Olympic dream and reality

It’s exactly a year since inner-city riots swept London and other parts of the country. They were sparked by bottled-up anger at the arrogance of the police and rapidly spread into a brief orgy of looting and general destructiveness that took many, including the police, by surprise.

As the medals stack up, politicians backed up by the tabloids are hailing the London Olympics as a great British success story draped in endless Union Jacks. So does the hiatus as millions are drawn into the spectacle mean that the alienation which lay behind the riots has been replaced by a new sense of community, as some would have it?

It’s true that the London Olympics are a showcase for aspects of the British character and mass behaviour not normally apparent in the hardscrabble struggles of daily life. In addition to the prowess of the athletes, thousands of young people have made it as a chance to be friendly and helpful to visitors.

It may be asked where has this great surge of sporting talent and determination, which saw British athletes win six gold medals in one day, come from?

It all starts with an inherent desire in people to excel and to prove that the extraordinary can be achieved. Add to this the support of an enthusiastic home crowd which helped lift some athletes to excel beyond expectations.

Incredible dedication is vital to take part in the Olympics, let alone win a medal. But determination on its own is only half the story. A huge amount of long-term team-work is required, involving coaches, psychiatrists, dieticians, sports medics, good facilities and – last but not least financial resources.

The chief medal successes so far are in rowing and cycling. These sports are based on a hot-house regime involving a scientific approach to training. Much of this was financed by the National Lottery.  So, behind the fantasy of a “level playing field” where all you need is talent and determination are more complex and often harsher realities. 

The top medal winners tell a different story of countries and sponsors prepared to dedicate serious money for sporting achievement. Poor countries like Bangla Desh and most of Africa simply don’t get a look in. “Blade Runner” Pistorius is indeed an inspiration – but he attended a historically white school with lavish playing fields.

It is far from being down to some mythical British work ethic and “sense of belonging” as The Guardian’s Jackie Ashley believes. The Olympics have cost some £9.3bn of taxpayers’ money. This is an amount that many small nations could not even dream of. It has been lashed out by successive governments at a time when the prime minister says austerity cuts could last until 2020 and beyond.

The Olympics do offer a glimpse of the unlimited nature of human potential and brilliant organisation. But it is a limited operation which applies only for a short time. The reality of austerity and economic crisis has not gone away. Italy’s prime minister Mario Monti has warned of a “psychological break-up of Europe” due to the Eurozone crisis even while the Chinese economy continues to slow down.

For the global corporations the Olympics are purely and simply a desperately needed form of marketing. Seventeen-year-old US gymnastics champion Gabrielle Douglas, for example, was signed by Procter and Gamble before the London Games. Soon to be the face on Kelloggs Cornflakes boxes, she is seen as “having the potential to earn millions” by sponsorship consultants. Jessica Ennis’ website says she is “is proud to be sponsored by several popular brands” – they include BP, Adidas, Omega and British Airways.

Behind the conditions that produced last year’s riots was a general contempt for the political system. State institutions and the custodians of law and order are seen as preserving the status quo of corporate power. The Olympics will do nothing to give them credibility.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

The best and worst of London 2012

London’s Olympics sum up a great deal that is brilliant about modern Britain. But, as the first few days’ events are broadcast, some harsh realities are breaking through the extraordinary magic of the opening ceremony.

There can be no doubt that the magnificent pageant in the new stadium was a spectacular achievement. The script, choreography and orchestration of a cast of many thousands included computer-generated imagery with 70,000 “paddles” to create moving images around the stadium came together in a communal effort to make for a memorable display.

To stage the £27 million event, Slum Dog Millionaire director Danny Boyle put together an expert team including writer Frank Cottrell Boyce. He says that Danny Boyle created a democratic space where no one was afraid to speak out. The creative team “worked so closely they were practically a hive mind”.

The result was a vision of Britain free of bombast and full of imagination and humour. It was a compressed story of rural orgins to the satanic mills of the industrial revolution. Poet William Blake’s anthem, Jerusalem, sung by a deaf and hearing Kaos children’s choir, could not fail to move.

