tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/park-chung-hee-29736/articlesPark Chung-Hee – The Conversation2016-11-18T07:24:10Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/687222016-11-18T07:24:10Z2016-11-18T07:24:10ZWhat you should know about South Korea’s political scandal: the same old story – but with a twist?<p>The <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/south-korean-president-scandal-explained-5-facts-about-controversy-surrounding-park-2441604">allegations involving South Korean President Park Geun-hye</a> and her friend of 40 years, Choi Soon-Sil, has all the hallmarks of an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/nov/02/south-korea-explainer-park-guen-hye-six-key-points-scandal-choi-soon-sil">old-fashioned scandal</a> in the country. But things are nonetheless <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/south-korea-protests-park-geun-hye-exit_us_582b3b57e4b060adb57063e1">not looking good</a> for the president.</p>
<p>The plotline is mundane: <a href="http://www.wsj.com/video/south-korean-presidents-influence-scandal-explained/672143F7-D107-4FCA-9708-3C702BB3C041.html">Choi allegedly extorted US$69 million</a> from South Korean conglomerates (known as <em>chaebol</em>), including Samsung, Hyundai, LG, Lotte, and others, for personal use – in the form of donations to two foundations she controlled.</p>
<p>If this is true, it has certainly happened before. The practice of <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/intellect/tmsd/2010/00000009/00000002/art00001">extracting slush funds from <em>chaebol</em></a> is called rent-sharing.</p>
<p>In the past, it has involved companies paying large amounts of money to the president to obtain monopoly rights, gain access to government capital, garner patents, avoid sanctions or punishments, and secure tax reductions. But since thoses bribes were often too big for financially troubled <em>chaebol</em>, they found it necessary to increase their size to multiply their earning capacity. One way to enhance revenue was to invest <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Handbook-of-Modern-Korean-History/Seth/p/book/9780415739313">heavily in new technologies while suppressing unions</a> and their demands for higher wages.</p>
<p>Ultimately, both the <em>chaebol</em> and the corrupt past governments were delighted with the result of rent-sharing. Gross domestic product rapidly increased due to massive exports of high-tech goods to foreign countries at cheap prices. And <a href="http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BB22310104?l=en">rent-sharing became a driver of economic growth</a>. </p>
<h2>A long tradition</h2>
<p>Rent-sharing was <a href="http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BB22310104?l=en">first devised</a> during the reign of Park Chung-hee (1961-1979), the current president’s late father. During his military dictatorship, no one could openly say anything about his friendship with <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/world/asia/south-koreans-ashamed-over-les-secretive-adviser.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FPark%20Geun-hye&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=collection">Choi Soon-Sil’s father, Choi Tae-Min</a>, the founder of an obscure sect called the Church of Eternal Life, and later, Crusaders to Save the Nation. </p>
<p>Reverend Choi allegedly had <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/south-koreas-president-in-crisis-over-corruption-scandals/5554630">undue influence over the dictator</a>. And when <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/world/asia/south-korea-choi-soon-sil.html">Park Chung-Hee was assassinated</a> by the chief of the Korea Central Intelligence Agency in 1979, <a href="https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/KDP_Report_(final)-1.pdf">pro-democracy movements led by student activists</a> sprouted up all over the country, calling for the imprisonment of all corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, and <em>chaebol</em> owners.</p>
<p>Democratisation finally happened in 1987, after a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/22/world/south-korea-indicts-2-former-presidents-in-staging-of-1979-coup.html">second military coup in 1979</a> and the <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/05/17/asia-pacific/politics-diplomacy-asia-pacific/dying-democracy-1980-gwangju-uprising-transformed-south-korea/#.WCwi4qJ94dU">massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators</a> in the southern city of Kwangju in 1980. Despite full democratic reforms that allowed the election of civilian leaders to the presidential palace, the Blue House, civilian presidents continued to imitate the late dictator Park’s rent-sharing practices.</p>
<p>President Roh Tae Woo (1988-1992) was <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1995-11-17/news/mn-4124_1_roh-tae-woo">indicted and found guilty</a> of raising <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/17/world/ex-president-of-south-korea-is-arrested-and-apologizes-in-a-hugebribery-scandal.html">US$650 million from <em>chaebol</em> owners</a>. </p>
