我译CWI奥运会，大生意和独裁(工人国际委员会）

奥运会，大生意和独裁

这次奥林匹克运动会并不是它自称的'国际主义'和'公平竞赛'，初看起来，举办该奥运会伴随着两个矛盾的力量：民族主义式的狂热“爱国主义”和资本主义经济全球化。

2001年7月中国刚刚被授予2008年奥运会时， BBC打出“北京之赢是个大买卖”的标题。奥运会不仅是世界最负盛名的体育盛事，它也是资本主义历史上最成功的营销帝国之一。奥林匹克标志——五环代表五个大洲——是世界上最广泛认同的及严加保护的企业标志。一个规模小的秘密的而且未经选举产生的集团控制着奥运会， 110名成员组成的国际奥林匹克委员会（ IOC ）掌控着庞大的财政资源，各国政府和世界各地的商界领袖给予它巨大的荣誉。前国际奥委会主席萨马兰奇坚决要求人称他为'阁下' 。他的妄自尊大令他赢得了'指环王'的绰号。

预期北京奥运会仅从电视广播方面就赚得25亿美元。直至并包括2012年伦敦奥运会的期间，这将上升到30亿美元。上一次1948年的奥运会在伦敦举行，据报道，英国广播公司仅同意支付3000美元以直播其奥运赛事。但鉴于BBC的拮据的财政状况！英国奥林匹克委员会一直没有兑现支票。

这一切发生在奥运会和其他重大体育赛事成为大买卖之前。在自1980年开始到2001年担任国际奥委会主席的萨马兰奇领导下，奥运会开始完成商业化进程。萨马兰奇的超商业体制下的第一次奥林匹克运动会是1984年的美国洛杉矶奥运会，从这时开始，电视转播权的价格的飙升可以用官方奥运的座右铭“更快、更强、更高”来形容。北京从电视转播权得到的收入几乎是美国洛杉矶二亿八千七百万美元的10倍。

很正常，在数十亿美元面前，国际奥委会腐败的名声日彰。1999年，盐湖城冬季奥运会到来之季，一个重大的丑闻震动了奥林匹克运动。根据纽约时报，几项调查，其中包括由美国司法部开展的一项调查导致10名受贿的国际奥委会委员被驱逐。他们已经接受了贿赂，包括房地产分配，有薪假期，整形外科和为他们的子女支付大学学费。丑闻导致盐湖城市长丢职，但国际奥委会的老板萨马兰奇勉强幸免于难。

这项丑闻促动了人们对奥运会未来以及其完全缺乏透明度和民主问责制的理事机构及其不可告人的与大企业的联系的更深的思索。争论集中在国际奥委会是否可以'改革本身' ——回应着的讨论是关于作为执政党的中国'共产党（CCP）的未来。萨马兰奇离开后很久，腐败和贿选的丑闻继续笼罩着奥林匹克运动。在2006年，日本长野市被揭露向国际奥委会委员提供数百万美元的“不合理的和超水平的招待费” 。长野市在申办过程中使用超过440万美元来招待国际奥委会委员，相当于每人46500美元。

中国的政府，国际奥委会，及其大商业伙伴有很多共通之处。他们都是不民主的并基本上是腐败的机构。国际奥委会，绰号'俱乐部' ，不是一个民选机构——在中国共产党的执政机构所用的那套相同的制度下，由现有的国际奥委会委员选出新成员。因此认为独裁体制的奥运会可以催生中国的民主化是可笑的。国际奥委会不容任何异议。到1936年纳粹政权举办柏林奥运会时，美国国际奥委会代表Ernest Lee Jahncke公开呼吁抵制。这导致他在1935年被驱逐出国际奥委会，这是直到半世纪后盐湖城腐败丑闻之前历史上唯一被开除的一例。

'入世'——重新加入世界

2001年7月国际奥委会决定把2008年奥运会的主办权给北京的背后是冷静的商业算计和地缘政治的考虑。赞助奥运会的企业——包括可口可乐，阿迪达斯，麦当劳——热中于一个13亿人的潜在的大市场带给产品销售的机会。北京背后得到了一个强大的跨国企业游说团和美国的公司的支持，据报，美国公司贡献了三分之二的资金用于中国申办奥运会，共计4000万美元。八年前，中国政权未能成功申办2000年奥运会。因为相对记忆犹新的1989年的北京大屠杀对中国申办奥运的影响还很大，结果是悉尼得到了2000年奥运会的举办权。

然而， 2001年，萨马兰奇被指控幕后操纵以确保北京获得奥运会 。无可否认，这是加拿大的国际奥委会委员抛出的说法而且他当时支持的是其他主要候选城市，即多伦多。萨马兰奇说：奥运会将为中国打开“新的时代” 虽然他作为一个辅助（无表决权的）的国际奥委会成员，但也是美国的资本家和中国领导人之间一个关键的联系，他声称奥林匹克的决定在推进中国和世界的关系上“是非常重要的一步”，他说：“我认为它在中国和整个世界将有重大影响 “ 。国际奥委会作出这样的决定时正值中国加入世界贸易组织（ WTO ）的最后的谈判进行中，条件是苛刻的，其付出的代价——开放市场上的让步——比其他发展中国家成员承担的要高。在中国境内，这些谈判和由中方作出的让步的详情仍是'国家秘密'——记者深挖这方面信息的工作有被监禁的风险。卫报的中国资深记者约翰贾廷思评论道：“加入世贸组织意味着取消中国与全球经济一体化的力量之间的最后屏障”。这两个具有里程碑意义的决定包含着一个类似的战略目的——使得中国作为一个'利益相关者'更加牢固地融入全球的资本主义制度中去。