The frenetic energy of 19^th century capitalism was re-enacted by thousands of

performers dressed in poor workers’ outfits with black suited, top hatted bosses extracting their profits. The cranking up of four gigantic factory chimneys in the stadium was a high point as they belched out smoke. The account of history included trade unionists, workers  and suffragettes demonstrating for their rights.

Then there was the evocation of children’s stories like Peter Pan and Mary Poppins, as reality and fantasy sprang up in rapid sequence. The pageant seggued into the 20^th century with hundreds of dazzling white hospital beds, with comforting nurses seeing off frightening fairy tale monsters. It was enhanced by magically winged cyclists, decades of pop music, projected on to a domestic home, climaxed by Internet guru Tim Berners Lee and Grime singer Dizzie Rascal.

Some have criticised the ceremony’s thrust as too Marxist, left wing and multicultural. Tory MP Aidan Burley’s tweeted that the “it was “the most leftie opening ceremony” he had ever seen, and too overtly political and multicultural. (Cameron sacked Burley last year from his parliamentary post for attending a Nazi-themed party).

But after the euphoric dream back to reality. The spectacular sports performances could not hide large banks of empty seats, particularly in the best areas reserved for high price tickets and sponsors. Yesterday thousands of seats were left vacant even though fans had been told sessions were sold out. 

Embarrassed Locog organisers are desperately trying to fill seats with troops, students and teachers, but the cat was let out of the bag by culture secretary Jeremy Hunt who said that many of the sponsors and media members had not bothered to use their freebies. This was adding insult to injury considering that Britain’s leading black newspaper, the east London based The Voice did not get a single media pass and most Londoners could not obtain or afford admission.

And that’s not the only ugly aspect of the games. Tyrants from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, China, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Sudan, Uzbekistan, Rwanda and Swaziland are being giving VIP treatment of course. Behind the Queen’s cuddly image is her real alliance with these monsters.  Such as Dow Chemicals who sponsored the stadium’s “wrap”. Dow was responsible for the death of thousands of slump dwellers in Bhopal, India.

Not to mention McDonalds, Visa and Coca Cola who, with the enthusiastic help of the state, have established a brand dictatorship in the Olympic zones. Or the police who can arrest at will, as they did with some 182 cyclists on Friday.

It is too early to say what the lasting legacy of the Games will be. But whilst London 2012 will go down as the most commercially dominated and undemocratic Olympics in British history, it also demonstrates the potential of resources combined with will and imagination. It’s well past the time when humanity needs freeing from the monstrous prison of corporatocracy.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

Walking blindfold over the precipice

The title of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, seems to sum up what is happening at British universities and in the wider world, as cuts in funding for the arts takes its toll.

Prominent cultural and academic figures have expressed their fears about the impact of government spending cuts on universities. “The challenges facing the country and the world cannot be addressed without the arts and humanities,” they say. “Subjects such as literature, philosophy and history teach students to look at the world from a different perspective, to challenge ideas and communicate effectively, to bring the flexibility and imagination that employers need and welcome.”

New Labour has different ideas, however, evidenced by the fact that £600 million cuts in university spending were announced by the Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson. He wants much closer relationships between universities and business, switching resources from arts and humanities. For example, London’s art colleges have had a 35% cut in research resources because they are not deemed to contribute as much to the economy as, say, science subjects.

Luminaries who have joined the fray in The Observer include Geoffrey Crossick of London’s Goldsmiths College, the University of the Arts; Nicholas Penny, director of the National Gallery; Rick Trainor, principal, King's College London; Sir Nicholas Kenyon, managing director, the Barbican; Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery and other top university and arts leaders. Protests have begun. Students at the University of Sussex have launched weekly protests and a Facebook protest is active against cuts at King’s College, London.

There are other serious straws in the wind. The Northcott Theatre in Exeter has gone into administration and there is a major crisis at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London. The ICA has played a pioneering role since its formation by in 1947 but is now struggling on an operating deficit of around £1m. The Arts Council is not committing itself to a bail-out. One third of the 78 full-time and 32 part-time jobs are expected to be slashed.

Although its predicament is not directly attributable to cuts, the ICA’s fundraising efforts have reflected the effects of the recession – and the turn away from cutting edge, experimental arts programming. The ICA’s crisis is symptomatic of how cuts and censorship go together. There have recently been significant programming shifts by top institutions like the National Gallery towards a much more artistically conservative direction. Meanwhile safe blockbusters are used to generate income with huge admission fees.