<p>Nobel Peace Prize-winning president Kim Dae-Jung (1998-2002) ended up having to <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1970051.stm">leave the party he founded</a> after his <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2590389.stm">three sons and close aides were found guilty of collecting money</a> from <em>chaebol</em>. The case of president Roh Moo-hyun (2003-2008) was the most tragic of all – he <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/may/24/south-korea-former-president-suicide">committed suicide while facing allegations</a> of taking US$6 million in bribes.</p>
<h2>Egregious allegations</h2>
<p>Despite its commonplace theme, the Park Geun-hye allegations seem particularly egregious to many South Koreans because it reminds them of her father’s – and Choi’s father’s – alleged misdeeds. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/world/asia/south-koreans-ashamed-over-les-secretive-adviser.html">They are embarrassed about this seemingly unending saga</a> consuming the unlikely figure of President Park, whose father is thought to have been assassinated for corruption that involved Choi’s father. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3930384/One-million-protesters-streets-call-South-Korean-president-stand-scandal-involving-shadowy-female-aide-links-shamanistic-cult.html">Park is refusing to step down</a> from the presidency despite <a href="http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201611120038.html">700,000 demonstrators demanding she do so</a> on November 12. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/01/choi-soon-sil-arrested-made-in-south-korean-presidential-cronyism-scandal">Choi Soon-Sil has been arrested</a> as have <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-06/park-s-former-aides-arrested-as-protesters-demand-resignation">two of Park’s former aides</a>. And, in <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37966494">a first for South Korean political history</a>, a sitting president is likely to be interrogated by prosecutors. But Park is <a href="http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1018254.shtml">doing all she can</a> to avoid this.</p>
<p>Park is accused of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/world/asia/south-koreans-ashamed-over-les-secretive-adviser.html">organising the Blue House for Choi’s rent-sharing practices</a>. Choi, who didn’t have any public position in the government, is alleged to have been given presidential power, even as Park <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/world/asia/south-koreans-ashamed-over-les-secretive-adviser.html?_r=0">severed ties with her own brother and sister</a>. What’s more, the alleged bribes collected would not have directly benefited Park; <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/nov/02/south-korea-explainer-park-guen-hye-six-key-points-scandal-choi-soon-sil">but it would have benefited Choi</a> and her allies.</p>
<p>Park has been described as Choi’s “<a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/31/asia/south-korea-reshuffle/">puppet</a>”, and protesters keep portraying her as such.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">South Korean protestors depict President Park Guen-Hye as her friend Choi Soon-Sil’s puppet.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Running out of time</h2>
<p>In September, the <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/09/28/asia-pacific/crime-legal-asia-pacific/tough-anti-corruption-law-takes-effect-south-korea/#.WCwvc6J94dU">South Korean legislature implemented an anti-graft law</a> (also known as the Kim Young-Ran law after the judge who drafted it) aiming to stop gift-giving in exchange for public or private preferences. It’s now discussing a new law that would <a href="http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20161107000862">allow the government to confiscate all illicit wealth</a> accrued by rent-sharing. </p>
<p>It’s unclear whether President Park Geun-hye will step down soon, if at all (her <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/world/asia/south-korea-constitution-park-geun-hye.html">one five-year term expires in February 2018</a>). Angry voters are promising to hold more rallies. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.ecns.cn/2016/11-16/234144.shtml">Opposition and some former ruling party members are joining together</a> to start an official impeachment process in the National Assembly. And <a href="http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2016/11/07/64/0200000000AEN20161107002800315F.html">leaders of the ruling Saenuri Party</a>, who refused to resign have now been completely deserted by party members openly siding with the opposition in calling for impeachment. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the prosecutor’s office has summoned <a href="http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2016/11/116_218172.html">key Blue House staff</a>, <em>chaebol</em> <a href="http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2016/11/602_218076.html">owners who are suspected of having giving funds</a> to Choi Soon-Sil and her friends, and <a href="http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=3026151&cloc=joongangdaily%7Chome%7Cnewslist1">the president herself</a>. </p>