对中国的领导人来说，这两项决定被视为其继续推进愈加新自由主义化的'改革开放'政策的重要的支柱。这项政策包括私有化和缩编前国有企业以及把公共服务如教育和医疗服务'市场化'，到这个时候，这些政策引起了越来越大的工人阶级的反抗。北京将举办奥运会的消息给这个政权提供了一个受欢迎的吸引公众注意力的事物，有利于美化那令人厌恶的进一步的新自由主义全球化的政策。随着国际奥委会的决定公开出来，有大约20万人——大多是中产阶级——聚集在天安门广场上举办了盛大的庆祝活动。混合着期待的民族主义自豪感的浪潮就这样在中国'重新投入世界'——入世——和要恢复其作为一个经济超级大国应有的地位的主题下被政府掀起来了。北京奥运官员王伟称之为“中国国际地位上升的另一个里程碑和中华民族伟大复兴的历史事件” 。

与中共政权所做的所有之事一样，其主要焦点是国内形势。正如经济学家解释说的，“比起企图影响遥远的国家来说，它更加关注其自身的内部问题” 。为了让一个独裁的执政党挣扎着继续控制一个复杂的并且日益怨声载道的社会，还有就是为了把自己的力量聚集起来，奥运会是一个有力的武器，相当于'民族主义兴奋剂' 。

奥运会——跨国公司的战场

名义上的“共产党”政权得到了世界上层的商界领袖的极力追捧，这在这次奥运会中集中地体现出来了，可见这是一个悖论。一组精选的12大跨国公司，其中包括阿迪达斯，可口可乐，三星和通用电气公司，付给国际奥委会平均7200万美元而成为了所谓的北京奥运会'一流的'赞助者。
对于这类公司，奥运赞助和广告可以发挥决定性作用。正如人民日报评论的，“奥运会不仅仅是一个体育竞技场，而已也是一个跨国公司的战场” 。美国的柯达公司利用其赞助的1998年长野冬季奥运会打开了以前由富士垄断的日本胶卷市场。维萨信用卡（Visa）利用其自1986年以来的每一届奥运会国际赞助者的地位使其取代美国运通（American Express）成为美国的主要的信用卡公司。根据奥运规则，每个行业部门只有一家公司可以成为'顶级'赞助商。这解释了为何百事可乐公司一直被摒弃在外——自1928年以来，可口可乐公司一直与每一届奥运会联系在一起。这个独占的安排延伸到所有奥运设施里的广告和销售上，可口可乐享有这样的垄断。维萨信用卡（Visa）在卡尔加里运动会期间的广告活动的内容如下： “在1988年冬季奥运会，他们将以速度，耐力和技巧为荣，但不是美国运通（American Express）” 。

这一仗已转移到中国之境，它完全令运动会本身黯然失色。

香港的广告业主管说：“全球奥运赞助商有庞大的预算用在中国的市场营销上。”他还说： “当火炬接力在中国进行时，火炬经过的每个城市都充满着赞助标志”。这是中国计划者为什么安排了奥运会历史上距离最长——达13.7万公里或地球周长的三倍半——的火炬接力活动的一个重要原因。中国政权称之为'和谐之旅'，可它变成了一个戒备森严的闹剧，导致一些奥委会官员得出结论认为火炬接力也许已过其最迟销售日期。从历史上看，在其成为广告金矿之前，火炬接力于1936年作为纳粹胜利的一个象征发端。无论如何说，这个仪式和国际主义没有任何关系，相反这是一个展现出奥林匹克运动和法西斯及独裁政权之间浓厚的历史性的联系的线索。

“在希腊的古代奥运遗址点燃火炬，然后传递火炬通过不同的国家有其黑暗的渊源，这是在柏林举行1936年奥运会时候获得其现代形式的。纳粹领导精心计划之使其能展现出如下形象：第三帝国是一个现代的，国际影响力日益增长的经济富有活力的国家“ 。 [英国广播公司， 2008年4月5日]

在中国，政府试图通过掀起'奥运热'来横超对其统治构成严重威胁的日益上升的不满。此外，该政权希望奥运会将有助于引发消费热潮以便能给由于全球经济增长减速而导致的外部需求和出口的下降提供“缓冲”。中国遭受着过低的消费水平的损害——甚至印度人的消耗占其国内生产总值（ GDP ）更高 。这是因为中国的工资水平已远跟不上其整体经济的增长。就其占经济的比重而言，工资从1998年的53 ％下降到2007年的41 ％，这个下降是世界上一个最大的跌幅（这发生在为北京奥运会准备期间）。除了由跨国奥运赞助商大规模的销售活动外，超过5000种带有北京奥运会标志的产品已被投入市场，这包括服装，吉祥物玩偶，钥匙链，甚至纪念筷子。许多这种官方奥运产品是在工厂使用童工或违反其他法律的情况下生产出来的。

反工会巨头的联合

每一个'顶级' （奥运合作伙伴）公司在中国拥有巨大的利益，并期望他们在北京奥运上的投资能通过获得更多的市场份额而得到回报。可口可乐占领着中国的软饮料市场，并且是早在1979年当邓小平重新对外国企业开放下在中国设立的第一家美国公司。可口可乐公司在作为其最有利可图的第四大市场的中国有30000名员工。另一个'顶级'公司通用电气公司为北京奥运会提供电力和照明系统。它还拥有在美国拥有独家奥运广播电视权NBC Universal公司的股份，为此它付出了近9亿美元。在2001-06间，通用电气公司在中国的销售额增长了四倍。

另一个长期的'顶级'赞助商阿迪达斯2007年在中国的销售增长了45 ％ ，与此相比，它在欧洲的增长只有 5 ％。阿迪达斯的目的是到2010年在中国的销售的营业额达10亿欧元。德国的体育用品公司也从中国得到其产品的大部分的合同，但在这里我们所讨论的是中国人口的完全不同的部分。在非人的条件下制造阿迪达斯运动鞋的低工资的民工和那阿迪达斯视其为目标市场的好象居住在另一个星球上的很小的一个具有品牌意识的中产购物者阶层。

阿迪达斯采购的全球产品的一半以上来自禁止工会的国家，主要是来自中国。星期日时报（英国）的一篇文章中突出描述了该公司的中国分包商之可怕的劳动条件，该报告涉及到阿迪达斯在中国南部福州的三个“确立已久的合作伙伴工厂” 。工人对强迫加班和工资低于法定最低工资标准有抱怨。在2007年，他们每月仅赚取570元（ 83美元）——只能勉强买双阿迪达斯运动鞋。这份报告还表明中国国家控制的工会中华全国总工会（ACFTU）“被广泛指责什么都不做” 。当工人在2006年举行罢工，他们都被立即开除。

