Political Correctness at the Olympics

The hypocrisy of the IOC in refusing to allow a minute of silence for the murdered Israeli athletes has been well covered elsewhere. But what shocked me about last night's ceremony was that there was clearly plenty of opportunity to insert a tribute without having to get into a debate with the IOC about a minute of silence. When the ceremony included a 'moment of reflection where we remember those who are no longer with us' I thought that at least now we were going to see some acknowledgement in front of the world. But what we got were simply hundreds of pictures of unspecified people (who apparently were dead relatives of spectators along with victims of the London bombings). Why those dead people are more relevant to the Olympic games than athletes actually murdered at the Games I do not know. And, contrary to the previous claim that there was no time for a tribute to the murdered Israelis, I reckon that this 'wall of reflection',  together with the singing of 'Abide with me' that followed lasted about 7 minutes.

There was also a second opportunity at the end to acknowledge the dead Israelis by including, among the people selected to hold the Olympic flag at the climax, Ankie Spitzer (wife of murdered athlete and campaigner for Olympics remembrance). Instead - to fit in with the political correctness of the whole event - we got a selection of people who are supposed to have 'worked against racism'. All - apart from - the ludicrous Ban ki-Moon (the totally useless UN president) and Daniel Barenboim (more of him below) were black and they included the truly bizarre choices of: Shami Chakrabarti (President of 'Liberty') who is best known for her opposition to any attempts to limit the free movement of known Jihadist terrorists, and Doreen Lawrence who is the mother of a murdered black teenager who fought to get his white murderers convicted. Doreen Lawrence is, no doubt, a decent woman but why her attempt to get justice for her murdered loved one is more important or relevant than Ankie Spitzer's - or indeed than hundreds of other mother's of murdered teenagers in the UK I do not know. No doubt a mother of a white murdered teenager who fights to get his black murderers convicted would be called a racist rather than a promoter of anti-racism. The choice of Daniel Barenboim was the ultimate insult to the Israelis. Here is an 'Israeli Jew' who hates Israel so much that he has taken on Palestinian citizenship.

Ultimately, therefore, the blame for the failure to insert some remembrance to the murdered athletes last night  goes not to the anti-Semites of the IOC but to the British organisers of the ceremony. If David Cameron truly wanted the memorial to the Israelis - as he has claimed - and if Danny Boyle truly was the obsessive anti-racist campaigner that he claims to be, then how comes their conviction failed to produce even the tiniest acknowledgement in a ceremony which they - and not the IOC - had total control over?  All it would have taken was a single image on that large screen showing the faces of the 11 murdered Israelis and the words "Israeli athletes murdered at Olympic Games 1972".

But of course, like most left-wing 'anti-racists' there are some forms of racism that Danny Boyle is blind to and that is racism against the Jews (the other is racism by Muslims against anybody).

p.s. on a completely separate note regarding the political correctness of the ceremony it was interesting that the centrepiece was a Soviet style tribute to the National Health Service. As Andrew Gilligan comments today:

The idea of the Health Service as a beacon for the world is, bluntly, a national self-delusion. Most other Western European countries have better state healthcare systems – and healthier people – than we do.

And far superior medical treatment is available in the US where there is only very limited 'public' funding (at least until Obama gets his way to make the American system as bad as the British).