bout de papier, Vol. 13, No. 4 (1996) — Winter 1996 // Hiver 1996, pp. 43–45
SPORT AND CANADIAN DIPLOMACY by
Donald Macintosh and Michael Hawes:
McGill-Queens University Press, Montreal,
1994. 234 p. $34.95
In 1956, when six nations withdrew from the Melbourne Olympic Games in protest at military aggression by the USSR in Hungary, and by the UK, France and Israel in Egypt, Avery Brundage, the long-time President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said:
“By their decisions these countries show that they are unaware of one of our most important principles, namely that sport is completely free of politics.”
Twenty years later, in 1976, the age of political boycotts in sport had arrived with a vengeance with the “black” boycott of Montreal, the USA-led boycott of Moscow (1980) and the USSR tit-for-tat boycott of Los Angeles (1984). Additionally, running from the early seventies until 1991, the international sports boycott of South Africa engulfed many nations, international sports federations, and the IOC. All of these events are covered in depth in this admirable book. As the title makes clear, they are viewed from Canadian sporting and diplomatic perspectives, but a much wider international view is offered. This is a valuable contribution to the history of the period and highlights the dilemmas all of us who have been directly involved in these affairs have had to face.
In a democracy are the politics of international sport the province of the diplomats, or do they belong to the voluntary national sports organizations? The diplomats have the professional skills of negotiation, presentation and the feel for compromise; the national sports bodies have the detailed knowledge and expertise in sport. The diplomat must serve national interests, the sportsmen or women must serve their sport. The end-game for each of these parties is often not the same, as we saw with, for example, Canada and UK at the time of the USA-led boycott of the Moscow Olympic Games. The authors, with the assistance of many first-hand sources who were close to the action, draw out areas of conflict but do not – take sides; but it was a pity that so many sources had inevitably to be “confidential” The international boycott by many Western countries of the 1980 Moscow
• Olympics, inspired by President Carter to punish the USSR for their invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979, was a political muddle of the highest order. The President needed a spectacular international coup to boost his flagging fortunes in advance of his looming re-election bid. At home he was taking flak for not being able to secure the freedom of the many American diplomats held hostage by Iran. Focussing on the USSR and Afghanistan offered a chance to deflect public opinion and obtain good publicity. Sadly, a fair number of friendly countries felt they had to follow this lead and therefore sacrifice their sportsmen and women. Clearly it worried Canada, and it worried West Germany where the words “West Berlin” were spoken quietly. In the UK, Prime Minister Thatcher eagerly allied herself with President Carter and set about achieving a British boycott with great zeal. Parliament debated widely, but she met her match in Sir Denis Follows, Chairman of the British Olympic Association who, despite frequent onslaughts at No. 10, noted “I hear what you say Prime Minister”, but continued to point out that the Association was a non-governmental voluntary sports organization, over which government had no control. He repeatedly said that each of the national Olympic federations would decide the issue for themselves in an open democratic fashion, and they did Seventeen decided to go to Moscow and four decided not to. All commercial and business links remained in place and were never under threat; this “war” was to be fought with expendable athletes in a manner that did not threaten the economy.
There is a feeling that comes through in reading this book that the image of Canada suffered internationally over the Trudeau- Taiwan-IOC affair prior to the 1976 Olympics. If it were so, it was certainly short-lived as within days the Ordia-led ’black’ boycott dominated the situation in the far wider context of South Africa and apartheid. Michael Killanin’s ’My Olympic Years’ is interesting to re-visit, to compare his version of these events with the Canadian perspective. This was a classic case where national politics and international sport politics were irreconcilable.
The Canadian Cabinet’s policy of 1987 committing the Department of External Affairs to the notion that sport could play a positive role in meeting the country’s diplomatic goals was a recognition of the de facto situation in international sport. In the UK the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has never declared that international sport may be used as an instrument of HM Government foreign policy; they have preferred to operate ad hoc.