Perhaps the biggest shock has come in Canada, where the Winter Olympics have just closed. After spending untold millions on the Games, British Columbia is cutting public spending on the arts by 88%, to the shock and horror of its practitioners. One playwright, Mark Leiren-Young says: “That’s not belt-tightening – that’s premeditated murder by strangulation.”

Writer Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaiden’s Tale and Year of the Flood, has noted that hostility to the arts has a sinister subtext: censorship and “control over the story through the annihilation of the story tellers”.

The Observer letter writers appeal for arts and humanities spending by citing potential economic benefits for employers and the economy. This is walking blindfold over the precipice. If the arts can only be defended on a utilitarian basis, then we are truly doomed.

As Atwood argues, art and culture is part of human evolution itself. The question is what is education and the making of art for? Is it for society as a whole or is it only alright if it can contribute corporate profits? New Labour’s has made its choice. We have to make ours.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

Just Say No

Five waves of the flag, a toss of his flaxen locks and it was done, London had officially taken over from Beijing as the next Olympic city. Boris looked only a little flustered and the eight minute exhibition showcasing British culture managed not to be quite as embarrassing as had been forecast by some, although it was decidedly underwhelming in comparison with the extravagant pageantry of the closing ceremony. Still what can you expect in only eight minutes and with a mere £2.5 million to play with?

The 29th Olympiad is a hard act to follow, even while recognising that there had been a dark side to the Beijing Olympics. However no point in dwelling too much on the negative, like the human rights abuses in today’s China. The point is to look forward to London 2012 and concentrate on the legacy “we” will leave to the world of sport after the London games have drawn to a close. Boris Johnson said as much when he promised, before flying back from Beijing, that "tens of millions of pounds" will be spent to coach and prepare children for the London games. The Mayor proclaimed that the Olympics would provide "a massive sporting legacy for London" saying he wanted to "ring-fence" the London Development Agency (LDA) for sport to provide the required facilities and the coaching and training opportunities for upcoming young athletes. David Beckham expressed similar hopes.

So why are so many people moaning about rising costs and the disruption to the capital in the four years ahead? Or like Will Self in his Evening Standard column, who opined that "What the Olympics are truly all about is money, nationalism in patriotic garb and a spurious kind of self congratulation." Indeed. Or are those of us who have been pointing to the flaws in the whole enterprise and directing people's attention to the very real social and economic problems already appearing in the areas around the Olympic site, just a lot of brutal kill-joys out to wreck people's enjoyment of a fantastic celebration of sporting prowess?

Well, according to one report: "There is no doubt that the Olympics will bring about permanent change to the economy of East London, the question is what kind of change? Here lies the challenge. The problem is that previous Olympics have failed to help the most economically disadvantaged groups living in the area where the Games have taken place. In the UK, flagship regeneration projects in East London and elsewhere have also failed to improve the well-being of local residents. The Docklands development is the most glaring example."

Will the London Games be any different to "previous Olympics"? From the viewpoint of the present moment it doesn't look like they will. Protest groups are active in Stratford and areas around the site. People are mourning the loss of the Manor Gardens allotments which last year were dug up to make way for an access road to the stadium, a wonderful resource enjoyed and productively worked for generations gone in a matter of hours. A football field where local children played also ploughed up in the interests of "big" sport. So much for the value of healthy outdoor exercise and governmental exhortations to eat the required five a day fruit and veg!

Residents of flats and low rent housing are fighting to protect their homes, not knowing if any compensation offered will be sufficient to pay for homes elsewhere. Exploitative and dangerous labour conditions are another issue. Previous Games including Athens and almost certainly Beijing, have been paid for with the lives of workers killed in the hurried completion of stadia and other facilities. There are also serious environmental concerns and worries about cost, £9.5 billion so far and rising. Causes for complaint? I should think so.

