Dark Side of Paris 2024 Olympics

By, Spahic Omer

While the on-going Olympic Games in Paris are dominating headlines and capturing the world’s attention, it is important to consider this event from a different angle. It might be surprising to learn that the Olympics is not exactly what supporters of today’s widespread popular culture portray it to be. In reality, there is a dark side to the frenzy. There is more to it than meets the eye.

To begin with, although shrouded in mystery, the origins of the Olympics were linked to the Greek polytheistic beliefs. The Games consisted of rituals and cultural traditions devoted to Zeus, the primary deity in the Greek pantheon. Heracles (Hercules), Zeus’ son and a demigod, is sometimes credited with a secondary role in establishing the Games.

The Games were named “Olympic” due to Olympus, a mountain where the twelve major Greek deities, led by Zeus, lived, and Olympia, a town in ancient Greece with a renowned temple of Zeus. It was in this town that the Olympic Games took place. The ground or arena where the Games were held was known as the Olympic Stadium. The Stadium was a novel form of temple where participants in the Games showed their willingness to go to great lengths and make significant sacrifices to honor Zeus and the other gods of the pantheon. Held every four years, the event turned into a religious, as well as national, pilgrimage of sorts.

The Role of Greek Humanism

However, as Greek humanism began to challenge the power and authority of gods, the Games shifted to a more human-centered approach. They served as a platform to display the remarkable abilities and potential of humans, emphasizing that individuals could dictate their destinies. Essentially, the Games started to prioritize humanity, diminishing the significance of the gods.

The new ethos was inspired by the founders of Greek humanism, particularly Protagoras, who famously stated: “Man is the measure of all things, of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not.” This implies that humans are noble and capable enough to not rely on the influences of mythical divine beings. It suggests that humans have evolved beyond a primitive stage and possess the ability to navigate their own paths. This epoch denoted the beginning of placing human intelligence, emotions and interests on a pedestal, as the sway of divinities faded into the distance.

This is why, when the Games were reinstated in 1896, during a period symbolizing the dawn of modernity influenced by the humanistic ideals of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment – which were originally inspired by Greek humanism that had been dormant for centuries – the reinvigorated Olympics had a bold mission. The goal was to display the advanced development of humanity and its mature position as the controller of its own fate and the circumstances of the world. This was not a mere fantasy or an act of boasting. There was a substantial scientific and industrial legacy supporting this notion. Religions and deities belonged to the past, becoming outdated concepts. If in the past gods were referred to as Olympians, now it was the people – the participants in the Olympic Games – who claimed that title.

Olympic stadiums were turned into temples of human ambitions, dreams and aspirations. They became symbols of human fight for survival and supremacy. The Games remained significant pilgrimages for everybody involved, and the heroes were no longer divine beings but human Olympians: the performers, the victors, the risk-takers and the record-setters. Their achievements instilled in humanity the belief that nothing was beyond reach and that human progress would ultimately lead to a state of perfection with ideal human conditions. As a result, the Olympians were greatly admired, generously rewarded and idolized. They were celebrated as national heroes. By challenging and often surpassing the boundaries of human capability, they embodied both the ancient Mount Olympus and the town of Olympia.

Guided by this principle, when the Olympics was restored in modern times, the Games were intended to be inclusive, highlighting the universal excellence of humanity. Therefore, from 1912 to 1948, there were competitions in art, literature, music, architectural design and urban planning. Similar to other events, participants in these categories also competed for gold, silver and bronze medals. During its 1906 session in Paris, the Olympic Congress adopted the motto “art, literature and sport”  (Ian Buchanan & Bill Mallon: Historical Dictionary of the Olympic Movement).

This point seems to be related to the first principle of the Olympic Charter, which states that, “Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example, social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.”

As anticipated, the spiritual aspects are absent, and the so-called, “universal fundamental ethical principles,” are merely a cliché. What is meant thereby is the absence of universal and objective truth and moral principles which allows for various social, cultural, and personal preferences to baffle individuals, ripping them asunder, and ultimately plunging them into the abyss of spiritual and moral anarchy.

