When observing the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, one almost had the impression that the world had united into one huge celebration of athletics and humanity - perhaps signaling the dawning of a new era for the many nations of the world.
Yet, in the end, it seems that beyond the precious few gold medals awarded to the greatest athletes of the world, the world will remember August 2008 not as a time of world unity, but as a time of global geopolitical turmoil and world conflict.
In the space of 15 days, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, waged a brutal war against the nation of Georgia, the birthplace of Stalin. Throughout the month of August 2008, unrelenting Russian artillery rained down fire and death upon the Georgian city of Gori.
But beyond these lyrical, historical observations, Putin's Russia has now taken a giant step towards establishing a new world order, strongly reminiscent of the old bipolar order of the Cold War, in which Moscow refuses to cooperated with anything Western seemingly just to spite it.
George Bush, already in the last days of his final term in office, would have preferred to finish his term by admiring the many victories achieved by the American athletes in 2008 Olympic Games, but instead he was plagued by a Georgian President begging Uncle Sam to come to the rescue. As a whole the Americans, with McCain and Obama on the one hand and the extraordinary swimmer Michael Phelps on the other, would have preferred not to entangle themselves in the sensitive, complicated and explosive international crises which unfolded in the Caucasus.
But Putin, playing the rules of the game and international media climate perfectly, knew exactly how to exploit the time of the summer holidays and the “Olympic truce” to show that Moscow is no longer a small domesticated cat, but is now a bear ready to kill to demarcate its territory.
During the time of the Greeks, the Olympics marked the truce of all nations and even those who were at war.
Yet in 2008, more than a century after Pierre de Coubertin achieved his dream of reopening this great human adventure that is the Olympic Games, the world is more than ever at war.
Everyday we awake to see warfare on our television screens, yet it all seems so far away. Lost somewhere in the far off lands of Iraq and Afghanistan wars are raging, but they are so far away they seem to be on another planet.
Yet despite the distance, today it is France’s turn to be the victims of the war’s gaining momentum, with 10 dead and over twenty injured in an attack by Taliban forces against NATO soldiers in Afghanistan.
Ten French soldiers killed in Afghanistan, 43 Algerian soldiers killed in an attack in Kabylie, thousands of deaths in the Caucasus and the Olympic Games continue unabated - all the while showcasing to the world the potential achievements and unity of mankind in sports and athletics.
August 2008 is a month which could be renamed the month of "The Olympics of Human Folly" - the President of Iran participates in the launch of the first Iranian satellite marking the success of Iranian missile technology, Hugo Chavez promises that Venezula will soon follow with a launch of its own missile into space and to crown it all off, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, Russia is rearming its Baltic fleet with nuclear warheads and considering placing tactical nuclear devices in Syria under Russian control.
Is the world on the brink of a new conflagration?
The global economic crisis, the rise of the so-called emerging nations (who have in reality long since emerged), the refocusing and realignment of Russia who now decides to tell an America tired of warfare and in the midst of a leadership crisis that "Russia does not need to receive lessons from anyone”. These are the increasingly clear signs of a world which is no longer in balance.
Let us hope that the Olympic Games will last several years so that the “Olympic truce” will be long. But let us not be naive, since the times of ancient Greece, the Olympics Games are no longer a sign of truce, only perhaps a slight lull.
In any case, it is clear that when the Olympic flame burns out in Beijing, flames will unfortunately be relit in areas of conflict throughout the world.
Olivier Rafowicz
CEO Infolive.tv
08/20/08
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