This should be read as a direct continuation of Part 3; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/the-2016-sultan-mehmed-games-opening_10.html
Opening Speeches and Declaration: As with the Olympic Opening Ceremonies it is a matter of International Para-Olympic Committee (IPC) protocol that each Opening Ceremony must feature a speech from the head of the local organising committee and the President of the IPC. There must also be a declaration from the Head of State of the host nation that the games have officially been opened. This Opening Ceremony was no exception.
However I have discovered that the creative sequences of this type of ceremony flow much better if you've had a little drink. Sadly the opposite is true of the speeches.
So I could spend most of today wrestling with the speeches. Alternatively I could just leave it for now and press ahead with getting the rest of the ceremony done as quickly as possible.
Visually Impaired: With the earlier "Wheels Within Wheels" sequence taking a look at wheelchair sports and the "Clear Blue Water" sequence looking at swimming it was time to take a look at some more of the type of sports you will see during these games.
However rather than looking at a particular sport this sequence took a look at a particular type of disability - blindness. After all within the games you get many blind sports such as blind cycling, blind athletics and blind football. You even get blind shooting and blind archery although they're rarely as dramatic as they sound.
This sequence began with 400 performers dressed in black walking across the darkened arena floor. They were all carrying with them sticks that lit up white. This was a reference to the white stick that blind people traditionally use to navigate their way around the world without bumping into things.
As they reached the centre of the arena floor these performers formed an illuminated circle. This was obviously another reference to the rising sun at the centre of the flag of 2020 Summer Olympic host Japan.
However the performers then fanned to form the shape of a human eye. Particular attention was paid to the pupil of the eye that expands and contracts to allow differing amounts of light - often from the sun - into the eye forming the basis of sight. The light-sticks the performers were carrying were actually radio-controlled so they were lit up to differing degrees throughout the sequence. This obviously meant that the circle of light they projected onto the floor expanded and contracted in a sort of reverse of the function of the pupil.
After the eye had been formed the performers then broke apart as if the structure of the eye was being deconstructed in front of us.
The performers then formed up in a series of parallel, diagonal lines. These seemed to be a reference to the 120 million non-colour sensitive photoreceptors known as "Rods" that are in every healthy human eye. Colour perception comes from another group of roughly 7 million photoreceptors known as "Cones." I suspect though that people who were really into the geometry theme of the previous Opening Ceremony would have been busy trying to calculate the gradient of these diagonal lines.
Although the Para-Olympics uses the term "Blind" the more medically accurate way of describing people with sight problems is "Visually Impaired" or "Partially sighted."
That is because not only are there differing degrees of blindness there are also different types. Some people lack the edges of their vision leaving them seeing the world as is staring down a narrow tube. Other people lack the centre of their vision seeing everything partially obscured by a black blob in the centre of their eye. Others see the world as if through a white gauze meaning that they can see light and movement but can't see shape or colour.
The Opening Ceremony then emphasised this point further. On a special stage two dancers - Oscar and Renota - performed together. Oscar is totally blind with 0% of vision while Renota is only 80% blind with 20% of vision. Their dance routine was performed entirely through sound and touch.
It must be said though that after classifying them as "Blind" the Para-Olympics also assigns a number from 1 (the most severe) to 5 (least severe) to describe the specific nature and extent of the visual impairment. So you get competitors being described as; B1, B2, B3 etc.
Immediately prior to Oscar and Renota's dance the performers with their light-sticks formed what was intended to be a graphic equaliser commonly used on home stereo systems. On the wall behind the dance was projected images of raised dots rather like the "Pinscreen" toy invented by Ward Fleming. This seemed a reference to the Braille writing system used by blind people that was invented by Louis Braille back in 1824.
As the dance finished onto the screen was projected an image of Leonardo Da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man." This was an attempt by Roman architect Marcus Vitruvius Pollio to use geometry to detail the proportions of the ideal human man. Although I think British cyclist Jody Cundy has an image of Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man tattooed on his arm I think many disabled athletes would consider this offensive because they most certainly don't fit in to this ideal of what a man should look like.
The action then returned to the arena floor where there were six couples lying on the ground. All of these performers were dressed in costumes where one side was black while the other was white. As they were lying on the floor the performers arranged themselves into various geometric patterns in a sort of horizontal dance. Around them was video projected a complex and elaborate array of different geometric shapes that were primarily black and white but also featured splashes of colour - particularly red.
You could take this as a reference to all the other ways that geometry had been used in the previous ceremonies. However it was intended as an exploration of the way that the human senses work and one sense can be used to compensate for the loss of others.
A rather famous example of this is Helen Keller who was born deaf, blind and mute in Alabama, US 1880. By using touch to form out the shapes of letters on the palms of her hands Helen Keller was taught to read and write. From there she not only went on to attend university but to graduate to become a university lecturer and writer.
Another famous example is Louis Braille's system of writing. This uses raised bumps on a page rather than the reflected light from inkmarks to allow people without sight to read using the sensation of touch.
An example that I'm particularly familiar and most viewers will be familiar with too is subtitling or closed captioning. For people who are deaf this takes the speech of people on TV and in movies and translates it into the visual medium of written words on screen.
There is also Audio Description that is becoming increasingly common as broadcasting technology develops. For partially sighted people this takes the things they can't see on screen and converts it into the audio medium. It must be said that there are few things funnier in this life then listening to TV or movie sex scenes being audio described.
Although I've yet to hear of anyone achieving it there has long been talk of using radar technology to aid blind people. This involves a person wearing a headset that emits and then re-absorbs radio waves. This is then translated into audible sound allowing the person to build up an audio map of their surroundings rather like a bat.
There is also a rare but extremely interesting neurological condition known as; "Synesthesia." In this sufferers experience a sensory input in the form of the perception of another sense. So for example they might smell noise or hear colour. To them the noise of an Olympic crowd may appear in the form of the sort of the vast and chaotic colourful video projection like the one we've just been shown.
The way that Synesthesia sufferers brains get muddled has long fuelled a hope that the brain of a deaf person or a blind person can be rewired so their sense of sight becomes their sense of hearing or vice versa.
The Brazilian hosts are making this a big theme of the games by changing the design of the medals.
Para-Olympic medal have long featured Braille text on one side so they can be read by the blind. However the medals at this games also feature a compartment filled with small beads that make a noise when shaken. The Gold, Silver and Bronze medals all have different sized beads so different coloured medals all make different sounds allowing blind medal winners to tell them apart.
Perhaps to prove a point the UK broadcaster Channel 4 then decided to cut away from this sequence to go to a long commercial break. As a result I did not get to see the rest of the sequence.
I and no doubt other UK viewers now have a greater sense of empathy for those who are not able to see everything clearly.
The Agitos: As with the Olympics it is a matter of IPC protocol that every Opening Ceremony must featuring a revealing of the Agitos emblem of the Para-Olympic movement.
The word "Agito" is Latin for "I Move." However the emblem itself has no specific meaning. It is simply how the advertising agency Scholz & Friends interpreted this concept of movement back in 2003.
This organisers of this ceremony decided to interpret this concept of movement in the form of a sail that uses the wind to move a ship. Specifically they used the fan-type sail synonymous with the ancient Chinese "Junk" type ship. However I think the only significance of this was that this type of sail design is much easier to use to form the flowing lines of a the Agitos than the rectangular design used on western sailing ships.
So dozens of performers all carried their white 'sails' around the arena floor until the wind blew them together in the centre where they formed a circle that again resembled the pupil of an eye. They then placed their sails together to form the Agitos which was then lit up in the traditional red, blue and green prompting fireworks to be set off around the arena roof.
This is actually the first time that the Agitos has been revealed in such a creative way. Normally they just have a sculpture of it nestling beneath a cover that is then pulled back for the big reveal.
As such this formed a small bit of Para-Olympic history.
15:25 on 12/9/16 (UK date).
Edited at around 14:20 on 14/9/16 (UK date) to add: Can you believe that I forgot all about the medals. By getting bogged down amid the complex detail I seem to have missed the big and the obvious.
Monday, 12 September 2016
Saturday, 10 September 2016
The 2016 Sultan Mehmed Games: Opening Ceremony Pt.3
This should be read as a direct continuation of Part 2; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/the-2016-sultan-mehmed-games-opening_8.html
National Flag and Anthem: The Life's a Beach sequence ended with all the beachgoers turning to face one end of the stadium to salute a projected red, circular sun as it set behind the seats.
The previous Closing Ceremony of course featured the national flag of Brazil being lowered and the national flag of Japan - with a red, circular sun at it's centre - being raised in its place. This saluting of the sun seemed to a lighthearted way for the Brazilian hosts to say that they're now going to take down the Japanese flag and raise their own flag in its place.
Amid the crowd of beachgoers emerged a single flagbearer carrying a neatly folded Brazilian flag. This woman was Rosanne Miccolis. She is the daughter of Aldo Miccolis who was a keen advocate of the Para-Olympics and played a key role in developing disabled sport within Brazil.
Miccolis climbed all those stairs on to what I think is termed the "Protocol Island" where she was met by a pianist sitting at his piano, some flagpoles and what is termed a flag detail. Their job is to unfold the flag and then raise it up one of the flagpoles.
During the previous Brazil ceremonies the flag details were made up of members of the Brazilian military in full dress uniform. If you've ever seen the soldiers guarding Britain's Buckingham Palace or Swiss Guard at the Vatican City you would know that military dress uniforms can get quite theatric. The Brazilian military dress uniform is very simple though made up of the working uniform of camouflage fatigues, a beret and combat boots along with a shiny white leather "Sam Brown" belt.
This flag detail was much more smartly dressed. They wore shiny well polished boots, neatly pressed trousers and equally well pressed shirts adorned with different medal ribbons and insignia. They also wore garrison caps. They actually reminded me of the US military service uniforms of the 1960's. The maroon cravat or dickie they wore actually reminded me of Vietnam-era US Pararescue jumpers.
These are paramedics who parachute out of aeroplanes or more commonly these days helicopters to treat and then rescue battlefield casualties - particularly downed aircrews. Quite why the service uniform of Vietnam-era US Pararescue jumpers is stuck in my head remains a bit of a mystery even to me. However all these references to Paramedics, Parachutists and Paramilitaries seem rather appropriate at the Para-Olympics.
It turns out though that the men making up this flag detail weren't in the military at all. Instead they were civilian firefighters. Quite why they were wearing winged parachute insignia indicating they'd qualified as Paratroopers is something I still don't quite understand.
Between 1964 and 1985 Brazil was run by a military dictatorship that the US imposed in the "Brother Sam" operation to fight Communism.
As a result the military has seeped into Brazilian culture influencing a wide array of areas of public life. Prior to the games I was absent mindedly watching a news report on anti-terror drills Brazil was conducting in preparation for the games. I remember being taken aback by the fact that even Brazil's ambulance drivers sill look quite a bit like they're in the military.
Due to the history of the military dictatorship the role of the military within public life is still a controversial one in Brazil. Obviously no-one really minds them doing flag ceremonies and colour parades at this type of national event. After all that's the sort of thing the military spend a lot of time practising and are very good at.