From the Greeks to the Romans

After the Greeks, the Romans took over as the torchbearers of Western civilization. The Romans, due to their style of governance, changed the Olympic Games from a competitive event to pure entertainment. This shift aligned with the Roman practice of “bread and circuses,” a concept symbolizing how the ruling class controlled the population. The idea was to offer abundant food and entertainment to distract the masses from real issues affecting their well-being and the state as a whole. This approach of artificially keeping people happy and satisfied allowed the government to conceal its failure to address the genuine problems. “Bread and circuses” served as a facade behind which the government concealed its weaknesses and manipulated the prospects, all while avoiding dissent and potential uprisings.

The Olympics was still relevant, and the Olympians were regarded as venerated heroes. That was understandable because the Games and their central characters were crucial tools required to achieve a set of equally crucial objectives. The Olympians were the ambassadors of the government’s will. They were its extended hand, so to speak. Much of the government’s actions, or lack thereof, relied on harnessing the opportunities presented by the Games and their celebrities. These figures acted as calming influences, ensuring that substantial rewards in terms of both financial compensation and social standing were always guaranteed.

The Lamentations of Vitruvius

Vitruvius, a celebrated Roman architect and engineer from the 1^st century BC, expressed his disappointment that beginning with ancient Greece, winners of events like the Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean Games were highly esteemed and provided with exceptional privileges. They “were not only greeted with applause as they stand with palm and crown at the meeting itself, but even on returning to their several states in the triumph of victory, they ride into their cities and to their fathers’ houses in four-horse chariots, and enjoy fixed revenues for life at the public expense.”

Vitruvius was taken aback by the unquestioned nature of the unfair treatment. He wondered “why the same honors and even greater are not bestowed upon those authors whose boundless services are performed for all time and for all nations. This would have been a practice all the more worth establishing, because in the case of athletes it is merely their own bodily frame that is strengthened by their training, whereas in the case of authors it is the mind, and not only their own but also man’s in general, by the doctrines laid down in their books for the acquiring of knowledge and the sharpening of the intellect.”

Vitruvius dismissed the notion that muscles outweighed brains and that short-term selfish accomplishments were better than lasting ones benefiting the entire world. He found it incomprehensible that Milo of Croton, a legendary ancient Greek athlete from the colony of Croton, was more celebrated than intellectuals contributing to the cultural advancement of all nations.

Vitruvius said: “What does it signify to mankind that Milo of Croton and other victors of his class were invincible? Nothing, save that in their lifetime they were famous among their countrymen. But the doctrines of Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato and Aristotle, and the daily life of other learned men, spent in constant industry, yield fresh and rich fruit, not only to their own countrymen, but also to all nations. And they who from their tender years are filled with the plenteous learning which this fruit affords, attain to the highest capacity of knowledge, and can introduce into their states civilized ways, impartial justice, and laws, things without which no state can be sound. Since, therefore, these great benefits to individuals and to communities are due to the wisdom of authors, I think that not only should palms and crowns be bestowed upon them, but that they should even be granted triumphs, and judged worthy of being consecrated in the dwellings of the gods” (Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture).

Tinting the Modern Olympics with Modern Problems

The Olympic Games were halted around 393 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I. The Roman Empire, after embracing Christianity, viewed the Olympics – replete conceptually and historically with elements of paganism – as conflicting with their new faith, which prioritized spiritual matters over physical ones. The decision to end the Games was seen as a form of religious and cultural cleansing, functioning as a way to make amends for past associations with paganism.

The Games were reintroduced in 1896. It is fair to say that the reintroduction of the Games was made possible because the modern man, inspired by a mix of Greek and Renaissance humanism, was moving away from heavenly canons. Christianity was the biggest victim. Having regained control over the direction of his civilization’s future, free from spiritual and divine moral constraints, the modern man adopted the most advanced forms of paganism in the shapes of modernism and postmodernism as his creed. Such notions as materialism, relativism, hedonism and nihilism were its most direct corollaries and also manifestations. No surprise, then, that the seeds of all these worldviews can be traced back to the heathenish legacies of the Greeks and later the Romans. In passing, this evolutionary trajectory should receive more attention compared to its biological and socio-cultural counterparts.

