“Hey sports fans, how ‘bout them Ukrainians?”… Underneath the big money-devouring questions of whether we should act quickly to help Ukraine, including “Should we manufacture ammunition?” are the small inexpensive questions about athletes on the world stage. Some say Russians should be allowed among the rest of us at international events provided they compete as neutrals, not Russians.
A small important Question is: Should Ukrainian athletes “have to” compete with, play with, enjoy games with, any athletes of Russia? Another Question: If Russian athletes are to envision themselves as “neutrals” —and I’m not sure that they could—will you and I be able to forget where they are from, will our media forget, will the Kremlin forget? I have heard of two or more players wearing the evil expansionist Z when they competed in Europe.
In Canada, NHL goalie Ken Dryden used to lined up in the bank with other customers. Then staff began to always have him skip the line. The public, Dryden noted, sees athletes as kinder, better, (beyond war)… but surely that’s a myth. Perhaps, therefore, the Question is not fair to Ukrainians now that they have sadly lost their innocence, not when their president at Easter in Kyiv 2022 prayed:
“…Take care of our children. Give every boy and every girl a happy childhood, adulthood and old age — a life long enough to rid themselves of their terrible youthful memories of war. The terrifying games they have been forced to play have no place in a chid’s life. Hide-and-seek, except they hide from bombs. Running not around a playground, but to shelter from gunshots. Travelling across the country, not to a holiday site but from their destroyed homes.
…
And save Ukraine. Save us on the right and left banks of the Dnipro. For when winter ended, spring did not come. The frost of winter came to our homes, and a dawn we were brought nothing but darkness.
God, we know you will not forget the actions of those who have ignored your commandments. We know you will not forget about the atrocities in Bucha, Irpin, Borodyanka, Hostomel. And we also know that you will not forget those who survived these brutal crimes. Bring joy to them and all the people of Ukraine….”
Of course the ancient Greeks could conduct their Games, under their gods, with spirituality, transcending war, but we, in our modern media world, have our profitable sports as a secular thing. Athletes don’t stop on Sunday.
A Flip-side Question: Could Ukrainian athletes, setting an example for the Russians, transcend war and envision themselves competing as “neutrals?” Oh, but of course they won’t, not when their president, in an address on Ukrainian Independence Day (August 2022) said:
“…The free people of an independent Ukraine. We are spending this day in many different places. Some are in trenches and dugouts, in tanks and IFVs, at sea and in the air, fighting for independence on the front line. Others are on our roads, in cars, trucks and trains, fighting for independence by delivering what is necessary to those at the front. And still others are on their mobiles and laptops, fighting for independence by raising funds — so that those on the road have something to bring to those who are fighting….”
As for anyone “setting an example” for Russians, I am doubtful. Folks are questioning whether Russians are fit for a lawful world: Perhaps Russians cannot learn from our example. After all, an expert, European-born Susanna Viljanen, now at a US university, wrote on Quora social media, answering “Why is Russian propaganda so bad?” :
“…The Western world is binary: there are lies and truth, there is good and evil, there is legal and crime, there are war and peace. The Russians do not see the world like that. There is a sliding scale of lying and truthing, there is a sliding scale of good and evil, there is a sliding scale on what is lawful and what is criminal and there is a sliding scale of conflicts from peace to open war. While this can be an advantageous mindset in world politics, it also makes Russians as extremely unreliable business partners and all cooperation extremely difficult as you need to micromanage and observe their actions constantly—there is no trust in the Russian society. This is also the reason why Russia can be ruled only with brutality and steel fist—and why Russia always collapses into svoboda and again into smuta when the iron fist is no longer there…”
I can understand spectators to any nation’s civil war, being weakly undecided, because “the side of the angels is seldom self-evident.” (Sometimes I don’t want to look). But the Russians have committed international war. And I regret to say that if Russian-speaking Ukrainians try to tell truth through phone lines over the border to their Russian relatives, as has been documented, then the Russians turn their heads, refusing to believe. As would their athletes, presumably, not only the ones visibly wearing a Z. Ukraine’s President Zelensky said, in an address to the Ukrainian people:
“… On the other, there are the standards of the Russian occupiers. It is the difference between good and evil. It is the difference between Europe and a black hole, one that wants to absorb everything into its darkness.
…
Evil will be punished.”
… …
… …
Sean Crawford
City of Camrose,
Alberta,
July, 2023
Sports page story: (July 27) Given the number of time “Russian” was written in this story, I can forgive a Ukrainian who couldn’t forget who an alleged neutral was. (link) Maybe it’s time to “follow the money.”
Idealism note: The first Gay Games (LGBTQ) was by city, not by country. The idealistic founder-organizer included athletes from a land where the majority within the government had voted for apartheid. By the next Games, innocent liberal gays from South Africa were excluded. As I recall, everyone, including the organizer, agreed to exclude. The Games founder is deceased, so we can’t know what he would think today about excluding Russia for the duration of the war.
