The 2016 ISIL Games: Closing Ceremony Pt.6

This should be read as a direct continuation of Part 5; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/the-2016-isil-games-closing-ceremony-pt5.html

Thank You Volunteers: It has become tradition that the Closing Ceremony gives thanks to the thousands of volunteers known as "Games Makers" who gave up their free time to make the games possible.

This particular ceremony combined this with the election of the new delegates to the IOC by having four volunteers join the athletes on stage and pose with them for a "Selfie" photograph.

Of the selected volunteers one in particular stood out.

At the risk of causing offence I would say that the young man in the glasses looked like he was suffering from some type of disability. Possibly some form of neurological impairment such as Cerebral Palsy. This of course served to remind everyone that the Para-Olympics are yet to come.

This young man also had quite a large nose giving him a rather stereotypically Jewish look. How you would have reacted to this would probably have revealed more about you than the ceremony organisers.

For example after finishing fifth in the women's 800m Polish runner Joanna Jozwik had a bit of a meltdown. She declared that she felt like she'd won the real silver medal because she was the second white person to finish and the three blacks that finished ahead of her could not be considered human let alone women.

I'm sure Poland's support for Shamali Province comes from a good place though.

Then of course there is that group of German immigrants who arrived in Brazil in the 1940's. Franz Stangl - head of the Sobibor and Treblinka death camps - was probably not the most forward thinking man when it came to Jews and the disabled. Let alone disabled Jews.

Coming on the back of references to Golems I think it was also a little bit of teasing of the UK's 2012 assertion that I am some sort of feeble-minded cripple that they can control as they like.

Brazilian popstar Lenine then performed his song "Jack Soul Brasileiro" in tribute and celebration of the volunteers.

Personally I found Lenine to be a little too mainstream for my tastes. In my experience Brazilians tend to be really into their heavy metal so I was expecting a performance by a band like "Sepultura." Judging by all the devil horns hand gestures and stuck out tongues amongst the athletes it looked like they were too.

During Lenine's performance giant cutouts of hands were waved both on stage and amongst the crowd. This seemed to be a play on that traditional sign of appreciation - the round of applause - which is sometimes referred to as; "Giving people a big hand."

However as with much else in this ceremony these giant hands struck a more personal note with me.

The Olympic Cauldron which was lit during the Opening Ceremony is designed to resemble a cooking pot - literally a cauldron.

This was a reference to efforts to reduce Climate Change in developing nations by replacing the traditional open fire they use to heat their one room huts with a metal stove. These stoves use far less wood and therefore lead to far less deforestation and fewer Greenhouse Gas (ghg) emissions by heating the metal of the stove and then using the stove to heat the room.

This is far from a new technology and one that I'm sadly all too familiar with.

It was first invented by Nobel prize winning Swedish physicist Gustaf Dalen who incorporated it into his "AGA" cooker. Although there are various varieties this is essentially a giant cast iron cabinet. You set a small fire of wood or coal in the base of the cabinet which causes it to heat up. This heated metal then serves as both a cook stove and a central heating system.

As a very young child I placed my hands on one of these cookers causing the skin on the palms of both hands to melt. They healed up in scar formation that give the appearance of there being holes in the centre of my hands similar to the "Stigmata" with which Jesus Christ was said to be nailed to the Cross. It really freaks people out. Particularly Catholics.

The AGA or technically Rayburn stove I burnt my hands on was in a farmhouse that wasn't connected to the natural gas or electricity grids. However they have become something of a must have fashion accessory for rich people who will pay upwards of USD8,000 to give their designer kitchens that authentic rustic look.

The fact that there are people in poor nations that can't afford what for them are necessities while people in rich nations will pay a large premium for what to them is a fashion accessory really serves to highlight the economic challenges in fighting Climate Change.

What a lot of people were hoping for from this new global Climate Change agreement was a mechanism that would allow poor nations and rich nations to cooperate to find solutions.