However, the UK Sports Council does have a clause in its Royal Charter which makes governmental intervention possible. This reads as follows:
“The Council in the exercise of its functions shall have regard to any general statements on the policy of Our Government that may from time to time be issued to it by Our Secretary of State.”
In effect, this has meant that the British Government has instructed the Sports Council in the matter of South Africa, the former Rhodesia, China and Taiwan, Argentina (during the Falklands war), and Moscow, forbidding it to grant aid sporting contacts in accord with foreign policy, and, in the case of South Africa and Moscow, pressing for boycotts.
The Canadian involvement with the Commonwealth is illuminating. The policy of encouraging programmes of sport-aid, as a component of foreign policy, is a direction many of us have urged should be more widely followed. Macintosh and Hawes point out that this initiative arose from a guilty conscience when the Commonwealth Games were awarded to Victoria. This may well be so but it is good to see that these programmes are continuing under a committee comprising the Commonwealth Games Association of Canada, the Coaching Association of Canada, Fitness and Amateur Sport and the Canadian International Development Agency.
There is no doubt that the Commonwealth Games are the most visible activity of the Commonwealth to most citizens, and it would be good to see the old Commonwealth countries doing more in this field to help the developing countries that form the bulk of the organization.
The “black” boycott of the Commonwealth Games (Edinburgh; 1986), spearheaded by Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, was a futile attempt to punish Mrs. Thatcher for refusing to join the general economic boycott of South Africa. She and the British Government were in no way involved with the Games (they never are), and therefore the only casualties were the Games themselves and the many athletes from the boycotting countries who lost their chance to take part. I was alarmed to learn that Canada had considered joining the boycott as a diplomatic gesture; this would have produced a head to head conflict with the sports organizations. Wisely, cool heads prevailed; sport and politics in Canada were well served at this time by Clark and Jelinek.
The Canadian national sports federations appear to have accepted not only the principles of the Gleneagles Agreement in 1977 but also the fact that it had been negotiated without reference to them. In the UK, this was not so. Not only did the national governing bodies of sport actively resent the lack of consultation but some actually disapproved of such a statement, arguing that sport is not controlled by government and that they will play against whomsoever they wish. For the majority it was not the sentiments enshrined in the Agreement but the principle that government was deciding for them which raised their hackles.
To the sports historian, the blow by blow account of how the various sports events were influenced by politics will be enough, but to those of us who work in this field the opening and closing chapters of this book are fascinating, pointing as they do to the political power trans-national organizations such as the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa and SANROC wielded on the apartheid issue, and the power the IOC exercises today. In days gone by governments could use international sport to promote national goals and purposes; the USSR and its friends openly used sport as an instrument of Socialist propaganda. Today governments are more constrained by IOC decisions, and yet the IOC itself is constrained in its actions by the political positions taken by nation states, and indeed by coalitions of states. Macintosh and Hawes remind us that though the IOC led the world in accepting South Africa back into international sport, it was much more cautious about accepting Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia before diplomatic recognition had been given by Western governments. Likewise, the acceptance of Croatia and Slovenia into the IOC was not offered before the European Union and others (including Canada) had recognised these countries.
Today international sport is used as a tool for diplomatic recognition, as a vehicle for ideology and propaganda, as a means for gaining prestige, and for furthering international understanding and peace. It can be, and is — as this well researched book makes clear — used as an instrument of foreign policy. The authors describe in considerable detail the role Canadian diplomacy has played in the major and often traumatic international sports events of the last forty years.
Sport and politics are inextricably linked today, and it is naive to believe or wish it to be otherwise. The question that those close to the scene should always be asking in a democracy is not “whether” sport should be linked to politics, but rather “how” should it be so? This book helps us to do this. Well written, jargon free, authoritative, Sport and Canadian Diplomacy is a valuable contribution to the debate
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 13, No. 4 (1996) — Winter 1996 // Hiver 1996, pp. 43–45. Read the rest of this issue →