However a lot of people are less keen on Brazil's Military Police. In the US or the UK when you talk about the Military Police you're talking about a police force that polices members of the military. In Brazil you are talking about members of the military who are being used to police civilians. They were formed during the military dictatorship and up until very recently were paid a bonus for every suspect they killed rather than arrested.
This is actually a situation that is far from unique to Brazil. The French Gendarmerie and the Italian Carabinieri are both paramilitary police forces that technically fall within the military rather than the civilian command structure. You can see why then every time US President Obama gets on his Black Lives Matter hobby horse and starts ranting about America's militarised police no-one can take him seriously.
This is one of the areas I would have liked to have been able to research in more detail prior to the games. But generally speaking using the military to police civilians never ends well. Military police tend to treat crime as a military problem. That means they storm an area with troops to eliminate the enemy and then withdraw. Policing civilians more requires building up a relationship with the local community.
So rather than having heavily armed troops smashing their way into the neighbourhood in armoured cars whenever there's a crime you have lightly armed officers patrolling the streets of a neighbourhood day-in-day-out regardless of whether there is crime being committed. This allows them to get to known the local residents building up trust and deter crime from happening in the first place.
Through their neighbourhood pacification units the Brazilian authorities do seem to have begun to understand this. As such a key part of that strategy is the building of local police stations with the same local officers in high crime areas when they can afford to do so. It must be said though that such is the level of violence in some of Brazil's Favelas it is often closer to a military issue than a policing one.
As the Brazilian flag was being raised the Brazilian national anthem was played on the piano. The pianist was the extremely famous Brazilian Joao Carlos Martins. A renowned interpreter of the works of Bach Martins has worked with a number orchestras worldwide including the Boston Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic both in the US. He was also Brazil's Secretary of State for Culture under the military dictatorship in 1981.
Unfortunately disability forced Martins to give up playing the piano professionally. So he simply reinvented himself as a conductor. Although I don't have his medical notes in front of me I gather he suffered a brain injury as the result of a mugging that partially paralysed his right arm. Then an unsuccessful surgery robbed him of sensation in all but the thumb and one finger of his right hand.
Looking at the clumping of Martins' knuckles I would also guess that some form of arthritis is also playing a role as he reaches 76 years of age.
This adds another element to the discussion about the types of disability that was begun with Aaron Fotheringham's fiery 'birth' during the opening countdown. As well as people who are born with disability or acquire disability through accidents there are also the disabilities of ageing bodies such as worn out hips and knees.
As the actual flag was being raised and the national anthem performed the beachgoers who were still in the arena turned their parasols upside down to form a giant Brazilian flag covering the arena floor.
At around 16:25 on 10/9/16 (UK date) I'll be back after a long dinner break.
Edited at around 20:00 on 10/9/16 (UK date) to add;
Parade of Nations: This is by far the most important section of any Opening Ceremony. It allows the competitors without whom there wouldn't be a games to take centre stage and be introduced to the World.
However as I said about the previous Opening Ceremony unless someone falls over there's not really much for me to write about. At the Para-Olympics someone falling over is a very real possibility.
Take for example the British flag carrier Lee Pearson. This Equestrian rider suffers from a condition called Arthrogryposis. This is defined by muscle shortening which prevents the joints from extending and contracting across the normal range of mobility.
Therefore as he attempts to walk the joints in Lee Pearson's legs such as his ankles or knees may well lock at a critical moment causing him to lose balance and fall over. That can be annoying and somewhat embarrassing. Particularly when it happens in public.
So as he was carrying the British flag Lee Pearson was wearing callipers to support his legs and was riding on one of those "Rascal" mobility scooters that are normally used by fatties.
As they entered the stadium the competitors were paraded around a central square with their route being marked out by stewards who were dressed to resemble clouds in an otherwise clear blue sky.
I suspect that the stewards outfits featured a hooded top was another reference to the Islamic dress issue. After all in the previous Opening Ceremony the Swedish flag carrier Therese Alshammar did wear a hooded dress. This resembled the dress worn by Jamela as she represented Shamali Province in the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest which was hosted by Sweden.
However it was two of these stewards who were particularly important.
The Rio games obviously pick up from the 2012 London games. As part of their coverage the host broadcaster Channel 4 put on a special show called; "The Last Leg." Broadcast live at the end of each day's events this show featured three comedians - well two comedians and Alex "Work Experience" Brooker - taking a light hearted look at what happened that day. This show was a huge hit particularly amongst competitors staying at the athletes village.
Having being forced to miss the 2014 Sochi games because the British security services could no longer guarantee their safety The Last Leg has returned. It is being broadcast live from Rio both in the UK and into the athletes village on a sort of CCTV system.
Nestled away among all these stewards was two of The Last Leg's presenters - Josh Widdecome and Alex Brooker. While they were pratting about in the arena the third presenter Adam Hills was in the commentary box presenting Channel 4's coverage of the ceremony.
Following yesterday's show I think we need to have a little bit of a stewards inquiry into The Last Leg.
Representing New Zealand in the Track 43 (T43) sprinting events we have double below the knee amputee Liam Malone. Following his 100m heat on Thursday (8/9/16) a reporter went straight up to Malone to interview him about how the race went.
Still pumped up from the race Malone was in what can only be described as; "Full Beast Mode." He then proceeded to give this really intense interview in which he described the competition as being kill or be killed and said he'd set out to eat his opponents alive.
Being hilarious to watch this is exactly the sort of thing The Last Leg covers and they featured it on Friday's (9/9/16) show. However the presenters seemed to be mocking Malone telling him to calm down because this was the Para-Olympics. Not the Hunger Games.
About three hours later Malone won Silver in the 100m final. In this post race interview he seemed quiet, nervous and almost apologetic. It was as if all the jokes about his previous interview had got inside his head.
Gold was won by Britain's Johnny Peacock who The Last Leg were rooting for. As a result you can't help but wonder if there's been a wee bit of mind games going on. Particularly with Adam Hills being an Australian.
The only real controversy from the Parade of Nations was Belorussian official Andrei Fomochkin who waved a Russian flag. Russia of course has been banned from these Sultan Mehmed games. Almost immediately Fomochkin was also expelled from the games.
This over-reaction suggests to me that significance of International Para-Olympic Committee (IPC) President Philip Craven having his flight cancelled and then being exiled to Belem/Bellend in the opening video sequence was not understood by all. As a result the games seem to be proceeding in a manically reckless anti-Russian frenzy.
If the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had conducted itself in the same way it would have had to immediately expel the Egyptian competitor who waved the flag of Saudi Arabia during the opening Parade of Nations.
The IOC would then also have had to expel all members of the Saudi delegation who were throwing their flags about in the first place. Along with all the members of the Iranian delegation who started throwing their flags about in response.
The IOC would then have had to expel any competitor wearing the Hijab. America's Ibtihaj Muhammad in particular was extremely clear about the fact she viewed her wearing to the Hijab to be both a religious and political statement. A clear violation of Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter.
Highlighting the political importance of the games Craven's frankly deranged behaviour seems to be having very real and serious consequences. Just (technically) this morning Russia seemed to indicate that in retaliation it is going to give ISIL and Al Qaeda the free run of Syria. As they're forced to deal with that I suspect that the US and in particular European nations won't be finding their Para-Olympic medals quite so shiny.
They will though likely be able to send very large teams to the 2020 Tokyo games. After all you should see what the 7/7 London bombings did for the British sitting volleyball squad.
As they paraded into the arena each nation carried with them a sign bearing the name of their nation in the form of a jigsaw puzzle piece. As they handed their national flag to be placed on the protocol island they handed this jigsaw piece to be placed in the square in the centre of the arena.
As the parade ended the camera pulled back and revealed the finished jigsaw. It showed the faces of all the competitors in the games. A giant anatomically correct beating human heart was then video projected onto the jigsaw.
Officially this was to send the message that the disabled are people too. They all have human hearts and emotions and are just as deserving of our respect as anybody else.
For someone like me who is already extremely familiar with not only disabled sport but disability issues in general this message might seem rather trite and somewhat stating the obvious. However in parts of Africa you still have Albino children being murdered so their bones can be used in witchcraft rituals.
Therefore as a global event it is very important that the Para-Olympics promotes this type of message no matter how obvious it might seem to some.
To me though these black & white photographs of the competitors seemed to very much resemble the photographs of "The Missing." It was those missing that the Suadade sequence of the previous Closing Ceremony was dedicated to.
Within Latin America "The Missing" refers to the upwards of 80,000 people were simply disappeared by fascist dictatorships in numerous countries including Brazil but particularly Chile and Argentina. Commonly referred to as; "The Dirty War" these disappearances took place as part of what is officially known as; "Operation Condor" which took place between 1968-1989.
Operation Condor was conducted with the full backing of the US with America training many of the Paramilitary death squads at The School of the Americas. It was largely conducted under the supervision of then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Particularly Argentina's "Triple A" death squad.
Henry Kissinger has just endorsed Hillary Clinton for President.
Some of the most powerful opposition to Operation Condor came from an Argentinian group that became known as; "The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo." I did briefly touch upon them during the Closing Ceremony but being rushed for time I far from did them justice.
What the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo would do is gather together one day a week - I think a Friday - outside Argentina's Presidential Palace on the Plaza de Mayo. They would then simply stand there in complete silence each holding a framed black & white photographs of the son or daughter who had simply disappeared.
The fact that the military dictator Jorge Videla outside whose Palace they were standing employed death squads should tell just how dangerous this type of protest was.
The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo are absolutely legendary amongst the history of social and political protest and across Latin America generally. The photographs of their protests are every bit as iconic as that footage of a man standing in front of a tank in China's Tiananmen Square in 1989.
I was even considering comparing them to that iconic "Napalm Girl" photograph from the Vietnam war of a fully nude 9 year old girl running away from a Napalm strike. Her back horribly burned. However I personally would class that as an image of war rather than an image of protest.
Those who are trying to tear Syria apart such as Turkey's Sultan Mehmed Brigades clearly looked at the Suadade sequence of the Closing Ceremony and saw a full endorsement of their cause. So on August 30th (30/8/16) they launched another social media campaign bombarding people with gory images of people they claimed had been disappeared by Syria government death squads.
However the message I took away from the Suadade sequence was that there are people across Latin America who have really lived through what Turkey etc is claiming is happening in Syria. Therefore they can see instantly where the Erdogans of this world are so clearly lying.
The message that I took away from this Parade of Nations sequence is that anyone with a heart would call out those hateful lies loudly and clearly any time they're given voice.
22:05 on 10/9/16 (UK date).
National Flag and Anthem: The Life's a Beach sequence ended with all the beachgoers turning to face one end of the stadium to salute a projected red, circular sun as it set behind the seats.
The previous Closing Ceremony of course featured the national flag of Brazil being lowered and the national flag of Japan - with a red, circular sun at it's centre - being raised in its place. This saluting of the sun seemed to a lighthearted way for the Brazilian hosts to say that they're now going to take down the Japanese flag and raise their own flag in its place.
