad and Douglas are in no way entitled to exhibit their own personal problems at the expense of sportsmanship.
NOTE — Versions of the article were published in:
CARIBBEAN NEWS NOW! (Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas) [10,500+ views!; 1 comment]
and
INTELLECTUAL CONSERVATIVE (Phoenix, Arizona) [800+ views; 3 comments]
and
MEDIUM (San Francisco, California) [100+ views; 3 comments; 100+ likes]
and featured in:
CARIBBEAN RADIO (New York City, New York)
and
FIWEH (Okinawa, Japan) [ comments]
and also
and also
and referenced in:
MAMBO LOOK
TOTAL PUBLICATIONS = 8
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