A prime example of this is that using rather made-up numbers lets say that it would cost a nation like the UK USD1million to cut ghg emissions by a single tonne. At the same time you've got a nation like Ethiopia that could cut ghg emissions by a tonne by spending USD100,000 to provide these stoves but can't afford it.

Surely then it would be better all round for the UK to spend USD100,000 buying Ethiopia those stoves to remove that one tonne. After all the atmosphere doesn't care where that 1 tonne of ghg is cut from just that it is removed.

Unfortunately in his rush to declare that he has once again Saved the World US President Obama at the last minute ordered all of those cooperation provisions to be stripped from the agreement.

As such you can see why a lot of people think that with very little effort we could achieve an awful lot more. In fact under the Paris Agreement we're doing a lot less than we were doing before.

While the giant hands were on stage and in the crowd on the floor of the arena a sort space themed display was being projected. This was another reference to China's quantum communications satellite QUESS.

The fact that China is able to launch the World's first quantum communication satellite yet is still classed as "Developing" under the Paris Agreement is just further testament to its failure.

At around 16:55 on 6/9/16 (UK date) I'll be back after dinner.

Edited at around 19:45 on 6/9/16 (UK date) to add above and below;

Fun With Flags: It is a matter of IOC protocol that each Closing Ceremony features the raising of the national flag of Greece and a performance of the Greek national anthem.

The Olympic flag is then lowered, the Olympic anthem performed before the Olympic flag is ceremonially handed over to the next Olympic host. In this case Japan.

Then the national flag of the next Olympic host is raised and their national anthem performed

Basically it's a lot of faffing about with flags.

As with the flag protocols in the Opening Ceremony the Brazilian hosts kept matters rather simple. The Greek flag was raised and a recording of the anthem played.

During the lowering of the Olympic flag the Olympic anthem was sung by a child's choir.

With how to combat child sexual abuse and child prostitution being such a big theme in the run-up to the games any use of children is going to carry with it those connotations. However unlike in the Opening Ceremony where the children were wearing virginal white not much was made of it here. The children were all dressed in blue T-shirts that at most I think signified water.

What I did notice is that unusually for a nation as ethnically diverse as Brazil all the children in this choir were black. However the children with the darkest skin had straightened Caucasian style hair while the children with the lightest skin had big Afros. This seemed to be a reference to the rather uniquely Brazilian phenomenon of racism being determined not by skin tone but by hair type.

As with all the other flag protocols both the Greek national flag and the Olympic flag were carried by Brazilian soldiers in what passes for Brazilian dress uniform. This references the military dictatorship that the US imposed on Brazil between 1964 and 1985. However the fact that it was ruled by a military dictatorship for 21 years means that this is just how Brazil does things.

As is protocol during the ceremonial handing over of the Olympic flag the outgoing host is represented by the Mayor or Governor of the outgoing host city. In this case Mayor of Rio de Janerio Eduardo Paes. The IOC is represented by its President Thomas Bach. The incoming host city is represented by its Mayor. In this case the Governor of Tokyo prefecture Yurio Koike.

Although she was there simply in her capacity as Governor of Tokyo the fact that Yurio Koike is the Governor of Tokyo is in itself significant. Elected in July 2016 she is the first woman to hold a position of this magnitude anywhere in Japan.

This obviously reflects the fact that despite being extremely economically and technologically advanced by many western standards Japan still lags behind in many social areas - particularly women's rights. I think that based on the 2012 Gender Inequality Index Japan ranks 21st out of 136.

Improving gender equality may well be one of the issues that Japan chooses to focus on as it prepares to host the 2020 games in much the same way that Brazil has chosen to focus on preventing child sexual abuse.

The Japanese national flag was then raised on stage as a recording of the Japanese national anthem was played.

However you may have missed this because at the same time a giant version of the Japanese national flag was being video projected onto the floor of the arena. This marked the start of the Japanese produced segment of the ceremony.

It is here we hit something of an impasse. I've still not properly gone through the rest of the ceremony. The Para-Olympic Opening Ceremony starts in less than 23 hours.

20:35 on 6/9/16 (UK date).