Amid the crowd of beachgoers emerged a single flagbearer carrying a neatly folded Brazilian flag. This woman was Rosanne Miccolis. She is the daughter of Aldo Miccolis who was a keen advocate of the Para-Olympics and played a key role in developing disabled sport within Brazil.
Miccolis climbed all those stairs on to what I think is termed the "Protocol Island" where she was met by a pianist sitting at his piano, some flagpoles and what is termed a flag detail. Their job is to unfold the flag and then raise it up one of the flagpoles.
During the previous Brazil ceremonies the flag details were made up of members of the Brazilian military in full dress uniform. If you've ever seen the soldiers guarding Britain's Buckingham Palace or Swiss Guard at the Vatican City you would know that military dress uniforms can get quite theatric. The Brazilian military dress uniform is very simple though made up of the working uniform of camouflage fatigues, a beret and combat boots along with a shiny white leather "Sam Brown" belt.
This flag detail was much more smartly dressed. They wore shiny well polished boots, neatly pressed trousers and equally well pressed shirts adorned with different medal ribbons and insignia. They also wore garrison caps. They actually reminded me of the US military service uniforms of the 1960's. The maroon cravat or dickie they wore actually reminded me of Vietnam-era US Pararescue jumpers.
These are paramedics who parachute out of aeroplanes or more commonly these days helicopters to treat and then rescue battlefield casualties - particularly downed aircrews. Quite why the service uniform of Vietnam-era US Pararescue jumpers is stuck in my head remains a bit of a mystery even to me. However all these references to Paramedics, Parachutists and Paramilitaries seem rather appropriate at the Para-Olympics.
It turns out though that the men making up this flag detail weren't in the military at all. Instead they were civilian firefighters. Quite why they were wearing winged parachute insignia indicating they'd qualified as Paratroopers is something I still don't quite understand.
Between 1964 and 1985 Brazil was run by a military dictatorship that the US imposed in the "Brother Sam" operation to fight Communism.
As a result the military has seeped into Brazilian culture influencing a wide array of areas of public life. Prior to the games I was absent mindedly watching a news report on anti-terror drills Brazil was conducting in preparation for the games. I remember being taken aback by the fact that even Brazil's ambulance drivers sill look quite a bit like they're in the military.
Due to the history of the military dictatorship the role of the military within public life is still a controversial one in Brazil. Obviously no-one really minds them doing flag ceremonies and colour parades at this type of national event. After all that's the sort of thing the military spend a lot of time practising and are very good at.
However a lot of people are less keen on Brazil's Military Police. In the US or the UK when you talk about the Military Police you're talking about a police force that polices members of the military. In Brazil you are talking about members of the military who are being used to police civilians. They were formed during the military dictatorship and up until very recently were paid a bonus for every suspect they killed rather than arrested.
This is actually a situation that is far from unique to Brazil. The French Gendarmerie and the Italian Carabinieri are both paramilitary police forces that technically fall within the military rather than the civilian command structure. You can see why then every time US President Obama gets on his Black Lives Matter hobby horse and starts ranting about America's militarised police no-one can take him seriously.
This is one of the areas I would have liked to have been able to research in more detail prior to the games. But generally speaking using the military to police civilians never ends well. Military police tend to treat crime as a military problem. That means they storm an area with troops to eliminate the enemy and then withdraw. Policing civilians more requires building up a relationship with the local community.
So rather than having heavily armed troops smashing their way into the neighbourhood in armoured cars whenever there's a crime you have lightly armed officers patrolling the streets of a neighbourhood day-in-day-out regardless of whether there is crime being committed. This allows them to get to known the local residents building up trust and deter crime from happening in the first place.
Through their neighbourhood pacification units the Brazilian authorities do seem to have begun to understand this. As such a key part of that strategy is the building of local police stations with the same local officers in high crime areas when they can afford to do so. It must be said though that such is the level of violence in some of Brazil's Favelas it is often closer to a military issue than a policing one.
As the Brazilian flag was being raised the Brazilian national anthem was played on the piano. The pianist was the extremely famous Brazilian Joao Carlos Martins. A renowned interpreter of the works of Bach Martins has worked with a number orchestras worldwide including the Boston Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic both in the US. He was also Brazil's Secretary of State for Culture under the military dictatorship in 1981.
Unfortunately disability forced Martins to give up playing the piano professionally. So he simply reinvented himself as a conductor. Although I don't have his medical notes in front of me I gather he suffered a brain injury as the result of a mugging that partially paralysed his right arm. Then an unsuccessful surgery robbed him of sensation in all but the thumb and one finger of his right hand.
Looking at the clumping of Martins' knuckles I would also guess that some form of arthritis is also playing a role as he reaches 76 years of age.
This adds another element to the discussion about the types of disability that was begun with Aaron Fotheringham's fiery 'birth' during the opening countdown. As well as people who are born with disability or acquire disability through accidents there are also the disabilities of ageing bodies such as worn out hips and knees.
As the actual flag was being raised and the national anthem performed the beachgoers who were still in the arena turned their parasols upside down to form a giant Brazilian flag covering the arena floor.
At around 16:25 on 10/9/16 (UK date) I'll be back after a long dinner break.
Edited at around 20:00 on 10/9/16 (UK date) to add;
Parade of Nations: This is by far the most important section of any Opening Ceremony. It allows the competitors without whom there wouldn't be a games to take centre stage and be introduced to the World.
However as I said about the previous Opening Ceremony unless someone falls over there's not really much for me to write about. At the Para-Olympics someone falling over is a very real possibility.
Take for example the British flag carrier Lee Pearson. This Equestrian rider suffers from a condition called Arthrogryposis. This is defined by muscle shortening which prevents the joints from extending and contracting across the normal range of mobility.
Therefore as he attempts to walk the joints in Lee Pearson's legs such as his ankles or knees may well lock at a critical moment causing him to lose balance and fall over. That can be annoying and somewhat embarrassing. Particularly when it happens in public.
So as he was carrying the British flag Lee Pearson was wearing callipers to support his legs and was riding on one of those "Rascal" mobility scooters that are normally used by fatties.
As they entered the stadium the competitors were paraded around a central square with their route being marked out by stewards who were dressed to resemble clouds in an otherwise clear blue sky.
I suspect that the stewards outfits featured a hooded top was another reference to the Islamic dress issue. After all in the previous Opening Ceremony the Swedish flag carrier Therese Alshammar did wear a hooded dress. This resembled the dress worn by Jamela as she represented Shamali Province in the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest which was hosted by Sweden.
However it was two of these stewards who were particularly important.
The Rio games obviously pick up from the 2012 London games. As part of their coverage the host broadcaster Channel 4 put on a special show called; "The Last Leg." Broadcast live at the end of each day's events this show featured three comedians - well two comedians and Alex "Work Experience" Brooker - taking a light hearted look at what happened that day. This show was a huge hit particularly amongst competitors staying at the athletes village.
Having being forced to miss the 2014 Sochi games because the British security services could no longer guarantee their safety The Last Leg has returned. It is being broadcast live from Rio both in the UK and into the athletes village on a sort of CCTV system.
Nestled away among all these stewards was two of The Last Leg's presenters - Josh Widdecome and Alex Brooker. While they were pratting about in the arena the third presenter Adam Hills was in the commentary box presenting Channel 4's coverage of the ceremony.
Following yesterday's show I think we need to have a little bit of a stewards inquiry into The Last Leg.
Representing New Zealand in the Track 43 (T43) sprinting events we have double below the knee amputee Liam Malone. Following his 100m heat on Thursday (8/9/16) a reporter went straight up to Malone to interview him about how the race went.
Still pumped up from the race Malone was in what can only be described as; "Full Beast Mode." He then proceeded to give this really intense interview in which he described the competition as being kill or be killed and said he'd set out to eat his opponents alive.
Being hilarious to watch this is exactly the sort of thing The Last Leg covers and they featured it on Friday's (9/9/16) show. However the presenters seemed to be mocking Malone telling him to calm down because this was the Para-Olympics. Not the Hunger Games.
About three hours later Malone won Silver in the 100m final. In this post race interview he seemed quiet, nervous and almost apologetic. It was as if all the jokes about his previous interview had got inside his head.
Gold was won by Britain's Johnny Peacock who The Last Leg were rooting for. As a result you can't help but wonder if there's been a wee bit of mind games going on. Particularly with Adam Hills being an Australian.
The only real controversy from the Parade of Nations was Belorussian official Andrei Fomochkin who waved a Russian flag. Russia of course has been banned from these Sultan Mehmed games. Almost immediately Fomochkin was also expelled from the games.
This over-reaction suggests to me that significance of International Para-Olympic Committee (IPC) President Philip Craven having his flight cancelled and then being exiled to Belem/Bellend in the opening video sequence was not understood by all. As a result the games seem to be proceeding in a manically reckless anti-Russian frenzy.
If the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had conducted itself in the same way it would have had to immediately expel the Egyptian competitor who waved the flag of Saudi Arabia during the opening Parade of Nations.
The IOC would then also have had to expel all members of the Saudi delegation who were throwing their flags about in the first place. Along with all the members of the Iranian delegation who started throwing their flags about in response.
The IOC would then have had to expel any competitor wearing the Hijab. America's Ibtihaj Muhammad in particular was extremely clear about the fact she viewed her wearing to the Hijab to be both a religious and political statement. A clear violation of Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter.
Highlighting the political importance of the games Craven's frankly deranged behaviour seems to be having very real and serious consequences. Just (technically) this morning Russia seemed to indicate that in retaliation it is going to give ISIL and Al Qaeda the free run of Syria. As they're forced to deal with that I suspect that the US and in particular European nations won't be finding their Para-Olympic medals quite so shiny.
They will though likely be able to send very large teams to the 2020 Tokyo games. After all you should see what the 7/7 London bombings did for the British sitting volleyball squad.
As they paraded into the arena each nation carried with them a sign bearing the name of their nation in the form of a jigsaw puzzle piece. As they handed their national flag to be placed on the protocol island they handed this jigsaw piece to be placed in the square in the centre of the arena.
As the parade ended the camera pulled back and revealed the finished jigsaw. It showed the faces of all the competitors in the games. A giant anatomically correct beating human heart was then video projected onto the jigsaw.
Officially this was to send the message that the disabled are people too. They all have human hearts and emotions and are just as deserving of our respect as anybody else.
For someone like me who is already extremely familiar with not only disabled sport but disability issues in general this message might seem rather trite and somewhat stating the obvious. However in parts of Africa you still have Albino children being murdered so their bones can be used in witchcraft rituals.
Therefore as a global event it is very important that the Para-Olympics promotes this type of message no matter how obvious it might seem to some.
To me though these black & white photographs of the competitors seemed to very much resemble the photographs of "The Missing." It was those missing that the Suadade sequence of the previous Closing Ceremony was dedicated to.