在这方面阿迪达斯不是特例。仔细看看其他'顶级'奥运赞助商就象在回顾反工会流氓陈列会。电子巨头三星是一个臭名昭著的反工会的雇主。该公司在韩国因为一系列非法活动，涉及勒索和行贿以使工会活动家放弃活动。这个国家的最强大的'财阀'在相当长的时间里是南韩的前军政权的重要支柱。hyankoreh的社论中说到三星： “在一个民主共和国里存在着的一个拥有先进技术的世界领袖，它采用着从独裁岁月里发展出来的原始的反工会的策略” 。

同样，可口可乐公司一直被指责破坏在哥伦比亚，巴基斯坦，土耳其，危地马拉和尼加拉瓜的工会活动。2001年，哥伦比亚工会起诉了该公司，因为该可口可乐公司“雇佣或以其他方式指示准军事安全部队对工会领导人使用极端的暴力和谋杀，酷刑，非法拘禁或以其他方式使工会领导人保持沉默” 。可口可乐公司对奥运官员的影响力在它的总部所在地亚特兰大获得1996年奥运会主办权中表露无遗。这只不过是在另一美国城市洛杉矶举行奥运会的十二年后。又一顶级奥运赞助商麦当劳，它是典型的破坏工会的公司。2002年国际自由工会联合会(ICFTU)组织的一个关于麦当劳用工做法方面的国际研讨会上，得出的结论是： “麦当劳在确定工资，健康和安全的标准上往往使用最低的标准或最低的法定要求，倾向于使用反工会的措施，包括隔离，骚扰和辞退那些作为工会的成员或支持者的雇员。

在中国，麦当劳也在一项重大丑闻中处在风头浪尖上，揭露它付给青年工人的工资低于最低工资40 ％。几个省级政府被大量的不利的宣传所迫而对该快餐巨头进行调查。不过，虽然他们证实在几个方面麦当劳已侵犯了中国的劳动法，但是他们拒绝寻找它犯了违反最低工资规定的罪。这件事（中国劳工论坛报道，麦当劳丑闻表明需要真正的工会， 2007年5月22日）导致傀儡中华全国总工会和麦当劳谈判达成第一次史无前例的对工会的承认的交易，当然中华全国总工会指派了管理代表来领导该工会的分支机构。这是中华全国总工会的通常做法。这是所谓的“具有中国特色的工会” ！这些奥运赞助商的反工会，反工人阶级的倾向是和支持反工人阶级的动机和支持反动的政权的国际奥委会悠久传统相符合的。

“是体育，不是政治”

国际奥委会、赞助商和中国政权声称奥运会只是体育运动，而不是政治，这完全是错误的。中国政权让火炬接力的路线通过躁动不安的地区西藏和新疆的决定就不能说是'非政治性'的 。6月当火炬通过西藏首府拉萨时，大多数西藏人由于实施的宵禁而看不到它，西藏的共产党领导人张庆黎（音译）发表了讲话，讲话中他呼吁粉碎奥运会以及中共的反对者。尴尬不堪的国际奥委会不得不向中国政府给予了难得的指责，重声必须“把体育和政治分开” 。

事实上，大部分奥林匹克竞赛都萦绕着政治性争议： 1936年的柏林，1972年的慕尼黑，1968年的墨西哥城，1980年的莫斯科，1984年的洛杉矶;名单很长。奥运会在墨西哥城开幕的十天之前，军队开枪打死了数百名示威的学生，这被称为'特拉特洛尔科大屠杀' 。墨西哥也是一党专政，美帝国主义和其他西方资本主义势力与之有着重要的经济和战略联系。无疑，国际奥委会与墨西哥的总统古斯塔沃（Gustavo Díaz Ordaz）密切合作以保证大屠杀不会危及运动会。然而，当非洲裔美国黑人运动员托密史密斯（Tommie Smith）和约翰卡洛斯（John Carlos）在墨西哥城的金牌领奖台做出闻名的象征着'黑人权利'的举手礼后，他们在国际奥委会主席艾佛利•布伦戴奇（Avery Brundage）命令下被驱逐出运动会。

国际奥委会及其支持者希望两者兼得。当他们和独裁者打交道时，他们以下面的理由，既奥运会可以有利于推动民主和人权来使之正当化。换句话说，他们言及了一个明确的政治理念。但是，这被证明不过是一场笑剧，看它今天在中国的答复便知，它答复说奥林匹克只是一项体育活动，而不是一个政治组织。

作为目前国际奥委会主席的罗格（Jacques Rogge）荒谬的说1988年奥运会帮助韩国由当时的另一独裁向“充满活力的民主”转变。据罗格的说法， “运动会通过媒体人的存在再次发挥了关键作用” 。 [金融时报， 2008年4月26日]

在现实生活中，韩国的军事政权迫于在1987年6月（汉城奥运会整整一年前）大规模罢工和示威浪潮的爆发的压力，这种爆发持续了三年。这对中国来说是一个重要的经验教训，显示了在与独裁斗争中能起到决定性作用的是大规模的工人斗争。

当谈到为民主权利而斗争时，奥运会是问题的一部分，而非解决问题的方法。在最近的一份报告中，国际特赦组织警告说， “申办奥运已成为打击言论和集会自由的一个含蓄的借口” 。 [北京奥运会带来了什么人权遗产？国际特赦组织， 2008年4月1日]

随着在藏族地区估计有150人死于安全部队， 2008年已是中国自1989年以来最严重的国家镇压之一年。使国际奥委会和其辩护士的观点不攻自破，国际特赦组织的报告“大部分新一轮的对活动家和新闻工作者的镇压实际上就是由于奥运会” 。

