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| Boris in Beijing 2008 |
With the Olympic games coming up in London 2012, we here at Love (...) in a Cold Climate will have much to muse upon. I thought I'd start things rolling with an informal discussion on "Britishness" and identity. As @IdleHistorian has mentioned in a previous post, when Canada hosted the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, we celebrated the successes of our athletes with such gusto that we managed to change a lot of minds regarding our "niceness." It's hard to forget all the flag-waving (I'm sure there's video evidence of the entire country cheering when Sidney Crosby scored the winning goal v. USA in the hockey gold medal game) or Nikki Yanofsky's "I Believe" on repeat for 14 straight days (NY's song still triggers a Pavlovian response of tears and swelling pride in me. Congratu-well done CTV). While others grumbled, many in the Canadian media were unashamed of the overt expressions of patriotism. In fact, the consensus seemed to be that those two weeks in February became a pivotal moment in nation-building. Canada emerged from a games with greater national confidence than ever before.
Will we see the same sort of unabashed chest-beating to "Rule Britannia" in August? Will Great Britain emerge from the games refreshed and feeling "all in it together"? It's hard to say. From the moment Boris Johnson received the Olympic flag at the 2008 games in Beijing, the public/ popular discourse seemed to express a sense of dread for 2012 more than any other sentiment. The chorus of doubters predicted doom. How would everyone cope with the eternal queues at Heathrow, the increased traffic congestion, and what exactly will the games cost? Many of these anxieties are on display in the BBC series Twenty Twelve starring Hugh Bonneville (who plays the frustrated and ever diplomatic Ian Fletcher) among other stellar cast members each skewering an aspect of the (poor?) planning and (dis-) organization that goes into making the games possible. It's a sentiment that is so well known that they even penetrated American pop culture as seen in an episode of 30 Rock where Wesley Snipes (Michael Sheen) revisits (reluctantly) his "settling-soul mate" Liz Lemon because he can't face returning to London for the Olympics.
Are those who are anxious/ grouchy about the Olympics the same contingent that grumble whenever the royals decide to celebrate lavishly a birthday/ wedding? Or, is this like complaining about English weather? If the forecasts are correct, there will be a great deal of talk about the "rainy isles." Is this about managing expectations? Or, is the general population actually quite happy to have the world descend on the capital for two weeks? It will be interesting in the coming weeks to see the narratives that are constructed because, unlike Kate & William's wedding or the Jubilee, the Olympics steer the attention away from the upper echelons of British society to that of ordinary people who accomplish extraordinary feats. What image of Britain/ Britons will be on display? How will these Olympic games change those images for years to come?
@SloaneScholar1
My friend brings up many excellent point about how British character is intersecting with the Games in very interesting ways. (I particularly enjoy "Wesley Snipes" from 30 Rock ...)
I do think that grumbling and a general Eeyore-ish attitude are classic British. However, in reading the news as of late I note that there are many of the same complaints that riddled the pre-Winter Games here in Vancouver in 2010: corporate intrusion and copyright issues, worries about traffic gridlock and resentment at the special lanes devoted to VIPs and Games participants, concerns over security, general preparedness, and the readiness of the venues and logistics. There have also been some unique challenges in the UK - the security debacle with the private firm G4S and the weather to name only two. It all provides the British with reasons for even more hand-wringing; an excuse to decide ahead of time that it will all be rubbish and to make a joke of it. (See this episode of the great BBC segment OddBox about the rather fun Chap Olympics.
One of the participants explicitly repeats the received wisdom that
Brits are "rubbish" at real sport and therefore must succeed at making
humour of it.)
I don't believe the whole enterprise will be rubbish at all, but the British compulsion to disavow all that is too earnest or serious, and to make a joke of everything, is deep-seated. As SloaneScholar1 reports, this approach was evident from the first instance of Boris Johnson's appearance in Beijing (apparently discombobulating his hosts with his unbuttoned suit and the famous disheveled hair). We won't try too hard, was the general feeling, but we will have fun and eccentricity and put a truly British stamp on the proceedings. And why not? "Team GB" may even manage the very unBritish feat of excelling at sport.