<p>Park’s room for manoeuvre is quickly vanishing, although she’s trying hard to find a way to save face by not resigning. But current political leaders are unanimous that the president should be <a href="http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/770227.html">impeached if she doesn’t voluntarily step down</a>. </p>
<p>Park’s time is running out. She might soon have to offer her third apology to the nation, this time with her final decision.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68722/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ingyu Oh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Korean President Park Geun-Hye may be about to become the first national leader to be questioned by prosecutors while still in office.Ingyu Oh, Professor of Sociology, Korea UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/680042016-11-15T12:21:41Z2016-11-15T12:21:41ZSouth Korea’s president is facing an uncertain future of protest and scrutiny<p>Political upheaval, mass protest, and an unpopular president facing a criminal investigation. No, not the US after the election of Donald Trump – but the very messy current situation in the public life of South Korea.</p>
<p>The government there has been led by President <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Park-Geun-Hye">Park Geun-hye</a> for the past four years. A leading member of the conservative Saenuri party, she also happens to be the daughter of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Park-Chung-Hee">Park Chung-hee</a>, the head of the country’s Cold War military dictatorship. </p>
<p>In stark contrast to her father, Park is considered a rather demure figure, reliant on her aides to formulate and implement policy. But her government was suddenly <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-37966494">thrown into a full-blown crisis</a> that has brought about a total paralysis of her presidency. </p>
<p>In October 2016 files on a discarded laptop revealed that a friend of the president (who held no public office) had been given access to confidential policy documents and briefings, provided political advice, and edited her speeches. The friend and confidante in question was <a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/choi-soon-sil-woman-heart-080713243.html">Choi Soon-sil</a>, who also happens to be the daughter of another famous South Korean man – cult leader <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-37820112">Choi Tae-min</a>, founder of the Church of Eternal Life. </p>
<p>The revelation generated a huge wave of public revulsion against the 64-year-old president. Her public approval rating plummeted, there have been <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/protesters-demand-south-korean-president-park-geun-hye-resign-10654681">public demonstrations</a> – one million people gathered on the streets of Seoul to demand her resignation – and she is facing a criminal investigation, all because of the company she keeps.</p>
<p>The fathers of both women were also closely linked. Choi Tae-min or “Pastor” Choi was known to have been influential with former president, Park Chung-hee. The latter’s assassin <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kim-Jae-Kyu">even claimed</a> that Choi’s influence was one of the reasons he killed him. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145784/original/image-20161114-5108-1ghssqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145784/original/image-20161114-5108-1ghssqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145784/original/image-20161114-5108-1ghssqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145784/original/image-20161114-5108-1ghssqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145784/original/image-20161114-5108-1ghssqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1174&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145784/original/image-20161114-5108-1ghssqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1174&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145784/original/image-20161114-5108-1ghssqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1174&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Former president Park Chung-hee.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>As long time family friends, the current president developed a close relationship with Choi and his daughter. The suspicion held by many South Koreans after the laptop revelations is that their president was manipulated by Choi Soon-sil and that the cult had acquired control over their country. </p>
<p>The other suspicion is that Choi Soon-sil, 60, abused her relationship with President Park for personal gain. Choi’s daughter appears to have received favourable treatment to gain admission to the <a href="http://www.topuniversities.com/universities/ewha-womans-university/undergrad">Ewha Women’s University</a> despite insufficient grades. The president of the university has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/31/south-korean-scandal-choi-soon-sil-pleads-for-forgiveness">since resigned</a>.</p>
