The 2014 Winter Olympics: Day 7(ish)

Yesterday (12/2/14) there was an extremely rare event in Olympic competition. Tina Maze of Slovenia and Dominique Gisin of Switzerland had to share the gold medal in the women's downhill ski race after they both recorded an identical time of 1.41.57. 

As I think it is extremely unlikely that it was impossible to find even one hundredth of a second difference between the two competitors and it is certainly the first time this has happened in this event I think this was a reference to the scandal surrounding Lebanese downhill skier Jackie Chamoun. The message seemed to be that the international community was well aware of the link to the US' Rihanna/Miley Cyrus operation and also understood that the intention was that people would view Rihanna and Miley Cyrus as exactly the same. As far as I'm concerned the important thing about this is that it all happened before I'd even heard about the Chamoun scandal let alone commented on it. That serves to underline that the failure of Rihanna's 2013 tour came not from my contribution but the fact that it just wasn't up to the accepted international standard.

Today there was another rare event in Olympic competition with the US taking the gold, silver and bronze medals in the men's ski slopestyle event. This is a peculiar event where the winners are decided through a combination of the time in which it takes them to complete a set course combined with Judges score for the style and difficulty of tricks they perform on that course. So although ski slopestyle is a new and therefore relatively uncompetitive Olympic event I can't help but feel that this was the international community giving the US universal, loud and possibly slightly sarcastic round of applause for both it's gay-rights/Syria and Rihanna/Miley Cyrus efforts.

Following Germany's attempts to get the ball rolling again through the prosecution of individuals involved in the 2010 Love Parade music festival tragedy gay rights have begun to return to Olympic discussions.

The first of these efforts have come from Belgium whose Parliament have been today debating on extending euthanasia to children under the age of 18. If passed this would extend an existing 2002 law that allows for euthanasia in cases where there is "Constant and unbearable physical or mental suffering that cannot be alleviated." This of course leads into complex medical discussions about when physical or mental suffering becomes unbearable and cannot be alleviated. 

As such it provides a metaphor for homosexuality and whether it is a physical or mental condition and whether it can be treated if it is considered an unbearable condition. It also touches on whether children under the age of 18 can be considered competent to make this type of decision because Russia's anti-gay propaganda laws all focus on the promotion of non-traditional relationships to under 18's and are frequently defended as a way to prevent paedophilia rather then adult homosexual relationships. Finally it seems like a Belgian attempt to curry favour amongst Russian homophobes by suggesting that homosexuals could be tested and then euthanized which some Russians would certainly find to be desirable. 

However in this final effort the Belgians appear to be demonstrating the fundamental misconception that has led European Monarchies to completely misunderstand the Russian governments approach to gay rights at the Sochi games. In short the European Monarchs seem to be completely unable to conceive of a set of circumstances in which the people are telling the government to do something rather then the government telling the people what to do.

The Russian's have also participated in the gay rights debate by passing a law that prevents foreign gay couples or single people from nations that allow gay marriage adopting Russian children. As with the anti-gay propaganda law this seems intended to provoke a wave of protest. However if people were to stop and think about it for a moment they would realise that it raises the fact homosexual couples cannot have children of their own without resorting to medical assistance. This goes to one of the cores of homophobia in Russia - if homosexuals are allowed to live openly the entire nation would turn gay, no babies would be born and the nation would collapse. It also highlights the fact that a large number of Russian orphans are being shipped off to foreign countries every year. Although we're quite a long way away from that in Russia if people are really concerned about Russia's falling population surely it would be better to allow openly gay couples to adopt Russian orphans rather then having them shipped abroad?

Also foreign adoption is a massive source of tension between Russia and the USA. This began in 2008 when the American adoptive parents of a Russian infant named Dima Yakolev left him in a parked car on a hot day effectively causing him to roast to death. Obviously this caused a lot of offence in Russia and the general outrage increased in 2010 when an American couple adopted a Russian orphan called Artem Saveliev. When they got home and discovered that the child had significant behavioural/emotional problems they simply stuck him on plane back to Russia in much the same way to would return a faulty DVD player to the store. At around the same time as the Artem Saveliev case the US was imposing heavy sanctions on Russia under the pretence of punishing Russia over the Magnitsky case. 

In reality though the Magnitsky bill was wider US punishment of Russian government officials over issues such as Iran's nuclear program and Syria. In response Russia passed a law banning Americans from adopting Russian children which became known as the Dima Yakolev law. So by bringing up the international adoption issue Russia was also trying to find out if anyone was aware of this ongoing argument with the US because the US most certainly hasn't been behaving in the fair and noble way it likes to tell people it has.

Despite its apology over the weekend for its handling of the gay rights issue the UK today took another jab at Russia through a warning that gay and transgendered people should be very careful over using dating websites such as Grindr. The official reason for this warning was that paedophiles are using these sites to groom children for sex. That of course seems like a British attempt to curry favour with Russian homophobes by re-enforcing the perceived link between homosexuality and paedophilia. 

However it was also an attempt to use gay rights to whip up anti-Russian feeling amongst the British public. That because UK Channel 4 recently aired a somewhat hysterical documentary detailing how in Russia there are homophobic gangs to go out to kidnap, assault and sometimes kill people simply for being gay. One of the ways that these gangs use to hunt their victims that was highlighted in the documentary was to go onto gay dating websites in order to lure homosexuals into effectively a honeytrap. To the UK's credit they did really downplay this obviously pre-planned announcement to the point where I only heard about it through the website of the youth radio station BBC Radio 1 which is hardly front and centre of the BBC's international output. However you will notice that the UK did not go so far as to pull this announcement by a government's National Crime Agency completely.

As a result when there was a crash involving multiple competitors in the final of the women's 500m short track speed skating it was all to easy (and fair) for the judges to find Team GB's Elise Christie responsible and disqualify her from her silver medal position. After all at the time of the collision Christie does appear to have already left the track.

Although it clearly wasn't the UK's intention this warning about gay dating websites does actually serve to highlight one of the big problems with Russia's anti-gay propaganda laws. One of the applications of this law which I find the most troubling is the case of a woman who runs website that puts gay teenagers in touch with professional psychologists and counsellors who try and help them work out if they are in fact gay and help them come to terms with it if they are. Now everyday Russians might think this is disgusting and should be illegal. However the Internet is global and there are plenty of people on there who are perfectly happy to help gay Russian teenagers. For example throughout the Sochi games the US has been putting out a daily barrage of announcements and stories showing off how gay friendly they are.

If Russian websites aren't allowed to offer advice to potentially gay Russian teenagers those teenagers will simply turn to foreign websites for help. Many foreign governments - particularly the US - will then use those websites to exploit those Russian teenagers to damage the Russian government just the same as they did in Libya and Syria. In this modern age that represents a far greater threat to Russian security then a falling birthrate.

20:40 on 13/2/14 (UK date).