Within Latin America "The Missing" refers to the upwards of 80,000 people were simply disappeared by fascist dictatorships in numerous countries including Brazil but particularly Chile and Argentina. Commonly referred to as; "The Dirty War" these disappearances took place as part of what is officially known as; "Operation Condor" which took place between 1968-1989.
Operation Condor was conducted with the full backing of the US with America training many of the Paramilitary death squads at The School of the Americas. It was largely conducted under the supervision of then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Particularly Argentina's "Triple A" death squad.
Henry Kissinger has just endorsed Hillary Clinton for President.
Some of the most powerful opposition to Operation Condor came from an Argentinian group that became known as; "The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo." I did briefly touch upon them during the Closing Ceremony but being rushed for time I far from did them justice.
What the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo would do is gather together one day a week - I think a Friday - outside Argentina's Presidential Palace on the Plaza de Mayo. They would then simply stand there in complete silence each holding a framed black & white photographs of the son or daughter who had simply disappeared.
The fact that the military dictator Jorge Videla outside whose Palace they were standing employed death squads should tell just how dangerous this type of protest was.
The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo are absolutely legendary amongst the history of social and political protest and across Latin America generally. The photographs of their protests are every bit as iconic as that footage of a man standing in front of a tank in China's Tiananmen Square in 1989.
I was even considering comparing them to that iconic "Napalm Girl" photograph from the Vietnam war of a fully nude 9 year old girl running away from a Napalm strike. Her back horribly burned. However I personally would class that as an image of war rather than an image of protest.
Those who are trying to tear Syria apart such as Turkey's Sultan Mehmed Brigades clearly looked at the Suadade sequence of the Closing Ceremony and saw a full endorsement of their cause. So on August 30th (30/8/16) they launched another social media campaign bombarding people with gory images of people they claimed had been disappeared by Syria government death squads.
However the message I took away from the Suadade sequence was that there are people across Latin America who have really lived through what Turkey etc is claiming is happening in Syria. Therefore they can see instantly where the Erdogans of this world are so clearly lying.
The message that I took away from this Parade of Nations sequence is that anyone with a heart would call out those hateful lies loudly and clearly any time they're given voice.
22:05 on 10/9/16 (UK date).
Thursday, 8 September 2016
The 2016 Sultan Mehmed Games: Opening Ceremony Pt.2
This should be read as a direct continuation of Part 1; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/the-2016-sultan-mehmed-games-opening.html
Clear Blue Water: Throughout the ceremony the organisers seemed to try and introduce the viewer to some of the different types of Para-Olympic sport. The Wheels Within Wheels sequence looked at wheelchair sports and cycling. Now it was the turn of swimming.
For this the entire floor of the arena was turned into a giant Olympic swimming pool. Swimming across this pool was local hero Brazilian swimmer Daniel Dias.
A double below the elbow and single below the knee amputee Dias will be competing in these games in the S.5 category which means that he has a medium level of physical impairment. More information about the rather complex classification system can be found on the IPC's website; https://www.paralympic.org/swimming/classification
Obviously they didn't actually fill the arena with water and Dias didn't actually swim across it. Instead it was a giant computer animation. In the TV broadcast this was interspersed with video of the actual Dias swimming in an actual pool. Putting together a computer animation on such a large scale is quite a complex task. As a result it provided Brazil with a bit of an opportunity to show off.
The clear, crisp blue water of the 'pool' obviously raised all the water pollution issues regarding the sailing and rowing venues that were much discussed in the lead up to the games. The hosts of course addressed these issues further and turned them into a talking point about the effects of Climate Change by allowing the diving pools to turn green with algae during the ISIL games.
How they achieved that effect is that they simply stopped putting Chlorine into the water. That obviously touches on these Chlorine gas attacks we keeping hearing about in Syria.
As things stand Chlorine is not classed as a Chemical Weapon because its effect on human health is similar to that of CS/Tear Gas i.e non-lethal. Also Chlorine has a vast array of uses that go far beyond that of a weapon such as in swimming pools. Due to these claimed Chemical Weapon attacks not being Chemical Weapon attacks at all the people - such as the Sultan Mehmed Brigades - who are trying to exploit them for propaganda purposes have now launched a separate campaign to have Chlorine classed as a Chemical Weapon.
After all that is the only way their accusations of Chemical Weapons attacks will make any sense.
The ultimatum seeming to be discussed by certain parties on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) at the moment is that all swimming pools everywhere in the World must turn green with algae or Turkey will be allowed to invade. Swimming is now banned!
Life's A Beach: The clear blue waters of the pool then began to recede to be partially replaced in the video projection by the golden sands of a beach. This could be a reference to any one of Rio's World famous beaches. However for the purposes of this ceremony I'm going to declare it to be the Copacabana beach.
The arena was then populated with performers - some real, some animated - doing all the things that people do around the beach. So we had surfers. We had paddle-boarders. We even had skateboarders. And of course we had sunbathers. So many sunbathers.
One group that caught my eye in particular were people playing a sport called "Matkot." Literally the Hebrew word for "Racquets" this a paddle-ball game similar to tennis that is often played on the beach. In fact it's sometimes known as "Beach Tennis." This is unofficially Israel's national sport. They have campaigned for years to have into included as an Olympic sport but keep being rejected on the grounds that not enough people play it globally.
As such it could have been included here as a sign of support for having into included in the Olympics by showing that Brazilians play it too. It could also be something of an anti-Semitism test because the Hijabs do seem to be taking over at this games and wow there are some strong views that often go along with that headgear. Then of course there's that wave of German immigration to Brazil in the mid-to-late 1940's that we prefer not to talk about. However it could just as simple as that's what people do on Rio's beaches.
This particular sequence highlights how annoying it is that I've not yet been able to fully cover the Closing Ceremony of the ISIL game. It seems to reference part of it - the inclusion of Rio's Internet famous dancing roadsweeper Renato Sorriso.
For part of their coverage 2012 host broadcaster the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) broadcast live from Copacabana beach every night. Due to the time difference this went out as sanitation workers were emptying the rubbish bins on the beach. This led to the #Copacabinmen as they become known gathering something of a cult following in the UK.
As news of their fame grew other people tried to get in on the action sneaking into the back of shot. At one point a very noisy hen party turned up and the presenter Dan Walker bravely invited the very drunk bride-to-be to present part of the show with him.
Things reached their peak in more ways than one when an exhibitionist couple decided to have sex on the beach right in front of the BBC's cameras. The look of terror on the very religious presenter's face was something to behold; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlodAfQWvp0
At around 21:25 on 8/9/16 (UK date) I'll pick this up tomorrow.
Edited at 13:45 on 9/9/16 (UK date) to add above and below;
Internet Connection Shutdown at around 14:00 on 9/9/16 (UK date)
Internet Connection Reestablished at around 19:30 on 9/9/16 (UK date) as the Yanks finally worked out that me writing in Word is far more disruptive to both the Geneva talks and the UNSC session on the US sponsored nuclear test in North Korea then just permitting me to publish it.
So;
A giant movable sculpture of a man selling balloons then entered the arena. Dubbed the "Happiness Seller" he represented the array of hawkers and vendors who sell things on Rio's beaches. Amid the crowd mingled performers selling food, drink sunglasses, jewellery and such.
What really caught the eye though were a couple of parasols that were adorned with what were clearly women's bras. This was a reference to the fact that amid all the other things you can buy on Rio's beaches you can by bikinis and other swimsuits.
However it also seemed to be a reference to another of the elements of the Closing Ceremony of the ISIL games that I've not yet got around to covering. Attitudes towards sex and nudity.
The Rio games of course rather picked up the conversational baton from the 2012 London games. Throughout the latter part of 2015 and the early part of 2016 there has been a big discussion amongst British TV broadcasters about how much is acceptable in terms of sex and nudity to show on TV.
A big driver of this discussion has been the growing influence of the US TV market both in terms of American programs being imported and British programs being exported.
US TV is bound by the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) ridiculous "No Nipples" rule which forbids the showing of female nipples on TV. In practice this means that you can have fully nude actors simulating a whole range of sexual acts. However provided they do not show a female nipple the FCC does not consider such scenes to be sexual in nature.
This topic was picked up at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest. There this discussion of attitudes to sex and nudity is a constant one with organisers constantly having to balance the concerns of conservative Arab nations such as Syria which for the purposes of the Song Contest is considered part of Europe with much more liberal European nations such Sweden, Germany and Italy who couldn't care less if performers turned up fully nude.
During the final carnival sequence of the Closing Ceremony the camera seemed to linger on one particular female dancer in who seemed to be engaged in a constant battle to keep her breasts within the confines of her blue costume. In the US there was a big scandal when Janet Jackson accidentally exposed her nipple during the halftime show of the 2004 Super Bowl.
As a result you just know that the director of the US coverage of the Closing Ceremony spent this entire sequence with his finger nervously hovering over the "Cut to Commercial" button.
I think it is fair then to assume then that Brazil's attitude towards sex and nudity is the polar opposite of the US and their no nipple rule. In fact if Brazil competed in the Eurovision Song Contest they would firmly sit amongst the nations that couldn't care less is performers turned up fully nude.
At the Song Contest this usual discussion of what is acceptable in terms of sex and nudity took on special meaning as a way to discuss how to integrate large numbers of refugees from places like Syria into European nations such as Germany and France.
With France being historically terrible in terms of integration and social cohesion this discussion has manifested itself into this summer's controversy over the banning of Islamic swimwear termed "Burkinis" on French beaches.
During this sequence the Brazilian sunbathers were not wearing their usual array of thongs and little else. Instead they were wearing Victorian style knee-to-elbow covering swimming costumes.
The reason why this sort of topic is so popular at things like the Olympics and Eurovision is that it is absolutely impossible to come up with a definitive answer. While it is possible to have a specific, individual case put in front of you and then decide whether it is right or wrong it is impossible to come up with a strict set of rules to be applied to all people in all places equally.
Any politician who tells you otherwise is either lying or too stupid to grasp the complexity of the issues.
However in discussing France's Burkini ban I think it is important to look at the origins of Islamic modesty standards.
In the Qu'ran (24:30-31) the Prophet Muhammad instructs his female followers – the Salafi- that they must breasts and "Ornaments." We are close to the start of the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. Those making the pilgrimage must wear simple white robes known as Ihram like those worn in the Prophet's time. As you can see these a similar to the Togas worn in Roman and Greek times and are very prone to falling open.
Therefore this passage in the Qu'ran could well be the Prophet instructing his female followers not to wander the streets with their breasts and genitals exposed. Even in ancient Rome this wouldn't be a particularly controversial statement.
At no point does the Qu'ran say that women's hair must be covered by the Hijab let alone that they must wear fully body/face coverings such as the Abiya, Niqab or Burqa.
However later in the Qu'ran (33:59) the Prophet instructs both his male and female followers to wear a cloak to disguise themselves so the are not harassed. In short they are being told to disguise themselves.