<p>More importantly, it is <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/south-korea-president-park-geun-hye-friend-choi-soon-sil-arrested-scandal/">alleged in the media</a> that she used her links to President Park to obtain US$70m in donations from Korean industrial conglomerates for her two foundations, promoting Korean culture and sports. </p>
<p>It <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/south-korea-president-park-friend-choi-detained-161101043358269.html">has also been suggested</a> that substantial amounts went into Choi’s personal accounts and that her staff have been directly involved in the review of presidential policy documents.</p>
<p>The political shock generated by this affair has reverberated around the establishment. The lawmakers of the ruling party have been left reeling while the opposition continue to call for the resignation of the president. </p>
<p>What is particularly remarkable is the response of the South Korean people. Until this point Park had been viewed as a rather uninspiring but unusually clean politician. The scandal has shaken the nation to its core and has given rise to a complete collapse in trust for the highest political office. </p>
<p>President Park made a brief and rather <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-04/park-says-hard-to-forgive-myself-for-political-scandal/7996376">contrite apology</a> as the political storm clouds were gathering. And in order to stem the rising tide of demands for her resignation, she has replaced key government officials including the prime minister. </p>
<p>But so far there is no sign that these measures are sufficient to mitigate the scandal and the political establishment is openly unwilling to accept the government’s authority. This is creating a state of political paralysis without any obvious route of escape. </p>
<h2>Seoul searching</h2>
<p>It is possible that the National Assembly will vote to impeach President Park, but there is no clearly established mechanism to put in place an interim president until the elections in 2017. There is a serious risk that the South Korean government will remain dysfunctional until then. </p>
<p>For the Republic of Korea this would be extremely damaging given the constant provocations from North Korea and the challenges facing the South Korean economy in the wake of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/something-good-could-actually-come-from-samsungs-battery-disaster-67272">woes of Samsung</a>. </p>
<p>Even since the transition to democracy, every South Korean president has left office leaving scandals in their wake. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kim-Dae-Jung">Kim Dae-jung</a> was damaged in 2003 by the revelation that a very large sum of money was paid to North Korea in order to secure an historic summit, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Roh-Tae-Woo">Roh Tae-woo</a> went to prison for corruption in 1996, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Roh-Moo-Hyun">Roh Moo-hyun</a> killed himself in 2009 in order to escape an investigation of his family for receiving substantial illicit donations. </p>
<p>Park, however, is the first to face a major scandal while still in office.</p>
<p>For the Saenuri party, which considers itself the natural party of government in the Republic of Korea, this situation is a catastrophe. It has no plausible candidate for the forthcoming president elections and its only salvation might be if <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/what-has-ban-ki-moon-done-for-the-world/">outgoing UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon</a> were to run as a Saenuri candidate. </p>
<p>The fact that he has been absent from South Korean politics for so long and has such a high international reputation may enable him to garner support in the hope that he will somehow redeem the institution of the presidency. But for the foreseeable future there is little escape from the existential crisis that the South Korean political system has suddenly fallen into.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christoph Bluth received funding from Korea Foundation to study South Korea's National Security Policy. Similar funding was received from the Academy of Korean Studies. This funding was for impartial research, not linked to or supporting any political organisation.</span></em></p>The president of South Korea has been accused of choosing her friends poorly.Christoph Bluth, Professor of International Relations and Security, University of BradfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/619042016-07-27T10:44:33Z2016-07-27T10:44:33ZAll the Olympics are a stage, and all the athletes merely players: the rich history of the modern Games<p>The Olympics transfix us. Six in every ten people in the world – including both you, dear reader, and me – watched the London 2012 Olympics. Use of the word Olympics increased in relative frequency 3,300% between 1924 and 1984. But what are the Olympics to us, how are we to read them socially and politically?</p>
<p>The Olympic Games are a theatre — sometimes farce, sometimes tragedy, theatre of the absurd, opera buffa, reality TV, morality play or soap opera — where geopolitical, social and technological dramas are played out. </p>