中国不是单枪匹马地利用奥运会严厉打击潜在的反对者。国际刑警组织已同意与中国当局合作，开放其数据库以“帮助中国确保制造麻烦者不能进入中国” 。表面上这些措施针对的是来自新疆，西藏的'恐怖分子'（尽管没有证据证明这种恐怖威胁的存在）。正如卓越的持不同政见者胡佳评论说的： “最大的威胁不一定是恐怖分子或罪犯，最大的威胁是那些揭露中国的社会问题以及抗议政府的人士” 。

独裁传统

回溯国际奥委会的起源，它有一个种族主义，反共产主义和支持独裁政权的传统。1896年现代奥林匹克运动的创始人是法国贵族皮埃尔•德•顾拜旦（Pierre de Coubertin）。他想的不是一个群众性的全民的体育运动而是一个几乎完全是为'游手好闲的富人'和军官阶层而创设了现代奥林匹克运动。在如皮埃尔•德•顾拜旦（Pierre de Coubertin）贵族的眼里，下层阶级的人无法掌握'公平竞赛'的概念。与此同时，妇女也被视为完全不适合于体育世界——直到第二次世界大战后这种观点一直没有太大变化。在1948年的伦敦奥运会上，女运动员和男运动员之比是1比10。实际上比起4年前美国洛杉矶奥运会，在1936年的柏林运动会上有更多的非洲裔美国黑人运动员参加比赛，因为美国制度化的种族主义，使得体育成为白人的专利，直到20世纪50年代才有所改变。

皮埃尔•德•顾拜旦（Pierre de Coubertin）男爵是一个'伟大的法国爱国者'，不过他是德国纳粹政权的坚定的拥护者。1937年他逝世时，他把他一生的文学收藏遗赠给了希特勒的政府。在一个奇怪的注脚中可以知道，皮埃尔•德•顾拜旦（Pierre de Coubertin）逝世六个月后，他的尸体在瑞士洛桑被挖出，他的心也被挖出，并运到希腊的奥林匹亚。在有他的老朋友，一个纳粹官员并主办了1936年的奥运会的Carl Diem参加的葬礼中重新安葬在希腊。

希特勒1933年1月上台前二年，国际奥委会授予1936年的奥运会的主办权给柏林。不过，他们没有显示出任何遗憾，随后国际奥委会领导人——激烈的——为纳粹举办奥运会的权利辩护。由于新闻中出现了纳粹恐怖对待工会、共产党人、社会主义者和犹太人的报道，呼吁抵制柏林运动会增长着，尤其是在美国、英国、法国、瑞典、捷克斯洛伐克和荷兰。1934年的一项民意调查显示42 ％的美国人支持对该奥运会的抵制。面对危机，美国奥林匹克委员会派出其主席艾佛利•布伦戴奇（Avery Brundage）到德国以评估按照'奥林匹克原则'该运动会能否举行。在现实中，艾佛利•布伦戴奇（Avery Brundage）的任务是有意识地操纵破坏抵制运动，其间艾佛利•布伦戴奇（Avery Brundage）就指责“犹太人和共产党人” 。在他1934年9月访问德国期间，他在三名纳粹党高级领导人在场情况下会见了犹太运动员，其中之一穿着整套SS制服并佩带着手枪。犹太运动员担心他们的生命安全而在这次采访中不敢说出任何批评纳粹政权的言论。艾佛利•布伦戴奇（Avery Brundage）回到美国并强烈支持柏林奥运会。

后来成为国际奥委会主席（ 1952年至1972年）的艾佛利•布伦戴奇（Avery Brundage），也是一个希特勒仰慕者并且是一个公开的反犹份子 ，他把Main Kampf作为他的“偶像” 。他的朋友，瑞典主要的资本家Sigfrid Edström从1946年至1952年担任国际奥委会主席之职，他是另一个法西斯支持者 。1933年11月，由于抵制的问题很盛， edström曾写信给艾佛利•布伦戴奇（Avery Brundage）说： “纳粹反对犹太人的影响只能这样理解，即如果你住在德国，在一些较重要的生意中，犹太人控制着大多数生意而且制止他人的进入…, 这些犹太人中许多出生身波兰或俄罗斯并且具有完全不同于西方人观念的思想。如果德国仍然想保持为一个'雅利安'的国家和话，改变这些条件是绝对必要的“ 。 [1934年2月8日edström给艾佛利•布伦戴奇（Avery Brundage）的信，瑞典国家档案馆]

柏林奥运会后，那时作为国际奥委会副主席的edström 参加了纳粹党在纽伦堡的集会并且稍后宣布：“这是我所见过的一次最伟大的‘秀’，他[希特勒]可能是世界上有史以来人们所知的最强有力的并得到强烈支持的个人。我肯定有六千万人都愿意为他死或为他做任何事。 ” 表示柏林没有失常，一年后，国际奥委会决定授予1940年奥运会给日本。由于战争，这届奥运会没有举行。国际奥委会的决定又一次为军国主义的极端反共的政权作伥，这从1931年军事占领中国的日本在中国犯下的暴行中可以得到充分的认识。国际上，工厂主和资本家政客中有一个庞大的阶层看好德国、日本和其它独裁的法西斯政权并把它们视为'共产主义'蔓延的壁垒。只有当希特勒和日本天皇的帝国主义的野心与他们自己发生冲突，资本家的'民主政治'才会诉诸'反纳粹'的花言巧语直至战争。与今天的中国并行不悖，国际上很大一部分资本家把当前的“仅仅名义上的共产主义”政权看作自己的希望所在，即保持中国对全球资本主义的'开放' 并且让它控制住其庞大的越来越难以控制的工人阶级。这就是为什么他们积极支持中国独裁政府主办奥运会的原因。

二战后，edström和艾佛利•布伦戴奇（Avery Brundage）利用他们的国际奥委会的职位设法争取释放被定罪的纳粹战犯。最著名的是，他们为释放俄罗斯监狱里的Karl Ritter von Halt而从事活动，这个人直到战争结束前是德国的国际奥委会委员而且是希特勒政权中的一个领导人物。1951年Karl Ritter von Halt从监狱里释放出来以此作为让苏联首次承认奥林匹克运动会的交易的一部分。艾佛利•布伦戴奇（Avery Brundage）在整个国际奥委会主席的任期内继续捍卫右翼的事业。他是参议员麦卡锡在20世纪50年代反共产主义政治迫害的一位热衷的支持者并且批评艾森豪威尔总统在朝鲜的停战决定，艾佛利•布伦戴奇（Avery Brundage）称之为“对在亚洲的所有的白人而言，这是一个可耻的行为” 。呼吁艾佛利•布伦戴奇（Avery Brundage）辞去奥林匹克运动领导人的职位是汤姆•史密斯和约翰•卡洛斯在1968年的'沉默抗议'中提出的一项要求（他们还要求恢复穆罕默德阿里的世界重量级拳击冠军）。