The mistake a lot of people in western nations tend to make is to confuse the story of Jesus Christ with the story of the Prophet Muhammad. Jesus Christ was essentially a man of peace. The most violent of his recorded acts was turning over tables as he cleansed the Temple of money lenders (Matthew 21:12-17).
The Prophet Muhammad however was most certainly not a man of peace frequently using violence against people that opposed him. In turn those people would often use violence against the Prophet and his followers. That is why the Prophet’s followers show their support by wishing peace upon him.
The instruction for the followers of the Prophet to go about in disguise is very much part of this culture of violence.
I think it is also important to look at the way that Islamic modesty standards have been applied over the years in majority Muslim nations.
One of these I'm particularly familiar with is Egypt which is the most populous Muslim state in the Arab world. Prior to the 1970's only the most extremely devout women wore the Hijab. The Abiya let alone the Niqab or Burqa were simply not worn at all. Then Egypt lost two wars in quick succession in Yemen and against Israel in the Yom Kippur war.
Imans linked to Egyptian government began blaming these defeats not on the failure of the government but on the fact that God had abandoned the Egyptian people because they had abandoned God by allowing their women to be seen in public. Since then the wearing of the Hijab came back into fashion forcing the most devout to show their extra devotion by wearing the Niqab or Burqa.
Another important example is modern Turkey. This was formed from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire - the last Islamist Caliphate. This was a period of extreme violence by Turkish Muslims against religious and ethnic minorities. Particularly the 1915 genocide of Armenian Christians.
As a consequence one of the founding constitutional principles of modern Turkey is that it would be a secular state where symbols of extreme, Salafi forms of Islam such as the wearing of the Hijab were banned. This was done specifically by moderate Muslims in order to limit the influence and therefore power of Muslim extremists who were responsible for all the genocide.
Very recently Turkey's Islamist President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan has violated the nation's constitution to allow female police officers to wear the Hijab whilst on duty. This is a further indication of how Erdogan is trying to destroy Turkey's police force as an independent civic institution and turn it into an armed wing of his Justice & Development Party (AKP).
The adoption of Islamic dress in Europe and the US is very much linked to the September 11th 2001 (11/9/01) terror attacks on the US and the US' response to them. When we were having these same discussions back in 2003/4 I seem to remember commenting that if you are going to declare war against an entire religion don't be at all surprised when members of that religion start reaching for their uniforms.
In all of these cultures it is well acknowledged that swimming whilst clothed is dangerous. Therefore it is exempted from usual Islamic modesty standards where they have been adopted.
Therefore there is a very strong theological basis both within Islamic teaching and practice to support France's ban on the Burkini and what are claimed to be other forms of Salafi dress such as the Niqab and Burqa.
France's constitutional court's decision to suspend the ban is legally a nonsense. It is unsupported by the religion that it is claiming to protect the freedoms of.
The argument for banning this type of dress is particularly strong in France because in recent years it has come under seemingly relentless attack by Salafi Islamist terrorist.
Back in January 2015 there was what is commonly referred to as the Charlie Hebdo attacks. This was actually a series of four attacks across multiple locations and two days that left 20 people dead.
Then on November 13th 2015 (13/11/15) there were the Paris Massacres. Here 130 people were murdered - some of them brutally tortured and horrifically sexually abused in the process - across 6 locations in France's capital city on a single night.
On July 14th 2016 (14/7/16) a truck was driven through a crowd celebrating France's equivalent of its Independence Day in the beach resort city of Nice murdering 86 people.
Just 12 days later on July 26th (26/7/16) an 85 year old Catholic Priest was murdered in an attempted beheading at the altar of his Church in Rouen, Normandy.
Just this past Saturday (3/9/16) French police uncovered a potential car bomb outside Paris' famed Notre Dame Catholic Cathedral. In arresting three women connected to the planting of the carbomb a police officer was stabbed yesterday (8/9/16). This evening Paris' Gare du Nore was evacuated and a controlled explosion carried out on a suspect package.
These are just some of the terror attacks happening in France that make the international news. On August 30th (30/8/16) a police officer was stabbed in Toulouse. Three days later another police officer was stabbed in throat in Paris. Don't even get me started on Belgium and Denmark.
On a visit to Bangladesh on August 30th (30/8/16) US Secretary of State John Kerry declared that the only way to stop this terrorism was for journalists to stop reporting on it. I wonder if all those attacked in just the last 11 days feel less stabbed just because they weren't on the news.
If women - Muslim or not - don't want to wear skimpy bathing costumes there are a whole host of other options available to them and as those Victorian-style costumes demonstrate there have been a good 50 years prior to the invention of the burkini.
There was actually an interesting moment in the Para-Olympic pool last night where a Dutch swimmer appeared wearing the Keffiyeh scarf associated with Palestinian resistance. As she took it off I was so shocked by the way her modesty was torn away by her fully body swimming costume and swimming cap I almost fainted in shock(!)
The women who choose to wear the Burkini or the Niqab do so not out of modesty but to publicly show their support for the Salafi cause that has murdered so many. To do that in France - particularly at the scene of the crime such as Nice - is so offensive and distressing that it would likely see them torn limb-from-limb. Something they themselves advocated during the Charlie Hebdo attacks.
However France is a nation of laws. So the French government actually has an obligation to protect these women from themselves no matter how stupid, offensive and distressing their behaviour is.
That though does not mean that I support France's Burkini ban for a number of reasons.
Firstly Salafism does not encourage the reading or understanding of the Qu'ran. Instead it encourages the recitement of it like some sort of unthinking automaton. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's claim to be the Caliph of Islam is based entirely on the fact he has a degree in Qu'ranic recitement. Not Islamic studies or theology just the reading of things out loud.
Therefore it is highly likely that the majority of the women who dress in this way have such a poor understanding of Islam they have no idea what they are doing. However I would think that the offence their behavior causes should be obvious to even the slowest reader.
Secondly when you exclude people from society it simply forces them to celebrate their isolation. As many people have commented on since the Burkini ban was introduced sales of Burkinis have shot up and more Salafis reach for their uniforms.
The main objection though is that by targeting item of clothing all this rightful public anger is being so horribly misplaced.
Following the Paris Massacres French President Francois Hollande should have immediately invoked the Article 5 mutual defence clause of the NATO treaty. This would have obligated all NATO members - especially Turkey - to do everything in their power to defeat ISIL.
If we'd stamped down on Erdogan's support for ISIL there and then we certainly wouldn't be currently trying to navigate our way out of Erdogan's decision to invade Syria in support of ISIL. We may well have even won the war entirely by now.
Hollande however instead introduced UNSC resolution 2249 in an effort to weaken the existing Chapter 7 resolution 2170. This was effectively Hollande going to Erdogan; "You carry on supporting ISIL. We'll just bury our dead in silence as not to offend you."
Back on May 11th (11/5/16) Russia tabled a UNSC Resolution to designate two other Syria terror groups who fight alongside ISIL - the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham) and the Army of Islam/Jaish al-Islam (JAI) - as terrorist groups alongside ISIL.
I don't think I need to explain to you how the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant shares the same ideology as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The Army of Islam have a reputation for beheading ISIL fighters because they consider ISIL to be too moderate.
However France along with the US and the UK actually used their UNSC vote to veto the resolution in order to protect Ahrar al-Sham and the Army of Islam.
Following the Bastille day attack Hollande again should have - as he was entitled to do at any point since November 2015 - invoked NATO's Article 5. Given the events of the following day if that had happened we'd most likely now be talking about Erdogan in the passive past tense.
Even before the Bastille day attack - since early July - Hollande was demanding that a ceasefire be declared in Aleppo City.
On August 30th (30/8/16) Russian airstrikes killed ISIL commander Abu Muhammad al-Adnani in Aleppo City. It was al-Adnani who directed the Bastille day attack and all the other attacks France is currently experiencing.
So as far as I'm concerned this Burkini ban is just the sort of nonsense that politicians throw out in an effort to distract voters and keep them off their backs.
After all in democracies politicians who side with foreign terrorists against their own citizens have a nasty way of being rapidly separated from the power they seek to abuse.
21:45 on 9/9/16 (UK date).
Edited at around 14:50 on 10/9/16 (UK date) to add;
Finally from amid the crowd of beachgoers a group of drummers who I think are called "Afrolala." However I may not only have misheard that but also written it down wrong in my notes. Whatever the groups what is significant about them is that they could not afford drums so simply made their own from recycled material such as plastic pots.
This is just another example of the sort of thing people get up to on Brazil's beaches. Even when I was living in Brighton, UK drum circles on the beach was a bit of a stereotype. It also of course references the issue of pollution and recycling. Just on September 3rd (3/9/16) the UK government announced that it is going to ban plastic microbeads from 2017 in an effort to combat plastic pollution in the World's oceans.
Mainly though I think it was an effort to keep the mood light in a sequence that dealt with some pretty heavy topics.
14:55 on 10/9/16 (UK date).
Clear Blue Water: Throughout the ceremony the organisers seemed to try and introduce the viewer to some of the different types of Para-Olympic sport. The Wheels Within Wheels sequence looked at wheelchair sports and cycling. Now it was the turn of swimming.
For this the entire floor of the arena was turned into a giant Olympic swimming pool. Swimming across this pool was local hero Brazilian swimmer Daniel Dias.
A double below the elbow and single below the knee amputee Dias will be competing in these games in the S.5 category which means that he has a medium level of physical impairment. More information about the rather complex classification system can be found on the IPC's website; https://www.paralympic.org/swimming/classification
Obviously they didn't actually fill the arena with water and Dias didn't actually swim across it. Instead it was a giant computer animation. In the TV broadcast this was interspersed with video of the actual Dias swimming in an actual pool. Putting together a computer animation on such a large scale is quite a complex task. As a result it provided Brazil with a bit of an opportunity to show off.
The clear, crisp blue water of the 'pool' obviously raised all the water pollution issues regarding the sailing and rowing venues that were much discussed in the lead up to the games. The hosts of course addressed these issues further and turned them into a talking point about the effects of Climate Change by allowing the diving pools to turn green with algae during the ISIL games.
How they achieved that effect is that they simply stopped putting Chlorine into the water. That obviously touches on these Chlorine gas attacks we keeping hearing about in Syria.
As things stand Chlorine is not classed as a Chemical Weapon because its effect on human health is similar to that of CS/Tear Gas i.e non-lethal. Also Chlorine has a vast array of uses that go far beyond that of a weapon such as in swimming pools. Due to these claimed Chemical Weapon attacks not being Chemical Weapon attacks at all the people - such as the Sultan Mehmed Brigades - who are trying to exploit them for propaganda purposes have now launched a separate campaign to have Chlorine classed as a Chemical Weapon.
After all that is the only way their accusations of Chemical Weapons attacks will make any sense.
The ultimatum seeming to be discussed by certain parties on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) at the moment is that all swimming pools everywhere in the World must turn green with algae or Turkey will be allowed to invade. Swimming is now banned!
Life's A Beach: The clear blue waters of the pool then began to recede to be partially replaced in the video projection by the golden sands of a beach. This could be a reference to any one of Rio's World famous beaches. However for the purposes of this ceremony I'm going to declare it to be the Copacabana beach.