<p>The Olympic village (which first appeared in the 1932 Los Angeles Games) is itself a microworld, where all nationalities, creeds and colours come together and everyday dramas of sex, politics, human achievement and human weakness are played out. </p>
<p>Olympic competition is itself a media-constructed reality.</p>
<h2>The Olympics as cinema</h2>
<p>There’s always been an easy spillover between the Olympics and the mass media. Athletes have slipped seamlessly into media celebrity. Olympic weightlifter Harold Sakata won a silver medal in the 1948 London Olympics, but became better known as Oddjob in the James Bond film Goldfinger. </p>
<p>Less known is British freestyle wrestler Ken Richmond, the bloke who bangs the huge bronze gong at the start of J. Arthur Rank films. Appropriately, he won a bronze medal at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.</p>
<p>But cinematic links with the Olympics go much further back. Norwegian figure skater Sonja Henie (gold medallist in three successive Olympics from 1928) became one of the highest-paid actors in the world. </p>
<p>Buster Crabbe (US gold medallist swimmer 1932) appeared in over 100 movies. Like Crabbe, shot-putter Herman Brix (silver medal, Amsterdam 1928), swimmer Johnny Weissmuller (five gold medals 1924-1928) and decathlete champion Glenn Morris (1936) all appeared as Tarzan, the last <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarzan%27s_Revenge">alongside US Olympic swimmer Eleanor Holm</a> (1928 and 1932). </p>
<p>Weissmuller, fondly remembered by children of my generation as Jungle Jim, featured in Tarzan’s celebrated <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bc7KDyLV80">nude swim</a>, ostensibly with Maureen O’Sullivan, but actually with stand-in Olympic and world champion swimmer Josephine McKim.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131918/original/image-20160726-31198-zdapaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131918/original/image-20160726-31198-zdapaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131918/original/image-20160726-31198-zdapaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131918/original/image-20160726-31198-zdapaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131918/original/image-20160726-31198-zdapaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131918/original/image-20160726-31198-zdapaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131918/original/image-20160726-31198-zdapaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Buster Crabbe, US gold medallist, in Tarzan the Fearless (1933).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tom Simpson/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>The Olympics have also been the subject <em>of</em> film. Glenn “Tarzan” Morris also appeared in Leni Riefenstahl’s superb documentary of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030522/">Olympia (1938)</a>, considered one of the best films ever made. </p>
<p>The classic <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082158/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Chariots of Fire (1981)</a> was a morality play looking at the clash of spiritual and worldly values, when the evangelical Scottish athlete Eric Liddell refused to run on Sunday and sacrificed his chance of winning the 100-metre sprint. Liddell later returned to his birthplace in China as a missionary, only to die in a Japanese internment camp weeks before the liberation. </p>
<p>Spielberg’s dark <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0408306/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Munich (2005)</a> explored the massacre of Israeli athletes in the 1972 Munich Games, and more recently <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106611/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Cool Runnings (1993)</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1083452/">Eddie the Eagle (2016)</a> have recounted some of the farcical aspects of the Games – the equally improbable efforts of a Jamaican bobsleigh team and an English ski-jumper.</p>
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</figure>
<p>Even Olympic venues are like film sets, scattered across the world’s most exotic destinations from Paris to Rio. Just like film sets, they’re often improvised and dismantled soon after the Games have finished. </p>
<p>Hitler’s architect, Albert Speer, improvised the 1936 Olympic stadium using 152 anti-aircraft searchlights pointed straight upwards. The <a href="http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/37/3/Teil_2.pdf">Lichtdom</a>, said British ambassador Sir Nevile Henderson, was “like being inside a cathedral of ice”. </p>
<p>Hermann Göring, never a fan of high art (“Whenever I hear the word ‘culture’, I reach for my revolver”), was unimpressed; Speer had commandeered all the anti-aircraft searchlights in Berlin, leaving the city unprotected. </p>
<p>The Berlin Olympic Village was converted to military barracks soon after the Games; perhaps the Allies should have read the signs. </p>
<h2>… as political drama</h2>