One cannot end such a post with anything other than a video of Boris Johnson proclaiming that "wiff waff is coming home to Britain":
@idlehistorian
The Great Exhibition of 1851 is often
featured in history books as a singular event that showcased Britain’s pre-eminence
on the global stage, while reflecting the state and character of the nation. (Spoiler
alert: Britain was imperial, modernizing and ambitious. Oh, and obsessed with
free trade capitalism, and not wild about the poor.)
Will future historians use the London Games
in the same way? When scholars interrogate and mine this event to learn about
the culture and politics of Britain in 2012, will this be they’ll find?
A reluctant patriotism?
Are celebrations of Britishness doused by a
general feeling that it is rather ‘American’ to be overly ‘sentimental’ about such
things, or is it the ghosts of imperial past that make chants of Rule Britannia
seem inappropriate? The Royal Wedding and Jubilee saw Union Jacks out proudly,
but those symbols are in keeping with monarchy in a way they have begun to
conflict with ‘nation’ – especially as ‘Team GB’ contains three separate
nationalisms.
A sense of nation may not be as strong now as
in 1851, but neither are the actual workings of the state to physically pull
these Games together.
Government Inadequacy
The security failings by the Home Office that have come to light this week are
absolutely staggering. After seven years of planning and millions of pounds
spent, two weeks out from the Games there are reports of MASSIVE failings in
security. After being rushed in from other departments to ease the massive
immigration queues at Heathrow, new Border Patrol agents have failed to screen
active terror suspects. The Guardian reports that they missed as many as five
in one day of actual (not test!) screenings. The G4S debacle would be comical
if it wasn’t so potentially dangerous. But the biggest nightmare of all is the
impending transport apocalypse that is about to descend on London. One minister
said that it would be like 16 consecutive days of New Years Eve, football
finals and Royal Weddings. This
can only have a dousing effect on Olympic festivities, and should lead to many
outcries about how a system that already operates at nearly peak capacity was
expected to cope with such a massive influx of athletes and tourists and
journalists. Seeing the ramp up in transit usage two weeks out from the Games
has turned me from excited ticket holder to firm believer that Tessa Jowell is The
Biggest Moron Ever To Sit In A Labour Cabinet Ever for actually thinking London
could host an Olympics. The infrastructure simply cannot cope.
When the world comes to London, they may
just find a city stretched to the brink.
London’s confused twenty-first century
identity
I think they will also find a few different Londons competing for
definition. There’s the Victorian skeleton of a former-imperial metropolis, an
extraordinarily vibrant multi-cultural and multi-ethnic cosmopolis, and a busy
hub of neo-feudal, global capitalism.
Whoever selected the terrible LOCOG logo
seems to be trying to align the games with my favourite London: the
multi-cultural cosmopolis. It kind of looks like it’s supposed to be a graffiti
hash tag? Kind of? The fact that it resembles not much of anything points to
the difficulty of defining contemporary London. Vancouver used the Inukshuk as
its symbol (conveniently overlooking the repression of the native culture that
created it) to represent Canada’s history of friendship. But London 2012
doesn’t want to be tied to a lion or union jack or any other symbol of obvious
patriotism, it is a place with new ideas and new art and new cultures emerging
out of the collision of old ones. Except that every time I look at the logo, I
don’t get a sense that it is a genuine reflection of this spirit of the
city. I see the spirit of The
City. I imagine a room full of corporate group-thinkers deciding, “Hmm, this looks
new and different, and maybe even passably vibrant. This is the deliberate, generic
brand we want use to market our city for global consumption.”
And this is the side of London that will
seem preeminent during the Olympics. The vehicles of corporate sponsors will be
seen whizzing by the plebs in the designated Olympic Lanes, army officers will
confiscate your off brand snacks and gear and credit cards at entrance gates to
events. Pubs using the words “Summer” and “Olympics” in their sidewalk signs
advertising that the games are playing inside will be liable to suits from theIOC for copyright infringement, and British chips will not be sold on Olympic grounds because they infringe on the rights secured by McDonalds to be the only fried potato vendor on the planet.
With the ominous Shard looming over London, there will be no confusion
about who owns this city.
And with that… I’m going to try cheer up
before I go see tennis at Wimbledon and get to stuff my face full of corporate
sponsored strawberries & cream.
H.