1980年，胡安•安东尼奥•萨马兰奇，可以说是掌舵的最强有力的国际奥委会主席。他形容自己是“百分之百佛朗哥主义者 ” ——提及到了西班牙的前法西斯独裁者。由国际奥委会所发行的萨马兰奇的官方的传记对他长期的政治生涯一字不提——他其实是一个佛朗哥的独裁统治下的西班牙议会的法西斯副主席和体育部长。正是在这一时期，萨马兰奇发展了与阿迪达斯帝国的继承人霍斯特‧达斯勒（Horst Dassler）的紧密联系，霍斯特‧达斯勒（Horst Dassler）是那个时候奥林匹克运动的一个关键的幕后人物。在20世纪60年代，阿迪达斯鲜明的黑白足球是在萨马兰奇的帮助下谈判达成的合同下由西班牙监狱中的囚犯生产的。这种法西斯政权下强迫使用监狱劳动是——在一个较小的规模上——今天全球化的血汗工厂的生产链的一个原型。

The Olympics, big business and dictatorship

Rather than the Olympic movement's self-professed ideals of 'internationalism' and 'fair play', hosting the Games is about two at first sight contradictory forces: nationalistic flag-waving and capitalist globalisation.

"Beijing win is big business," ran a BBC headline in July 2001. China had just been awarded the 2008 Olympic Games. The Olympics is not just the world's most prestigious sporting event; it is also one of the most successful marketing empires in the history of capitalism. The Olympic symbol – five connected rings representing the five continents – is one of world's most recognisable and closely guarded corporate logos. The small, secretive, unelected group that controls the Olympics, the 110-member International Olympic Committee (IOC), commands huge financial resources and is feted by governments and business leaders the world over. Former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch insisted on being addressed as 'Your Excellency'. His megalomania earned him the nickname 'Lord of the Rings'.
The Beijing Olympics is expected to bring in $2.5 billion from television broadcasting alone. This is set to rise to $3 billion for the period up to and including the London Olympics in 2012. The last time the Games were held in London, in 1948, the BBC reportedly agreed to pay just $3,000 to televise the event. But the British Olympic Committee never cashed the cheque, out of consideration for the BBC's delicate financial situation!
All this was before the Olympics and other major sporting events became big business. The corporate makeover of the Olympics took place under Samaranch, who was IOC president from 1980-2001. The first Olympiad to be staged under Samaranch's ultra-commercial regime were the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, and from this point onwards the pricetag for television broadcasting rights soared "faster, stronger, higher," in the words of the official Olympic motto. The revenue from television rights in Beijing is almost ten times the $287 million paid in Los Angeles.
Unsurprisingly, with billions of dollars at stake, the IOC has acquired a reputation for corruption. A major scandal shook the Olympic movement in 1999 over the coming Winter Games in Salt Lake City. Several investigations, including one by the US Department of Justice, led to the expulsion of ten IOC members who had been "caught elbow-deep in the goody bag" according to The New York Times. They had accepted bribes ranging from real estate deals, paid holidays, plastic surgery and college tuition payments for their children. The scandal cost the mayor of Salt Lake City her job, but IOC boss Samaranch survived. Narrowly.
This scandal prompted intense speculation about the future of the Olympics, the total lack of transparency and democratic accountability of its governing body, and its shady connections with big business. A debate raged over whether the IOC could 'reform itself' – echoing discussions over the future of China's ruling 'communist' party (CCP). Corruption and vote-buying scandals however continue to shroud the Olympic movement long after the departure of Samaranch. In 2006, the Japanese city of Nagano was found to have provided millions of dollars in an "illegitimate and excessive level of hospitality" to IOC members. Nagano spent more than $4.4 million to entertain IOC members during the bidding process, which works out at $46,500 per head.
China's government, the IOC, and its big business partners have a lot in common. They are all undemocratic and mostly corrupt organisations. The IOC, nicknamed 'The Club', is not an elected body – existing IOC members select new members, under a system not unlike that of the CCP's ruling bodies. Hence, the notion that the Olympics, controlled by a dictatorial regime, could be an agent for democratic change in China is ludicrous. The IOC brooks no dissent. In the run up to the 1936 Berlin Games, hosted by the Nazi regime, Ernest Lee Jahncke, an American IOC representative, spoke out publicly for a boycott. This led to his expulsion from the IOC in 1935, the only expulsion in its history until the Salt Lake City corruption scandal half a century later.

'Rushi' – 'rejoining the world'