With the return of the Olympics under his newfound faith, the modern man began to approach the Games just like the ancient Greeks and Romans did. Nothing fundamentally changed. The games were still viewed as a method used for nefarious purposes.

When Baron de Coubertin, a French scholar and co-founder of the International Olympic Committee, often referred to as the father of the modern Olympic Games, advocated for the revival of the Olympics, he intertwined this effort with the prevalent global issues of his time. Three issues stood out: nationalism, colonization and the concept of the “mission to civilize.” Baron de Coubertin envisioned the Games as a means to further colonization and to justify, as well as strengthen, the idea of civilizing missions. His primary focus was on Africans who he believed had not yet embraced the benefits of Western culture and civilization. In effect, the Games were viewed as a mechanism to advance the process of Westernization.

Baron de Coubertin said in 1923 during his address to the twenty-second IOC Session in Rome, ostensibly advocating for the inclusion of African countries in the Olympic Games: “And perhaps it may appear premature to introduce the principal of sports competitions into a continent that is behind the times and among peoples still without elementary culture – and particularly presumptuous to expect this expansion to lead to a speeding up of the march of civilization in these countries. Let us think, however, for a moment, of what is troubling the African soul. Untapped forces – individual laziness and a sort of collective need for action – a thousand resentments, and a thousand jealousies of the white man and yet, at the same time, the wish to imitate him and thus share his privileges – the conflict between wishing to submit to discipline and to escape from it – and, in the midst of an innocent gentleness that is not without its charm, the sudden outburst of ancestral violence…these are just some features of these races to which the younger generation, which has in fact derived great benefit from sport, is turning its attention” (Jules Boykoff: Power Games, A Political History of the Olympics).

In light of the discussion above, some criticize the way Hitler and his Nazi Germany hosted the 1936 Olympic Games. While their actions were wrong, in that they promulgated antisemitism and Nazism, Hitler and his nation simply followed a long-established pattern. From the beginning, they aimed to take advantage of the numerous opportunities that come with hosting the Games. There was little noble or innocent intent in the whole concept, so why worry about the absence of these values in the execution methods. Wrongdoing only breeds more of the same. The debate continues on how sinister the ideals Hitler sought to promote through the Games’ propaganda truly were. As previously mentioned, the Olympics’ very existence stemmed from a confluence of factors with questionable integrity, both subjectively and objectively. In an era of moral relativism, everything is up for questioning and review.

In his book, “Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler’s Olympics” Jeremy Schaap gives a hint of how the 1936 Olympics was shaped in Hitler’s and his Nazi Germany’s image: “Wrapping itself in the ceremony, Nazism had enjoyed one of its finest hours. With the assembled multitudes whipped to a frenzy by martial and patriotic pageantry, the scene resembled nothing so much as one of the party rallies in Nuremberg, which had been the goal. While adhering to the letter of the Olympic laws, the Germans nevertheless violated the spirit of those laws by showcasing their Führer above and beyond the Olympians themselves. Clearly, Hitler had been the star of their magnificent spectacle. As Al Laney of the Herald Tribune saw it, the ceremony was a wholly successful ‘demonstration of Nazi organizing efficiency, a personal tribute to Adolf Hitler and pageant such as the modern world seldom has witnessed.’”

The Hypocrisy of the Paris 2024 Olympics

While the current Olympic Games in Paris have captured the world’s attention, beyond the flashy spectacle lies a darker truth. This truth is filled with politics, double standards, commercialization, nationalism, neo-colonialism, moral decline, lack of intellectual depth, and the glorification of capitalism as a modern “religion” and a new form of societal control (a new “opium of the people”). In his book “Barbaric Sport, A Global Plague,” Marc Perelman condenses these issues into two main points: the objectification of the body and the distortion of consciousness. These aspects represent the lowest point of human behavior, resembling a regression disguised as progress.