<p>In the ancient Olympics, warring states agreed to lay down their arms and establish an Olympic peace — Pax Olympica. In the modern era, the Games become a stylised working out of geopolitical tensions. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/spirit/english/e_spirit">George Orwell</a> famously described sport as “war without the bullets”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you wanted to add to the vast fund of ill-will existing in the world at this moment, you could hardly do it better than by a series of football matches between Jews and Arabs, Germans and Czechs, Indians and British, Russians and Poles, and Italians and Jugoslavs, each match to be watched by a mixed audience of 100,000 spectators.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Olympic nations represent a kind of global geopolitics in miniature, shifting, coalescing and dividing as global politics change. The old Soviet Union is now represented by 15 national Olympic committees, the former Yugoslavia by seven, and the two Germanies by one. </p>
<p>There are, in fact, more Olympic “nations” – 206 – than there are countries in the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/member-states/">United Nations – 193</a>. </p>
<p>The International Olympic Committee (IOC) crystallises and provides the imprimatur for new geopolitical realities: accepting Japan back into the fold of civilised nations in 1952, and Germany in 1956; rehabilitating South Korea after the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Park_Chung-hee">10.26 assassination</a> of president Park Chung-Hee by awarding it the 1988 Games; acknowledging the Soviet Union and Communist China in 1952; and refusing recognition of the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo in 1936. </p>
<p>While the IOC Charter strictly forbids direct political interference in national Olympic committees, there is a wide gap between theory and practice. After the Soviet soccer team lost to heterodox Yugoslavia at the Helsinki Games in 1952 (a 5-5 draw; then 1-3 in the replay), Stalin disbanded the team, who were provided with new homes “inside the Arctic Circle”. </p>
<p>He had a historical precedent: in 1912, Tsar Nicholas dissolved the Russian soccer team after their 16-0 loss to Germany in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. Clearly, Stalin set the bar a bit higher than the tsar.</p>
<p>The Games have also been the stage for celebrated political set pieces. I was 10 months old when there was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_in_the_Water_match">blood in the water</a> during the waterpolo clash between the Soviet Union and Hungary in the 1956 Melbourne Games. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131921/original/image-20160726-23692-1y7moqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131921/original/image-20160726-23692-1y7moqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131921/original/image-20160726-23692-1y7moqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131921/original/image-20160726-23692-1y7moqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131921/original/image-20160726-23692-1y7moqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131921/original/image-20160726-23692-1y7moqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131921/original/image-20160726-23692-1y7moqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">American sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s black power salute at the 1968 Mexican Olympic Games.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Carlos,_Tommie_Smith,_Peter_Norman_1968cr.jpg">By Angelo Cozzi via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Hungarians, on their long sea voyage to the Antipodes, were unaware of the Soviet invasion of their homeland. The clash was a bloody affair, with the Hungarians ultimately winning 4-0 and going on to win the gold medal. </p>
<p>In 1968, the Mexican military killed at least 49 students protesting against the Games in the Tlatelolco Massacre. Mexico also saw the Olympic podium used to stage the celebrated black power salute by John Carlos and Tommie Smith, with the Australian silver medallist Peter Norman stood by.</p>
<p>In 1972, militants from the Palestinian Black September movement murdered 11 Israeli athletes in the Munich Games village. </p>
<h2>… as feminist realism</h2>
<p>Women first appeared in the 1900 Olympics. The 22 women among the 997 athletes were limited to ladylike sports: tennis, sailing, croquet, equestrian and golf. Over the years, the number of sports open to women has gradually increased, bringing, in 2016, the unthinkable — women’s rugby. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131924/original/image-20160726-31195-19n1x4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131924/original/image-20160726-31195-19n1x4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131924/original/image-20160726-31195-19n1x4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131924/original/image-20160726-31195-19n1x4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131924/original/image-20160726-31195-19n1x4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1053&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131924/original/image-20160726-31195-19n1x4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1053&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131924/original/image-20160726-31195-19n1x4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1053&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">English tennis player Charlotte Cooper, who, in 1900, became the first female Olympic champion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charlotte_Cooper.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, women constitute about 40% to 45% of Olympic competitors.</p>