The arena was then populated with performers - some real, some animated - doing all the things that people do around the beach. So we had surfers. We had paddle-boarders. We even had skateboarders. And of course we had sunbathers. So many sunbathers.
One group that caught my eye in particular were people playing a sport called "Matkot." Literally the Hebrew word for "Racquets" this a paddle-ball game similar to tennis that is often played on the beach. In fact it's sometimes known as "Beach Tennis." This is unofficially Israel's national sport. They have campaigned for years to have into included as an Olympic sport but keep being rejected on the grounds that not enough people play it globally.
As such it could have been included here as a sign of support for having into included in the Olympics by showing that Brazilians play it too. It could also be something of an anti-Semitism test because the Hijabs do seem to be taking over at this games and wow there are some strong views that often go along with that headgear. Then of course there's that wave of German immigration to Brazil in the mid-to-late 1940's that we prefer not to talk about. However it could just as simple as that's what people do on Rio's beaches.
This particular sequence highlights how annoying it is that I've not yet been able to fully cover the Closing Ceremony of the ISIL game. It seems to reference part of it - the inclusion of Rio's Internet famous dancing roadsweeper Renato Sorriso.
For part of their coverage 2012 host broadcaster the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) broadcast live from Copacabana beach every night. Due to the time difference this went out as sanitation workers were emptying the rubbish bins on the beach. This led to the #Copacabinmen as they become known gathering something of a cult following in the UK.
As news of their fame grew other people tried to get in on the action sneaking into the back of shot. At one point a very noisy hen party turned up and the presenter Dan Walker bravely invited the very drunk bride-to-be to present part of the show with him.
Things reached their peak in more ways than one when an exhibitionist couple decided to have sex on the beach right in front of the BBC's cameras. The look of terror on the very religious presenter's face was something to behold; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlodAfQWvp0
At around 21:25 on 8/9/16 (UK date) I'll pick this up tomorrow.
Edited at 13:45 on 9/9/16 (UK date) to add above and below;
Internet Connection Shutdown at around 14:00 on 9/9/16 (UK date)
Internet Connection Reestablished at around 19:30 on 9/9/16 (UK date) as the Yanks finally worked out that me writing in Word is far more disruptive to both the Geneva talks and the UNSC session on the US sponsored nuclear test in North Korea then just permitting me to publish it.
So;
A giant movable sculpture of a man selling balloons then entered the arena. Dubbed the "Happiness Seller" he represented the array of hawkers and vendors who sell things on Rio's beaches. Amid the crowd mingled performers selling food, drink sunglasses, jewellery and such.
What really caught the eye though were a couple of parasols that were adorned with what were clearly women's bras. This was a reference to the fact that amid all the other things you can buy on Rio's beaches you can by bikinis and other swimsuits.
However it also seemed to be a reference to another of the elements of the Closing Ceremony of the ISIL games that I've not yet got around to covering. Attitudes towards sex and nudity.
The Rio games of course rather picked up the conversational baton from the 2012 London games. Throughout the latter part of 2015 and the early part of 2016 there has been a big discussion amongst British TV broadcasters about how much is acceptable in terms of sex and nudity to show on TV.
A big driver of this discussion has been the growing influence of the US TV market both in terms of American programs being imported and British programs being exported.
US TV is bound by the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) ridiculous "No Nipples" rule which forbids the showing of female nipples on TV. In practice this means that you can have fully nude actors simulating a whole range of sexual acts. However provided they do not show a female nipple the FCC does not consider such scenes to be sexual in nature.
This topic was picked up at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest. There this discussion of attitudes to sex and nudity is a constant one with organisers constantly having to balance the concerns of conservative Arab nations such as Syria which for the purposes of the Song Contest is considered part of Europe with much more liberal European nations such Sweden, Germany and Italy who couldn't care less if performers turned up fully nude.
During the final carnival sequence of the Closing Ceremony the camera seemed to linger on one particular female dancer in who seemed to be engaged in a constant battle to keep her breasts within the confines of her blue costume. In the US there was a big scandal when Janet Jackson accidentally exposed her nipple during the halftime show of the 2004 Super Bowl.
As a result you just know that the director of the US coverage of the Closing Ceremony spent this entire sequence with his finger nervously hovering over the "Cut to Commercial" button.
I think it is fair then to assume then that Brazil's attitude towards sex and nudity is the polar opposite of the US and their no nipple rule. In fact if Brazil competed in the Eurovision Song Contest they would firmly sit amongst the nations that couldn't care less is performers turned up fully nude.
At the Song Contest this usual discussion of what is acceptable in terms of sex and nudity took on special meaning as a way to discuss how to integrate large numbers of refugees from places like Syria into European nations such as Germany and France.
With France being historically terrible in terms of integration and social cohesion this discussion has manifested itself into this summer's controversy over the banning of Islamic swimwear termed "Burkinis" on French beaches.
During this sequence the Brazilian sunbathers were not wearing their usual array of thongs and little else. Instead they were wearing Victorian style knee-to-elbow covering swimming costumes.
The reason why this sort of topic is so popular at things like the Olympics and Eurovision is that it is absolutely impossible to come up with a definitive answer. While it is possible to have a specific, individual case put in front of you and then decide whether it is right or wrong it is impossible to come up with a strict set of rules to be applied to all people in all places equally.
Any politician who tells you otherwise is either lying or too stupid to grasp the complexity of the issues.
However in discussing France's Burkini ban I think it is important to look at the origins of Islamic modesty standards.
In the Qu'ran (24:30-31) the Prophet Muhammad instructs his female followers – the Salafi- that they must breasts and "Ornaments." We are close to the start of the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. Those making the pilgrimage must wear simple white robes known as Ihram like those worn in the Prophet's time. As you can see these a similar to the Togas worn in Roman and Greek times and are very prone to falling open.
Therefore this passage in the Qu'ran could well be the Prophet instructing his female followers not to wander the streets with their breasts and genitals exposed. Even in ancient Rome this wouldn't be a particularly controversial statement.
At no point does the Qu'ran say that women's hair must be covered by the Hijab let alone that they must wear fully body/face coverings such as the Abiya, Niqab or Burqa.
However later in the Qu'ran (33:59) the Prophet instructs both his male and female followers to wear a cloak to disguise themselves so the are not harassed. In short they are being told to disguise themselves.
The mistake a lot of people in western nations tend to make is to confuse the story of Jesus Christ with the story of the Prophet Muhammad. Jesus Christ was essentially a man of peace. The most violent of his recorded acts was turning over tables as he cleansed the Temple of money lenders (Matthew 21:12-17).
The Prophet Muhammad however was most certainly not a man of peace frequently using violence against people that opposed him. In turn those people would often use violence against the Prophet and his followers. That is why the Prophet’s followers show their support by wishing peace upon him.
The instruction for the followers of the Prophet to go about in disguise is very much part of this culture of violence.
I think it is also important to look at the way that Islamic modesty standards have been applied over the years in majority Muslim nations.
One of these I'm particularly familiar with is Egypt which is the most populous Muslim state in the Arab world. Prior to the 1970's only the most extremely devout women wore the Hijab. The Abiya let alone the Niqab or Burqa were simply not worn at all. Then Egypt lost two wars in quick succession in Yemen and against Israel in the Yom Kippur war.
Imans linked to Egyptian government began blaming these defeats not on the failure of the government but on the fact that God had abandoned the Egyptian people because they had abandoned God by allowing their women to be seen in public. Since then the wearing of the Hijab came back into fashion forcing the most devout to show their extra devotion by wearing the Niqab or Burqa.
Another important example is modern Turkey. This was formed from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire - the last Islamist Caliphate. This was a period of extreme violence by Turkish Muslims against religious and ethnic minorities. Particularly the 1915 genocide of Armenian Christians.
As a consequence one of the founding constitutional principles of modern Turkey is that it would be a secular state where symbols of extreme, Salafi forms of Islam such as the wearing of the Hijab were banned. This was done specifically by moderate Muslims in order to limit the influence and therefore power of Muslim extremists who were responsible for all the genocide.
Very recently Turkey's Islamist President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan has violated the nation's constitution to allow female police officers to wear the Hijab whilst on duty. This is a further indication of how Erdogan is trying to destroy Turkey's police force as an independent civic institution and turn it into an armed wing of his Justice & Development Party (AKP).
The adoption of Islamic dress in Europe and the US is very much linked to the September 11th 2001 (11/9/01) terror attacks on the US and the US' response to them. When we were having these same discussions back in 2003/4 I seem to remember commenting that if you are going to declare war against an entire religion don't be at all surprised when members of that religion start reaching for their uniforms.
In all of these cultures it is well acknowledged that swimming whilst clothed is dangerous. Therefore it is exempted from usual Islamic modesty standards where they have been adopted.
Therefore there is a very strong theological basis both within Islamic teaching and practice to support France's ban on the Burkini and what are claimed to be other forms of Salafi dress such as the Niqab and Burqa.
France's constitutional court's decision to suspend the ban is legally a nonsense. It is unsupported by the religion that it is claiming to protect the freedoms of.
The argument for banning this type of dress is particularly strong in France because in recent years it has come under seemingly relentless attack by Salafi Islamist terrorist.
Back in January 2015 there was what is commonly referred to as the Charlie Hebdo attacks. This was actually a series of four attacks across multiple locations and two days that left 20 people dead.
Then on November 13th 2015 (13/11/15) there were the Paris Massacres. Here 130 people were murdered - some of them brutally tortured and horrifically sexually abused in the process - across 6 locations in France's capital city on a single night.
On July 14th 2016 (14/7/16) a truck was driven through a crowd celebrating France's equivalent of its Independence Day in the beach resort city of Nice murdering 86 people.
Just 12 days later on July 26th (26/7/16) an 85 year old Catholic Priest was murdered in an attempted beheading at the altar of his Church in Rouen, Normandy.
Just this past Saturday (3/9/16) French police uncovered a potential car bomb outside Paris' famed Notre Dame Catholic Cathedral. In arresting three women connected to the planting of the carbomb a police officer was stabbed yesterday (8/9/16). This evening Paris' Gare du Nore was evacuated and a controlled explosion carried out on a suspect package.
These are just some of the terror attacks happening in France that make the international news. On August 30th (30/8/16) a police officer was stabbed in Toulouse. Three days later another police officer was stabbed in throat in Paris. Don't even get me started on Belgium and Denmark.
On a visit to Bangladesh on August 30th (30/8/16) US Secretary of State John Kerry declared that the only way to stop this terrorism was for journalists to stop reporting on it. I wonder if all those attacked in just the last 11 days feel less stabbed just because they weren't on the news.
If women - Muslim or not - don't want to wear skimpy bathing costumes there are a whole host of other options available to them and as those Victorian-style costumes demonstrate there have been a good 50 years prior to the invention of the burkini.