Hard-headed business calculations but also geo-political considerations lay behind the IOC's decision in July 2001 to award the 2008 Games to Beijing. The corporate sponsors of the Olympics – including Coca Cola, Adidas and McDonald's – were delirious over the opportunities this presented for 'product positioning' in a potential market of 1.3 billion people. A powerful multinational business lobby had thrown its weight behind Beijing, with US companies reportedly contributing two-thirds of the funds for the Chinese bid, which totalled $40 million. The Chinese regime had failed eight years earlier in its bid for the 2000 Olympics. That decision went to Sydney, with the relatively fresh memory of the 1989 Beijing massacre weighing against the Chinese bid.
In 2001, however, Samaranch was accused of "pulling strings behind the scenes to ensure that Beijing won the Games". Admittedly, it was Canada's IOC member who made this claim and he backed the other main candidate, Toronto. The Olympics would open"a new era for China," said Samaranch. Henry Kissinger, who is an auxiliary (non-voting) member of the IOC, but also a key link between US capitalism and the Chinese leaders, called the Olympic decision"a very important step in the evolution of China's relation with the world. I think it will have a major impact in China, and on the whole, a positive impact, in the sense of giving them a high incentive for moderate conduct both internationally and domestically in the years ahead." The IOC decision coincided with the final negotiations for China's accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), on tough terms that cost it more – in market-opening concessions – than any other 'developing country' member. The details of these negotiations and the concessions made by the Chinese side are still a 'state secret' inside China – journalists risk imprisonment for digging too deeply in this area. Joining the WTO meant the removal of "the last barriers between China and the forces of globalisation," commented The Guardian's veteran China correspondent, John Gittings. These two landmark decisions shared a similar strategic purpose – to tie China as a 'stakeholder' more firmly into the global capitalist system.
For China's leaders, both decisions were seen as important pillars for the continuation of their increasingly neo-liberal 'reform and opening' policy. This policy, including the privatisation and downsizing of former state-owned companies, and 'marketisation' of public services such as education and healthcare, was by this time running into increasing working class resistance. The news that Beijing would host the Olympics provided a welcome public distraction for the regime, helping to 'sugar the pill' of further neo-liberal globalisation. Huge celebrations were organised once the IOC's decision became public, with possibly 200,000 – mostly from the middle classes – thronging Beijing's Tiananmen Square. A wave of nationalistic pride mixed with expectation was thus engineered by the government on the theme that China was 'rejoining the world' – 'rushi' – and reclaiming its rightful place as an economic superpower. Beijing Olympic official, Wang Wei, called this "another milestone in China's rising international status and a historical event in the great renaissance of the Chinese nation."
As with almost everything the CCP regime does, its main focus is on the situation at home. As The Economist explained it is "more concerned with its own internal problems than with trying to influence faraway countries". For an authoritarian ruling party struggling to keep control of a complex and fractious society, and to hold its own forces together, the Olympic Games are a powerful weapon, the equivalent of 'nationalism on steroids'.

Olympics – "a battlefield for multinationals"

The paradox of a nominally 'communist' regime that enjoys huge, almost sycophantic support from the world's top business leaders is epitomised in these Olympics. A select group of twelve giant multinationals, which include Adidas, Coca Cola, Samsung and General Electric, have paid an average of $72 million each to the IOC to become so-called 'top-tier' sponsors of the Beijing Games.
For such companies Olympic sponsorship and advertising can play a decisive role. As the People's Daily commented, "The Olympic Games is more than a sports arena, but also a battlefield for multinationals." Kodak of the US used its sponsorship of the 1998 Nagano Winter Games as a lever to prize open the Japanese photographic film market, previously monopolised by Fuji. Visa International's sponsorship of every Olympics since 1986 has helped it to displace American Express as the leading credit card company in the United States. Under Olympic rules, only one company from each corporate sector is accepted as a 'top-tier' sponsor. This explains why Pepsi Co. has always been shut out – Coca Cola has been associated with every Olympic Games since 1928. This exclusive arrangement extends to advertising and sales at all Olympic facilities, where Coke has a monopoly. Visa's advertising campaign at the time of the Calgary Games read:"At the 1988 Winter Olympics, they will honour speed, stamina and skill. But not American Express."
This battle has shifted to Chinese soil, where it completely overshadows the Games themselves.
"The global Olympic sponsors have huge budgets for marketing in China," said a Hong Kong advertising chief. "When the torch relay is in China, every city which the torch passes through will be full of sponsorship logos," he said. This is one important reason why the Chinese planners opted for the longest torch-relay in the history of the Olympics, covering 137,000 kilometres, or three and a half times the earth's circumference. This 'Journey of Harmony', as the Chinese regime called it, turned into a heavily guarded farce, leading some Olympic officials to conclude that the torch-relay may have passed its 'sell-by' date. Historically, before it became an advertising bonanza, the torch-relay began life in 1936 as a symbol of Nazi triumphalism. This ritual has nothing whatsoever to do with internationalism, on the contrary it is one of the clues betraying a strong historical connection between the Olympic movement and fascist and authoritarian regimes.
"The idea of lighting the torch at the ancient Olympian site in Greece and then running it through different countries has much darker origins. It was invented in its modern form by the organisers of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. And it was planned with immense care by the Nazi leadership to project the image of the Third Reich as a modern, economically dynamic state with growing international influence." [BBC, 5 April 2008]

In China, the government has been whipping up 'Olympic fever' in an attempt to cut across rising discontent that poses an increasingly serious threat to its rule. Additionally, the regime hopes the Olympics will help trigger a consumer boom, to act as a 'shock absorber' for declining external demand and falling exports as the global economy slows. China suffers from an abnormally low level of consumption – even Indians consume more as a share of gross domestic product (GDP). This is because wage levels have nowhere near kept pace with the overall growth of the economy. As a share of GDP, wages have fallen from 53 percent in 1998 to 41 percent in 2007, one of the sharpest declines in the world (and this during the period of preparation for the Beijing Games). In addition to massive sales campaigns by the multinational Olympic sponsors, more than 5,000 products have been dumped on the market with the Beijing Olympics logo. This includes apparel, mascot dolls, key-chains and even commemorative chopsticks. A number of these official Olympic products have been made at factories using child labour or violating other laws.