<p>There is one unisex sport (equestrian), although at various times both sailing and rifle shooting have been unisex. And there is one sport where, thankfully, men have not been allowed to compete: synchronised swimming. </p>
<p>In others sports, there are odd historical hangovers of sex differences: there is no 1,500-metre swim for women; women compete in the heptathlon rather than the decathlon; and men’s and women’s gymnastics are radically different. </p>
<p>One can only say that there’s been a long march towards gender equality, but we wouldn’t want to take things too far too fast, given that the Australian Matildas, one of the best women’s soccer teams in the world, were recently <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/05/25/matildas-beaten-7-0-by-newcastle-jets-under-15-boys-team/">beaten 7-0 by an under-15 boys’ team</a>.</p>
<p>Gender issues have been played out in the Olympic theatre in other ways. Indeed, the Olympics have more than anything brought into question the whole notion of binary gender and what it means to be a man or a woman. </p>
<p>This issue poses a particular quandary for the Olympics. On the one hand, as the Matildas well know, it’s just not fair to have men competing against women in most sports. On the other hand, it’s not the place of the IOC to be telling people what sex they are.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132111/original/image-20160727-7058-qk84aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132111/original/image-20160727-7058-qk84aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132111/original/image-20160727-7058-qk84aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132111/original/image-20160727-7058-qk84aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132111/original/image-20160727-7058-qk84aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132111/original/image-20160727-7058-qk84aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132111/original/image-20160727-7058-qk84aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mary Edith Louise Weston in 1936, before gender change operations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Weston_(athlete)#/media/File:Mary_Edith_Louise_Weston_1936b.jpg">Unknown via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sex testing was first requested by IOC executive member, and later president, Avery Brundage in 1936, over concerns about British javelin and discus champion Mary Louise Edith Weston. In 1936, Mary had a sex change to become Mark. It ran in the family; a year later, Mark’s elder sister Hilda also had gender re-assignment treatment. </p>
<p>The most famous transgender athlete — until Caitlyn Jenner — was Stanislawa Walasiewickz, a Polish sprinter who won the gold medal in the 100-metre dash in the 1932 Olympics, and silver in Berlin. Later, living as an American under the name Stella Walsh, she was found upon her death (she was shot during an armed robbery in 1981) to have male genitalia.</p>
<p>At the same Games, German Dora Ratjen competed in the high jump, finishing fourth, but was later found to be intersex.</p>
<p>Sex testing initially consisted of a physical examination, literally a “nude parade” of women. Chromosomal testing was introduced in 1968, and in 2012 hormonal testing for abnormal levels of testosterone began. </p>
<p>The official IOC position is that rather than sex testing, this is a test to determine if certain athletes are “unfairly advantaged” by an accident of birth. One can only say that this is a tricky position to maintain: just about every athlete is unfairly advantaged by an accident of birth, certainly relative to you and me, at least. That’s why they’re elite athletes.</p>
<p>In 2009, after South African runner Caster Semenya won gold in the women’s 800-metre run, the International Amateur Athletics Federation began receiving emails from people who had doubts about Semenya’s gender because of her masculine appearance. Some unkind commentators even pointed out that her name was <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/caster-semenya-gender-storm-is-the-answer-790360">an anagram of “Yes, a secret man”</a>. </p>
<p>The results of chromosomal tests were never released, but Semenya was cleared to run again. After winning the silver medal in London, Semenya will be among the favourites in Rio. Watch this space.</p>
<h2>… as romcom</h2>
<p>The Olympic stage is a theatre of sex in another way: it is a festival of youth where the athletes compete, celebrate and fornicate. And <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnclarke/2012/07/16/who-will-win-the-sex-olympics/#7e6efd6d18c6">fornicate they do</a>, by all accounts. </p>