Moreover, similar to its many predecessors, this latest Olympics also highlights how society tends to value physical strength over intelligence, opportunism over principles, and convenience over moral obligations. One might conclude that there were only two eras when physical strength, ignorance, and deceit dominated: in ancient times before civilization existed, and in the present day under the guise of a so-called civilization.

Instead of focusing on affirming the truth and contributing to solving the world’s biggest problems, the Olympic Games actually worsen them. They aim to divert people’s attention from real issues and create a false sense of security, prosperity, and happiness. However, the reality is that the world is not safe, prosperous, and genuine happiness is hard to find. Additionally, the world is on the verge of collapse with several major wars currently ongoing or having occurred recently. Nuclear standoffs are no longer a distant possibility but a genuine threat. In short, the World War III could be imminent, with its first precursors perhaps already among us.

Most importantly, the ongoing genocide in Gaza against the innocent Palestinian population continues without any signs of stopping. What is even more concerning is that the perpetrators of this genocide, the illegitimate state of Israel, are allowed to take part in the Games. There is a lack of acknowledgment of responsibility or remorse, which is certainly due to the long-lost moral and ethical values. The key figures in global leadership, influencing not only the dynamics of the Olympics but also involved in the genocide, are not only supporters but also enablers. The culprit in question is the institutionalized West, which created for itself a geopolitical bastard called Israel, and now they have to cope with the monster.

Indeed, these are the genocidal Olympic Games and most of the powers behind them have the Palestinian blood on their hands. One then should not be surprised that – for example – France is not allowing its Olympic athletes to wear the hijab headscarf, and that Israel’s Olympic flag-carrier wrote messages on bombs bound for Gaza. These are but ramifications of a higher order of things that preside over the moral fiber of the Games. They are neither the first nor last ones.

This is in stark contrast with one of the fundamental principles of Olympism as enshrined in the Olympic Charter. The principle reads: “The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Olympic Charter shall be secured without discrimination of any kind, such as race, color, sex, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”

One wonders, after all, who really wants to play, watch, or enjoy the Games. Ready for the Games is only he who is detached from reality, having hitherto been brainwashed either by the corrupt global media outlets or his dishonest and inept government. In the midst of all humanity’s problems, now is not the time to worsen local or regional nationalist feelings, to add to the confusion and misguidance of the masses, to promote immorality and sin, and to waste national and global resources on small segments of society while the majority still struggle to make ends meet. Our heroes should be individuals who are dedicated to advancing the well-being of society and making the earth a better place. This includes righteous leaders, intellectuals, scientists, inventors, educators and sages. Athletes, media personalities, entertainers, tycoons, bureaucrats and politicians should only be considered heroes if their characters and actions align with this matrix.

Finally, some may argue that these are just games, so why attach all these concerns to them? The answer is simple. While games in general may be seen that way, the Olympic Games are different. Since the beginning, the Olympics has been infused with ideology. It has always had religious or ideological undertones. As a matter of fact, religion and ideology were the driving forces behind the creation and sustainability of the Games, rather than the Games themselves being the catalyst. This is quite logical, as humans, unlike animals that rely on instinct, typically behave in sync with their adopted worldview, along with a specific set of values and beliefs. This inclination leads to a motivation to shape one’s life congruent with that worldview. The Olympic Games were always the effect; the underlying causes were the religious, philosophical, and sociopolitical currents that permeated them.

The France 2024 Olympics’ opening ceremony provided undeniable evidence of humanity’s moral and religious decline, signaling a lack of reverence for the past and uncertainty about the future. This troubling trend does not bode well for the long-term well-being of humanity and its collective sanity.***

(Dr. Spahic Omer is Associate Professor in the Department of History and Civilisation of the AbdulHamid AbuSulayman Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences at the International Islamic University Malaysia.)