There was actually an interesting moment in the Para-Olympic pool last night where a Dutch swimmer appeared wearing the Keffiyeh scarf associated with Palestinian resistance. As she took it off I was so shocked by the way her modesty was torn away by her fully body swimming costume and swimming cap I almost fainted in shock(!)
The women who choose to wear the Burkini or the Niqab do so not out of modesty but to publicly show their support for the Salafi cause that has murdered so many. To do that in France - particularly at the scene of the crime such as Nice - is so offensive and distressing that it would likely see them torn limb-from-limb. Something they themselves advocated during the Charlie Hebdo attacks.
However France is a nation of laws. So the French government actually has an obligation to protect these women from themselves no matter how stupid, offensive and distressing their behaviour is.
That though does not mean that I support France's Burkini ban for a number of reasons.
Firstly Salafism does not encourage the reading or understanding of the Qu'ran. Instead it encourages the recitement of it like some sort of unthinking automaton. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's claim to be the Caliph of Islam is based entirely on the fact he has a degree in Qu'ranic recitement. Not Islamic studies or theology just the reading of things out loud.
Therefore it is highly likely that the majority of the women who dress in this way have such a poor understanding of Islam they have no idea what they are doing. However I would think that the offence their behavior causes should be obvious to even the slowest reader.
Secondly when you exclude people from society it simply forces them to celebrate their isolation. As many people have commented on since the Burkini ban was introduced sales of Burkinis have shot up and more Salafis reach for their uniforms.
The main objection though is that by targeting item of clothing all this rightful public anger is being so horribly misplaced.
Following the Paris Massacres French President Francois Hollande should have immediately invoked the Article 5 mutual defence clause of the NATO treaty. This would have obligated all NATO members - especially Turkey - to do everything in their power to defeat ISIL.
If we'd stamped down on Erdogan's support for ISIL there and then we certainly wouldn't be currently trying to navigate our way out of Erdogan's decision to invade Syria in support of ISIL. We may well have even won the war entirely by now.
Hollande however instead introduced UNSC resolution 2249 in an effort to weaken the existing Chapter 7 resolution 2170. This was effectively Hollande going to Erdogan; "You carry on supporting ISIL. We'll just bury our dead in silence as not to offend you."
Back on May 11th (11/5/16) Russia tabled a UNSC Resolution to designate two other Syria terror groups who fight alongside ISIL - the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham) and the Army of Islam/Jaish al-Islam (JAI) - as terrorist groups alongside ISIL.
I don't think I need to explain to you how the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant shares the same ideology as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The Army of Islam have a reputation for beheading ISIL fighters because they consider ISIL to be too moderate.
However France along with the US and the UK actually used their UNSC vote to veto the resolution in order to protect Ahrar al-Sham and the Army of Islam.
Following the Bastille day attack Hollande again should have - as he was entitled to do at any point since November 2015 - invoked NATO's Article 5. Given the events of the following day if that had happened we'd most likely now be talking about Erdogan in the passive past tense.
Even before the Bastille day attack - since early July - Hollande was demanding that a ceasefire be declared in Aleppo City.
On August 30th (30/8/16) Russian airstrikes killed ISIL commander Abu Muhammad al-Adnani in Aleppo City. It was al-Adnani who directed the Bastille day attack and all the other attacks France is currently experiencing.
So as far as I'm concerned this Burkini ban is just the sort of nonsense that politicians throw out in an effort to distract voters and keep them off their backs.
After all in democracies politicians who side with foreign terrorists against their own citizens have a nasty way of being rapidly separated from the power they seek to abuse.
21:45 on 9/9/16 (UK date).
Edited at around 14:50 on 10/9/16 (UK date) to add;
Finally from amid the crowd of beachgoers a group of drummers who I think are called "Afrolala." However I may not only have misheard that but also written it down wrong in my notes. Whatever the groups what is significant about them is that they could not afford drums so simply made their own from recycled material such as plastic pots.
This is just another example of the sort of thing people get up to on Brazil's beaches. Even when I was living in Brighton, UK drum circles on the beach was a bit of a stereotype. It also of course references the issue of pollution and recycling. Just on September 3rd (3/9/16) the UK government announced that it is going to ban plastic microbeads from 2017 in an effort to combat plastic pollution in the World's oceans.
Mainly though I think it was an effort to keep the mood light in a sequence that dealt with some pretty heavy topics.
14:55 on 10/9/16 (UK date).
The 2016 Sultan Mehmed Games: Opening Ceremony.
Every four years the Summer Olympic games are held somewhere in the World. The naive amongst us think that it is a celebration it is not.
Instead the purpose of the modern Olympic movement is to gather the nations of the World together to discuss the political issues that they find important. Due to the high number of nations now competing in the Olympics - higher even than the number of nations on earth - this can lead to an extremely noisy affair with every screaming out the issues that they consider important.
During the course of each games that huge array of topics is whittled down to just a handful. These issues are then explored in great detail at the Parallel or "Para-Olympics" for disabled athletes that are held around two weeks later. I think someone really needs to look up the word; "Parallel" in the dictionary.
The 2016 Olympics were supposed to be held in Rio de Janerio. Unfortunately the US and the UK decided to hijack this year's event and turn it into a mass celebration of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group. This mainly took the form of trying to get competitors from Russia who have long opposed ISIL banned from the games.
In this effort the US and the UK were only partially successful. Although the International Olympic Committee (IOC) did stop short of issuing a blanket ban on Russia it did leave individual federations such at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the International Swimming Federation (FINA) to impose their own bans.
Due to the US' failure to get exactly what it wanted much of what became known as the ISIL games were spent worrying about where America's rage would explode next in an effort to ruin the games.
For much of early 2016 attention focused on Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan's attempts to reignite the long running conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh Region (NKR). Both Armenia and Azerbaijan who contest the NKR sit directly south of Georgia. It was during the 2008 Beijing games that Georgia decided launch into a war against Russia that it promptly lost.
Fortunately several months of concerted international pressure seemed to put the lid back on NKR - at least for now. Sadly that only meant that attention switched back to Shamali Province which the US created from the ruins of Ukraine during the 2014 Sochi games and where Turkish backed terror groups continue to be a particular problem.
Within the first week of the games on August 10th (10/8/16) Russian security services foiled a Shamali Province backed plot to launch a terror attack in the Russian province of Crimea. In response Shamali Province began massing its military on the border with Russia. This created a fear that Shamali Province would attempt to invade Crimea rather like Georgia attacked Russia back in 2008.
Obviously this forced Russia to mobilise its forces to deter any attack by Shamali Province. The games also set out to deter Shamali Province's aggression with lots of results - particularly in boxing - suddenly going Russia's way. This was to send the message that Russia rather than Shamali Province had the majority of international support.
Sadly with the games ending on August 21st (21/8/16) Erdogan's and the Americans nihilism could not be contained forever. It exploded on August 24th (24/8/16) when Turkey with US permission launched an invasion of northern Syria. The purpose of this invasion is to protect ISIL's supply lines into Turkey that have been coming under increasing pressure from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) coalition.
The Turkish invasion and continued occupation of Syria used a mixture of regular troops - particularly very Special Forces known as "Purple Berets" - and irregular troops known collectively as the Syrian Turkmen Brigades (STB). These are made up of members of the "Grey Wolves" - the paramilitary wing of the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
One of their key divisions take their name from Sultan Mehmed - the 15th Century Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
He is often referred to as; "Mehmed the Conqueror" for his role in expanding that Islamist Caliphate through the capture of what it now known as Istanbul. He also invaded and occupied much of the Balkans including what is now known as Greece, Bosnia, Hungary and Albania. It was also Mehmed the Conqueror who invaded and occupied Crimea on the Black Sea before launching an invasion of Italy which ultimately failed.
With the Turkish military - both regular and irregular - operating in parallel with ISIL in Syria it is only appropriate then that the ISIL Games are followed by the Sultan Mehmed Games.
The Opening Ceremony of which took place last night.
The Video Countdown: It is a longstanding tradition that ceremonies such as these begin with a short video sequence that features a prominent 10 to 1 countdown. The purpose of this is to allow all the broadcasters who are picking up the official International Para-Olympic Committee (IPC) feed to make sure they calibrate their coverage so they don't miss the start of the ceremony say because they were in a commercial break.
During the ceremonies of the ISIL games the Brazilian hosts broke with this tradition. Instead they showed a video sequence followed by a countdown in the arena that was part of the ceremony itself. This was done to make the point that in recent years broadcasting technology has moved on to the point where this type of countdown is redundant. In turn this poses the question of whether the Olympics themselves have become redundant. After all in the gap between the last Closing Ceremony and this Opening Ceremony we've had the annual G20 political summit.
In this ceremony the Brazilian hosts continued to play about with this idea. Right before the ceremony began a 10 to 1 countdown was shown on giant screens inside the arena. At the time the IPC feed was showing a wide aerial shot of the arena. That meant that the 10 to 1 countdown was reasonably clearly visible to anyone who was watching the IPC feed. Particularly any program directors who at that point would be shouting at their presenters in the studio to shut up because the show was about to start.
The ceremony then began with a video sequence that did not feature a 10 to 1 countdown. Instead it featured IPC President Phillip Craven at his home in Stoke Mandeville, UK - birthplace of the Para-Olympic movement - packing a suitcase for his trip to Brazil.
Craven then arrives at an airport where he discovers that all flights have been cancelled. Unlike the IOC the IPC has imposed a blanket ban on Russia competitors at these games. This is unfortunate because if there is one main topic to be carried over from the ISIL games to the Sultan Mehmed games it is; "How did the US and the UK get it so wrong?" By banning Russia from these games Craven - whose family name means; "Cowardly" - has prevented even that topic being discussed. It's rather as if he's cancelled everybody's flights.
Eventually Craven was able to sneak aboard a flight to the Brazilian city of Belem. This is located in the far north of Brazil in Para state close to the border with French Guyana. It is probably as far away from Rio de Janerio as you can get whilst staying with in Brazil. It is also the Brazilian city that sounds most similar to the term; "Bellend" which is an English slang term that it hardly complimentary.
From Belem Craven had to make a treacherous journey in his wheelchair across the length of Brazil passing many of its famous people, Rainforests, rivers and towns on the way. His arrival in Rio de Janerio was marked by a shot of Craven sitting at the feet of the famous Christ the Redeemer statue. With much Closing Ceremony just gone focused on my 'stigmata' I'll take that as a compliment.
Craven was then shown making his way through the streets of Rio where he encountered many Para-Olympic sports such as what seemed to be the wheelchair marathon. Finally Craven made his way through the halls and passageways of the Maracana stadium where the ceremony was being held.
The video then suddenly ended and we cut to Craven sitting in his wheelchair on a platform inside the arena. After being introduced by the announcer Craven pulled on a giant rope hanging next to him. This unfurled a giant number 10 that began another 10 to 1 countdown.
Although I suspect they were sequenced by computer in much the same way that commercial breaks on TV are these days the numerals themselves were distinctly low-tech. They were simply cloth banners that unfurled around the arena until they reach 1.