<p>The London Games provided 150,000 condoms — 15 per athlete — for the 17-day event. That’s enough for 30 couplings per pair, or 1.7 couplings per day. </p>
<p>But Olympic love has flourished even in condom-less environments, and in those more innocent days when men’s and women’s living quarters were separated, as they still are for Muslim athletes. </p>
<p>In 1956, US gold medal hammer thrower Hal Connolly met and fell in love with Czech discus champion Olga Fikotová, a cross-Iron Curtain romance that blossomed into a marriage. </p>
<p>The scenario was repeated 48 years later in Athens when gold medallist rifleman Matt Emmons (US) fell for Czech riflewoman Katerina Kurková. Perhaps it was a shotgun wedding. </p>
<p>There are, in fact, dozens of Olympic lovers, most famously legendary Czech distance runner Emil Zatokpek and his wife Dana, a gold-medal-winning javelin thrower, who were witnesses to the Connolly wedding.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132115/original/image-20160727-5645-ovimdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132115/original/image-20160727-5645-ovimdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132115/original/image-20160727-5645-ovimdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132115/original/image-20160727-5645-ovimdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132115/original/image-20160727-5645-ovimdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1075&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132115/original/image-20160727-5645-ovimdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1075&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132115/original/image-20160727-5645-ovimdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1075&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_de_Coubertin#/media/File:Pierre_de_Coubertin_Anefo2.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>… as morality play</h2>
<p>The founder of the Games, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_de_Coubertin">Pierre de Coubertin</a>, envisaged them as a competition between gentleman amateurs, playing fairly and competing on a level playing field, figuratively and literally. </p>
<p>Native American athlete Jim Thorpe was relieved of his two gold medals from the 1912 Stockholm Games when it turned out he had accepted money for playing baseball. </p>
<p>But the myth of professionalism, freighted with classist assumptions, was a lost cause from the start. Gradually, begrudgingly, the Games were opened up to full professionals. </p>
<p>Fairness also proved to be an elusive ideal. </p>
<p>Over 50 Olympic athletes have been stripped of their medals, mainly for doping. Most famously, they included US swimmer Rick DeMont at the Montreal Games, Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson at Seoul, US sprinter Marion Jones, who lost her five medals from Atlanta and Sydney, and US cyclists Lance Armstrong and Tyler Hamilton in Sydney and Athens. </p>
<p>The vexed question of artificial performance enhancement has plagued the Olympics, and raises a basic moral question: what does “natural” mean? What is the difference, one might ask, between taking the blood-booster EPO and training in altitude tents, which has the same effect, or for that matter having a natural genetic variant? </p>
<p>Although we think of cheating mainly as a pharmacological indiscretion, there have also been interesting cases of “technology doping”. </p>
<p>Boris Onishchenko, a Russian pentathlete, rigged his electrofoil at the 1976 Olympics to mark a score before he actually hit anyone, eliciting a protest from the British. He was known thereafter as “Boris Disonishchenko”. Soviet President Brezhnev was not happy, and Onishchenko was last seen working as a taxi driver in Kiev.</p>
<p>The issue of technological performance enhancement was raised again when the “blade runner” Oscar Pistorius became the first disabled track and field athlete to compete at the able-bodied games. Several sports scientists argued that his blades provided him with an unfair advantage, allowing a greater return of elastic energy. </p>
<h2>After the theatre</h2>
<p>By September, the stage will be dismantled, and our revels will be ended. Our athletes will melt into air, into thin air. The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces shall dissolve and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. </p>
<p>All that will remain will be the cold wind whistling through the empty stadiums and the athletes’ Potemkin villages. Until, that is, we switch on our televisions for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61904/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Olds receives funding from the ARC and the NHMRC. In the past he has also been funded by the Australian Sports Commission.</span></em></p>The Olympic Games are a theatre — sometimes farce, sometimes tragedy, reality TV, morality play or soap opera — where geopolitical, social and technological dramas are played out.Tim Olds, Professor of Health Sciences, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.