Union-busters united

Every one of the 'TOP' (The Olympic Partner) companies has a huge stake in China, and expects their Beijing Olympic investments to be rewarded with increased market share. Coca Cola dominates the Chinese soft drinks market and was the first American company to set up in China back in 1979, when Deng Xiaoping reopened the country to foreign business. Coca Cola has 30,000 employees in China, which is its fourth largest – and most profitable – market. General Electric, another 'TOP' company, is providing power and lighting systems for the Beijing Games. It also has an ownership stake in NBC Universal, which holds exclusive Olympic TV broadcasting rights in the United States, for which it paid nearly $900 million. GE's sales in China grew fourfold in 2001-06.
Adidas, another long-term 'TOP' sponsor, saw its China sales grow by 45 percent in 2007, compared to five percent growth in Europe. Adidas aims for a sale turnover of one billion euros in China by 2010. The German sportswear giant also contracts most of its production from China, but here we are discussing an entirely different segment of the Chinese population. The low-paid migrant factory workers that make Adidas sneakers under inhuman conditions, might as well inhabit another planet to that thin layer of brand conscious middle-class Chinese shoppers that Adidas pitches its marketing towards.
Adidas sources more than half its global production from countries where trade unions are banned, principally China. The terrible conditions at the company's Chinese subcontractors were highlighted in an article in the Sunday Times (UK), which reported from three "long-established partner factories" of Adidas in Fuzhou, southern China. Workers complained of forced overtime and wages below the legal minimum. They earned just 570 yuan ($83) per month in 2007 – barely enough to buy a pair of Adidas sneakers. This report also showed that China's state-controlled trade union, the ACFTU, "was widely accused of doing nothing". When workers staged a strike in 2006 they were all summarily dismissed.
Adidas is not exceptional in this regard. A closer look at other 'top-tier' Olympic sponsors is like reviewing a rogues gallery of union-busters. Electronics giant Samsung is an infamous anti-union employer. The company has been fined in South Korea for a range of illegal activities involving blackmail and bribes to get trade union activists to quit. This most powerful of the country's 'chaebol' conglomerates was for a long time a pillar of South Korea's former military regime. An editorial in Hyankoreh said of Samsung: "In a democratic republic you have a world leader in advanced technology using primitive anti-union tactics from the development dictatorship years".
Likewise, Coca Cola has been accused of union-busting activities in Colombia, Pakistan, Turkey, Guatemala and Nicaragua. A law suit was filed against the company by Colombian trade unions in 2001 on the grounds that Coke bottlers had "contracted with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces that utilised extreme violence and murdered, tortured, unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced trade union leaders." Coca Cola's clout with Olympic officials was demonstrated when Atlanta, where the company is headquartered, got to hold the 1996 Olympics. This was just twelve years after another US city, Los Angeles, held the Games. Yet another top-tier Olympic sponsor, McDonald's, is the archetypal union-busting company. An international seminar on labour practises at McDonald's, organised by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in 2002, concluded that: "McDonald's tends to use minimum standards or minimum legal requirements in setting wages, health and safety practices, has a propensity to use anti-union measures including isolating, harassing and dismissing employees who are union members or supporters."
In China too, McDonald's was at the centre of a major scandal, when it was found to be paying young workers 40 percent below already low minimum wage rates. Several provincial governments were compelled by massive adverse publicity to investigate the fast-food giant. But while they confirmed that McDonald's had violated China's labour code in several areas, they refused to find it guilty of violating minimum wage rules. This affair (reported on chinaworker.info – China's 'McScandal' shows the need for real trade unions, 22 May 2007) resulted in the puppet ACFTU negotiating its first ever union recognition deals with McDonald's, but of course with management representatives appointed to lead its union branches. This is normal ACFTU practise. It is called, "trade unionism with Chinese characteristics"! The anti-union, anti-working class bias of these Olympic sponsors conforms to a long tradition at the IOC of support for reactionary and anti-working class causes and regimes.

"Sport, not politics"

To claim, as do the IOC, the sponsors and the Chinese regime, that the Olympics is only about sport, not politics, is utterly false. The Chinese regime's decision to route the torch-relay through the restive regions of Tibet and Xinjiang cannot be described as 'non-political'. As the torch was whizzed through the Tibetan capital of Lhasa in June, with most Tibetans under curfew and unable to see it, Tibet's Communist Party chief Zhang Qingli delivered a speech in which he called for opponents of the Olympic Games – and the CCP – to be "smashed". An embarrassed IOC was compelled to deliver a rare rebuke to the Chinese government, reiterating that it must "separate sport and politics."
In fact, most Olympiads have been surrounded by political controversy: Berlin 1936, Munich 1972, Mexico City 1968, Moscow 1980, Los Angeles 1984; the list is long. Ten days before the Olympic Games opened in Mexico City, the military shot and killed hundreds of student demonstrators in what has become known as the 'Tlatelolco Massacre'. Mexico too was a one-party dictatorship that US imperialism and other Western capitalist powers had important economic and strategic links with. True to form, the IOC worked closely with Mexico's president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz to insure that the massacre did not jeopardise the Games. Yet when the Afro-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos famously gave the 'black power' salute from the medals podium in Mexico City, they were expelled from the Games on the orders of the IOC president Avery Brundage.
The IOC and its supporters want it both ways. When they deal with dictators, they justify this with arguments that the Olympics can help to advance democracy and human rights. In other words, they claim an explicitly political rationale. But when this is shown to be a farce, as in China today, they reply that the Olympics is a sporting, not a political organisation.
Jacques Rogge, the current IOC president, has made the absurd claim that the Olympics in 1988 helped turn South Korea, then another dictatorship, into "a vibrant democracy". According to Rogge, "The Games played a key role, again by the presence of media people." [Financial Times, 26 April 2008]
In real life, the South Korean military regime was forced from power by a wave of mass strikes and demonstrations that erupted in June 1987 (a full year before the Seoul Olympic Games) and continued for three years. This is an important lesson for China, showing the decisive role of mass workers' struggle in the battle against dictatorship.
When it comes to the struggle for democratic rights, the Olympics is part of the problem rather than the solution. In a recent report, Amnesty International warns, "Hosting the Olympic Games has become a thinly veiled excuse to crackdown on freedom of expression and assembly." [What human rights legacy for the Beijing Olympics? Amnesty International, 1 April 2008]
With an estimated 150 people killed by security forces in Tibetan areas, 2008 is already one of the worst years for state repression in China since 1989. Annihilating the arguments of the IOC and its apologists, Amnesty's report states "much of the current wave of repression against activists and journalists is occurring not in spite of, but actually because of the Olympics."
Neither is the Chinese state acting alone as it uses the Olympics to crack down on potential opposition. Interpol has agreed to cooperate with Chinese authorities, opening its database to "help China ensure that mischief-makers do not enter". Ostensibly such measures are aimed at 'terrorists' from Xinjiang and Tibet (despite the lack of evidence that such terrorist threats exist). As prominent dissident Hu Jia commented: "The greatest threats aren't necessarily terrorists or crime, the greatest threats are those who reveal China's social problems and protest the government."

