I really freakin' love the Olympics. I watch winter and summer every time, since the first one I can really remember, which was Athens in 2004. So of course I watched the newest iteration in Paris, with the opening ceremony on Friday a few days ago. I loved the blending of musical styles most, like the opera with heavy metal and the hip hop with the military band. Of course, there will always be haters; I saw some website where people were complaining and saying it was unrehearsed and stuff, that it was worse than the London one in 2012. London's was cool while they went through the literary history part (I recall many Mary Poppinses fighting a giant Voldemort), but after that, the tube disco thing was weird... so I don't know what these people are talking about.
Anyway, the main point for this blog was one tiny thing the NBC announcers mentioned about the Israeli team, saying they have had extra security since the 1940s. And I felt mad at that, thinking, "why?" Why can't people just be good? Yeah, there's a kind of war happening now, but my point is, why must there still be anti-Semitism? Going back to 2004, various athletes have withdrawn, not wanting to compete against Israeli opponents. This year, people are calling for a ban on Israel, I suppose similar to the one that's put out Russia and Belarus this year. That surprised me, but it shows how much more important Ukraine's fight is to Europeans in general than we in America experience. They really are fearing the shadow of World War II.
But without going too far into the war, coming back to the ideas expressed in John Lennon's "Imagine," which has become a second Olympic hymn... why can't people just play nice together? For once, the world is on hold; the world is outside. Just be like little kids and play together. We can just say it's the green team versus the red team, rather than country A versus country B. Why should one country's athletes have to fear for their lives even while playing a game, to the point that they need "extra security?"
I don't have much else to say. It's just "why." Why does the world have to be dumb sometimes? Of course I don't agree with everything the right-wing government of Israel has done, the same as I don't agree with stuff my own country has done. I wish they could be like any other athletes is all.
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