Team GB returned yesterday to tremendous acclaim - quite right that they should be congratulated on their record-breaking haul of medals. When the medal euphoria wears away those who don’t agree with the official consensus that the Olympics will be a terrific boon and benefit, will have to be written off as saddos in need of urgent rehabilitation. But as the British government doesn't have the luxury of the Chinese authorities’ sledgehammer methods of rule, so more subtle methods of "persuasion" will have to be employed. A conformity of opinion will have to be instilled through the media, advertising, enthusiastic endorsements of elite athletes and the active collaboration of sporting bodies. The healthy scepticism of the British public will need to be smothered for the duration of the preparations for the Games to the final triumphant hosting of the 30th Olympiad. Keep the momentum going and the distractions coming.

Resistance needn't be futile however. Increasing numbers of people are pointing to uncomfortable truths and exposing the commercial interests, elitism, arrogance and corruption surrounding the Games. So we needn't be afraid of expressing criticism or of questioning the need for the Olympic spectacle. Sport is good, international sporting events can be valuable in fostering cooperation and understanding between peoples but do we really need this four-yearly over-financed, bloated, ultra-capitalist monstrosity that is the modern Olympics foisted on us in exchange for the dubious privilege of being able to say "The Olympics came to London and all I got was this lousy T-shirt that fell apart in the wash and to top it all, I can't even find anywhere to ride my bike"?

Fiona Harrington

The credit crunch one year on

In the shadows of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, the effects of the slow-motion implosion of the global capitalist economy one year on from the start of the credit crunch are becoming apparent in China. Whilst many factories have been shut, apparently to reduce pollution for the period of the Games, there are questions whether many of them will reopen when the medals have been awarded.

China’s double digit growth rate of recent years, which has driven up world prices for raw materials including metals and oil, has slowed in each of the past four quarters. Six out of 11 economic measures including new orders, export orders and output indexes have seen record lows while 14 out of 20 industries have reported a contraction in output. The recent, rapid decline in the value of the dollar against the Chinese yuan has raised the costs of exports to the US. And profits are falling as Chinese workers press for increases in their ultra-low incomes.

In opening its borders to foreign investment – it surpassed the US as the top destination in 2003 - China provided a seemingly limitless supply of cheap labour to globalising corporations. The result was an overabundance of manufactured commodities. The Chinese government was obliged to fund the US foreign debt that enable American consumers to buy from China what they had previously made at home. Now exports to the US and Europe are in decline.

The end of the globalisation boom – which had been interrupted by an accelerating series of global financial crises throughout its 30-plus years – became apparent from 2004 onwards when hard-pressed American consumers reached the limits of their ability to service the spiralling debt. The resultant credit crunch - when banks stopped lending to each other exactly one year ago today - is no more than a sign of a much, much deeper malaise.

In the UK, the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee remains paralysed by the crisis, unable to reduce interest rates to stimulate the economy for fear of adding to already spiralling prices. New Labour’s hints of measures to breathe life into the housing market seem likely to have the opposite effect – stopping all activity until the October budget statement makes Alistair Darling’s intentions clear. In the UK, household debt is accelerating whilst house prices have fallen by almost 11% over the last twelve months.

Niall Ferguson, the right-wing and revisionist economic and political historian, is certainly not holding his breath about the future. Writing in the Financial Times credit crunch anniversary number, Ferguson notes that US house prices have fallen faster than any time since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Despite capital injections of about $300 billion, shares in at least 40 US banks are down 70% or more and many are set to fail.

“One year on, what began as a US crisis is fast becoming a world crisis. Small wonder only a handful of global equity markets are in positive territory relative to August 2007, while more than half have declined by between 10 and 40 per cent. The US slowdown will also affect many emerging markets less reliant on exports than China. At the same time, the global slowdown is about to kick away the last prop keeping the US recession at bay …. But, as in the 1930s, the critical phase is not the US phase. It is when the crisis goes global that the term ‘credit crunch’ will no longer suffice."

It is not “when” it goes global. Recession is already a global phenomenon beginning to show up in necessarily retrospective statistics. Germany, France and Japan look set to join the lengthening list of economies heading downhill, which already includes the US, Canada, Spain, Ireland, Italy, the UK, the Baltics and New Zealand. As the sub-title of our book A House of Cards, published a few months into the credit crunch, reads, it is a matter of moving “from fantasy finance to global crash”.

Gerry Gold
Economics editor