Authoritarian traditions

The IOC has a tradition of racism, anti-communism and support for authoritarian regimes stretching back to its origins. The founder of the modern Olympic movement in 1896 was the French aristocrat Pierre de Coubertin. His vision was not of a popular sporting movement, for the masses, but one almost exclusively for the 'idle rich' and military officer caste. In the view of noblemen like de Coubertin, the lower classes were unable to grasp the concept of 'fair play'. Women, meanwhile, were deemed completely unsuited to the world of sport – a view did not change much until after the Second World War. At the London Olympics of 1948, women athletes were outnumbered ten to one by men. More Afro-American athletes actually competed in the 1936 Berlin Games than in Los Angeles four years earlier, due to the institutionalised racism in the US which kept most sports as a white preserve until the 1950s.
Baron de Coubertin was a 'great French patriot' who nevertheless became a staunch admirer of the Nazi regime in Germany. On his death in 1937, he bequeathed his lifetime literary collection to Hitler's government. In a bizarre footnote, six months after his death, de Coubertin's corpse was dug up in Lausanne, Switzerland, and his heart was cut out and transported to Olympia in Greece. There it was reburied in a ceremony attended by his long-time friend, the Nazi official and organiser of the 1936 Berlin Games, Carl Diem.
The IOC awarded the 1936 Games to Berlin two years before Hitler came to power in January 1933. Rather than displaying regret, however, IOC leaders subsequently – and vehemently – defended the Nazi's rights to hold the Games. As news emerged of Nazi terror directed against trade unionists, communists, socialists and Jews, the call for a boycott of the Berlin Games grew, especially in the US, Britain, France, Sweden, Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands. A 1934 opinion poll showed that 42 percent of Americans supported an Olympic boycott. Facing a crisis, the US Olympic Committee sent its president, Avery Brundage, to Germany to assess if the Games could be held in accordance with 'Olympic principles'. In reality, Brundage's mission was a conscious manoeuvre to derail the boycott campaign, which Brundage blamed on "the Jews and the communists". During his visit to Germany in September 1934, he met with Jewish athletes in the presence of three senior Nazi party leaders, one in full SS uniform with his pistol. The Jewish athletes feared for their lives and dared not utter any criticism of the Nazi regime at this interview. Brundage returned to the US giving the Berlin Games his strong endorsement.
Brundage, who later became IOC president (1952-72), was also an admirer of Hitler and an open anti-semite. He cited Main Kampf as his "spiritual inspiration". His friend, the leading Swedish capitalist Sigfrid Edström, who was IOC president from 1946-52, was yet another fascist sympathiser. In November 1933, as the boycott issue raged, Edström had written to Brundage: "The Nazi opposition to the influence of the Jews can only be understood if you live over in Germany. In some of the more important trades the Jews govern the majority and stop all others from coming in … Many of these Jews are of Polish or Russian origin with minds entirely different from the western mind. An alteration of these conditions is absolutely necessary if Germany should remain a 'white' nation." [Letter from Edström to Brundage, 8 February 1934, from The National Archives of Sweden]
After the Berlin Olympics, Edström, then vice-president of the IOC, attended a Nazi party rally in Nuremberg and later declared: "It was one of the greatest shows I have ever seen … He [Hitler] is probably one of the most powerful and strongly supported individuals that the world's history has ever known. 60 million people I am sure are willing to die for him and do whatever he requests."
Indicating that Berlin was no aberration, the IOC decided one year later to award the 1940 Olympics to Japan. That Olympiad never took place due to the war. The IOC's decision to promote yet another militaristic and rabidly anti-communist regime, had been taken in the full knowledge of Japan's atrocities in China, which its armies had occupied in 1931. There was a sizeable layer of industrialists and capitalist politicians internationally who looked favourably upon Germany, Japan and other authoritarian or fascist regimes seeing them as bulwarks against the spread of 'communism'. Only when the imperialist ambitions of Hitler and the Japanese Emperor clashed with their own, did the capitalists 'democracies' resort to 'anti-Nazi' rhetoric and eventually war. The parallel with China today, is that a large segment of the capitalists internationally see the current 'communist-in-name-only' regime as their best hope to keep China 'open' for global capitalism and hold down its huge, increasingly restive working class. This is why they enthusiastically support the Chinese dictatorship's hosting of the Olympics.
After the Second World War, both Edström and Brundage used their IOC positions to try to secure the release of convicted Nazi war criminals. Most famously, they campaigned for the release from a Russian prison of Karl Ritter von Halt, who was Germany's IOC member up until the end of the war, as well as a leading figure in Hitler's regime. Ritter von Halt was released from prison in 1951 as part of the deal that saw the Soviet Union admitted to the Olympic movement for the first time. Brundage continued to defend right-wing causes throughout his term as IOC president. He was a keen supporter of Senator McCarthy's anti-communist witch-hunts in the 1950s and criticised president Eisenhower for halting the war in Korea, which Brundage called "a shameful act for all the whites in Asia". The call for Brundage's resignation as head of the Olympic movement was one of the demands raised by Tommy Smith and John Carlos in their 1968 'silent protest' (they also demanded that Mohammed Ali's world heavyweight boxing title be restored).
In 1980, Juan Antonio Samaranch, arguably the most powerful of IOC presidents, took the helm. He described himself as "100 percent Francoist" – a reference to Spain's former fascist dictator. The official biography of Samaranch, published by the IOC, does not say a word about his long political career – that he was in fact a fascist deputy in the Cortes and minister of sport under Franco's dictatorship. It was during this period that Samaranch developed strong contacts with Horst Dassler, heir to the Adidas empire, and a key behind-the-scenes figure in the Olympic movement at that time. In the 1960s, Adidas' distinctive black and white footballs were made by prisoners in Spanish jails, under a contract negotiated with the help of Samaranch. This use of forced prison labour under a fascist regime was a prototype – on a much smaller scale – to today's globalised sweatshop production chain.