There was then a giant sculpture of a zero that stood in front of a ramp. Down that ramp came hurtling Aaron Fotheringham who is quite possibly the World's only wheelchair stuntman. This native of Las Vegas, Nevada, US regularly competes in BMX and Skateboard competitions alongside able bodied athletes.
However Fotheringham is probably most famous for appearing in the UK broadcaster Channel 4's "Yes I Can" Para-Olympic trailer; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IocLkk3aYlk
As I mentioned at the time of the Closing Ceremony there was serious concern that these Sultan Mehmed games would be a complete flop with only 12% of tickets. In an effort to prevent that from happening Channel 4 dubbed this trailer into Portuguese and let it be shown across Brazil. Along with an endorsement from the Pope and the "#FillTheSeats" campaign this has significantly helped boost interest in the games.
Unlike in the trailer during the ceremony Fotheringham came down this huge ramp and then jumped through the zero which let out fireworks as he did so. This gave it the full Evel Knievel stuntman effect.
It might just have been me but I thought this oval zero seemed to resemble the opening of a woman's vagina. This gave the whole sequence an air of a man in a wheelchair hurtling down the birth canal and then being born into the world through a giant flaming vagina.
Apart from producing an image that will stick in the mind this raised an interesting talking point.
The Para-Olympics feature a wide range of competitors with a wide range of disabilities. Some of these are congenital disabilities meaning that people are born with them. Others - particularly the amputees - will have lived much of their life as able bodied only to suddenly become disabled.
During the 2014 Sochi Para-Olympics I seem to remember discussing this by comparing British Skier Kelly Gallagher and Russian Rower Alexey Chuvashev who performed that memorable "I'm Possible" sequence. Kelly Gallagher suffers from Albinism which is a congenital condition in which a certain protein is not produced or the receptor sites don't respond to the protein. Chuvashev was simply a soldier who stepped on a bomb and his legs fell off.
To answer the question Aaron Fotheringham suffers from Spina Bifida which is a congenital condition. So he was born that way. Although I think his mother might remember it slightly differently.
Wheels Within Wheels: The next sequence began with a traditionally Brazilian circle of Samba drummers.
As part of this circle was the older man who featured in the earlier Opening Ceremony teaching a young boy to dance. At the time I said that I didn't catch his name. I have since found out his name and written it down. Unfortunately I have forgotten where I wrote it down. So it seems this poor guy will have to wait a little bit longer to receive his due credit.
All the members of this Samba circle were black. In fact at one point I commented that they looked like some of my Caribbean neighbours. I then remembered where Brazil was on the map and what I'd just said. Some of the male members of the circle were wearing red and white striped tops that made them resemble characters from the children's books that are known in the US as "Where's Waldo" but in the UK as "Where's Wally."
With their Afro hairstyles they also seemed to resemble the British "Golliwog" or the similar US "Sambo" dolls that are now considered wildly racist. This seemed to be another reminder that Brazil like much of the rest of Latin America shares the US' history of slavery and racism.
As the Samba circle was perform onto the arena floor around them was video projected a sequences of cogs all whirring as if in some giant machine. The arena floor was then taken over by performers wielding all sorts of wheeled objects.
The were giant "Penny Farthing" bicycle style wheels being pushed. There were wheelchairs pulling wheeled trailers carrying what appeared to be giant plant pots - there's definitely a "Bill & Ben the Flowerpot Men" joke in there somewhere. There was also people carrying medium sized wheels on sticks above their heads which seemed to resemble giant lollipops. I think this was a reference to the movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" whose star Gene Wilder died recently. It seems his body of work will live on across the globe.
As I've said the Para-Olympics features a wide range of competitors with a wide range of disabilities. However the ones that are most obvious to the untrained eye are the people confined to wheelchairs. Although I should point out that there are a host of reasons why someone might need to use a wheelchair.
As a result the wheelchair is largely considered the internationally recognised symbol of disability.
Within the wheelchair events there is actually something of an engineering arms race to see who can get the best performance out of their equipment. It leads to lots of scandals with people accusing each other of using illegal designs. If you are super into wheels then the Handcycling events are definitely for you. Not least because they feature Alex Zanardi who by all accounts is just as mad now as he was when he was a Formula 1 driver.
However I think this sequence was also a reference to the indirect and sometimes mysterious way in which politics and international diplomacy. The famous Irish poet Seamus Heaney used a bicycle as a metaphor for this type of complexity in his poems "Wheels Within Wheels."
An example of this that I am particularly familiar with that seems very relevant to Brazil is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations to find a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol.
Using made up examples in this you would find that say the UK was resistant to a legally binding agreement due to fears that it would impose unduly onerous Greenhouse Gas (ghg) emission reduction targets.
Once the UK had been reassured it could set its own targets its cog would shift to allow for legal force to the agreement. This in turn would impact say the Norwegian cog that wanted to give more money to nations such as Brazil but needed a legally binding structure to make sure that money wasn't squandered. Once Norway had got its legally binding structure from the UK its own cog would turn releasing money to Brazil. In turn this guarantee that they would receive a baseline of funding below what the market could provide Brazil's cog would turn allowing for market based funding. This is turn would move say Nepal's cog so they too would allow for market based funding.
Amid this complex array of turning and whirring cogs eventually you would end up with an agreement that suits everybody.
Or at least we would have done if at the last minute US President Barack Obama hadn't turned up and once again declared;
"I'M HERE TO SAVE THE WORLD!"
And smashed it all to bits with a hammer.
As this "Where's Wally" sequence ended Philip Craven once again found himself in the spotlight. This time he was sitting in the stands where he was formally introduced by the announcer.
17:45 on 8/9/16 (UK date).
Instead the purpose of the modern Olympic movement is to gather the nations of the World together to discuss the political issues that they find important. Due to the high number of nations now competing in the Olympics - higher even than the number of nations on earth - this can lead to an extremely noisy affair with every screaming out the issues that they consider important.
During the course of each games that huge array of topics is whittled down to just a handful. These issues are then explored in great detail at the Parallel or "Para-Olympics" for disabled athletes that are held around two weeks later. I think someone really needs to look up the word; "Parallel" in the dictionary.
The 2016 Olympics were supposed to be held in Rio de Janerio. Unfortunately the US and the UK decided to hijack this year's event and turn it into a mass celebration of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group. This mainly took the form of trying to get competitors from Russia who have long opposed ISIL banned from the games.
In this effort the US and the UK were only partially successful. Although the International Olympic Committee (IOC) did stop short of issuing a blanket ban on Russia it did leave individual federations such at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the International Swimming Federation (FINA) to impose their own bans.
Due to the US' failure to get exactly what it wanted much of what became known as the ISIL games were spent worrying about where America's rage would explode next in an effort to ruin the games.
For much of early 2016 attention focused on Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan's attempts to reignite the long running conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh Region (NKR). Both Armenia and Azerbaijan who contest the NKR sit directly south of Georgia. It was during the 2008 Beijing games that Georgia decided launch into a war against Russia that it promptly lost.
Fortunately several months of concerted international pressure seemed to put the lid back on NKR - at least for now. Sadly that only meant that attention switched back to Shamali Province which the US created from the ruins of Ukraine during the 2014 Sochi games and where Turkish backed terror groups continue to be a particular problem.
Within the first week of the games on August 10th (10/8/16) Russian security services foiled a Shamali Province backed plot to launch a terror attack in the Russian province of Crimea. In response Shamali Province began massing its military on the border with Russia. This created a fear that Shamali Province would attempt to invade Crimea rather like Georgia attacked Russia back in 2008.
Obviously this forced Russia to mobilise its forces to deter any attack by Shamali Province. The games also set out to deter Shamali Province's aggression with lots of results - particularly in boxing - suddenly going Russia's way. This was to send the message that Russia rather than Shamali Province had the majority of international support.
Sadly with the games ending on August 21st (21/8/16) Erdogan's and the Americans nihilism could not be contained forever. It exploded on August 24th (24/8/16) when Turkey with US permission launched an invasion of northern Syria. The purpose of this invasion is to protect ISIL's supply lines into Turkey that have been coming under increasing pressure from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) coalition.
The Turkish invasion and continued occupation of Syria used a mixture of regular troops - particularly very Special Forces known as "Purple Berets" - and irregular troops known collectively as the Syrian Turkmen Brigades (STB). These are made up of members of the "Grey Wolves" - the paramilitary wing of the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
One of their key divisions take their name from Sultan Mehmed - the 15th Century Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
He is often referred to as; "Mehmed the Conqueror" for his role in expanding that Islamist Caliphate through the capture of what it now known as Istanbul. He also invaded and occupied much of the Balkans including what is now known as Greece, Bosnia, Hungary and Albania. It was also Mehmed the Conqueror who invaded and occupied Crimea on the Black Sea before launching an invasion of Italy which ultimately failed.
With the Turkish military - both regular and irregular - operating in parallel with ISIL in Syria it is only appropriate then that the ISIL Games are followed by the Sultan Mehmed Games.
The Opening Ceremony of which took place last night.
The Video Countdown: It is a longstanding tradition that ceremonies such as these begin with a short video sequence that features a prominent 10 to 1 countdown. The purpose of this is to allow all the broadcasters who are picking up the official International Para-Olympic Committee (IPC) feed to make sure they calibrate their coverage so they don't miss the start of the ceremony say because they were in a commercial break.
During the ceremonies of the ISIL games the Brazilian hosts broke with this tradition. Instead they showed a video sequence followed by a countdown in the arena that was part of the ceremony itself. This was done to make the point that in recent years broadcasting technology has moved on to the point where this type of countdown is redundant. In turn this poses the question of whether the Olympics themselves have become redundant. After all in the gap between the last Closing Ceremony and this Opening Ceremony we've had the annual G20 political summit.
In this ceremony the Brazilian hosts continued to play about with this idea. Right before the ceremony began a 10 to 1 countdown was shown on giant screens inside the arena. At the time the IPC feed was showing a wide aerial shot of the arena. That meant that the 10 to 1 countdown was reasonably clearly visible to anyone who was watching the IPC feed. Particularly any program directors who at that point would be shouting at their presenters in the studio to shut up because the show was about to start.
The ceremony then began with a video sequence that did not feature a 10 to 1 countdown. Instead it featured IPC President Phillip Craven at his home in Stoke Mandeville, UK - birthplace of the Para-Olympic movement - packing a suitcase for his trip to Brazil.
Craven then arrives at an airport where he discovers that all flights have been cancelled. Unlike the IOC the IPC has imposed a blanket ban on Russia competitors at these games. This is unfortunate because if there is one main topic to be carried over from the ISIL games to the Sultan Mehmed games it is; "How did the US and the UK get it so wrong?" By banning Russia from these games Craven - whose family name means; "Cowardly" - has prevented even that topic being discussed. It's rather as if he's cancelled everybody's flights.
Eventually Craven was able to sneak aboard a flight to the Brazilian city of Belem. This is located in the far north of Brazil in Para state close to the border with French Guyana. It is probably as far away from Rio de Janerio as you can get whilst staying with in Brazil. It is also the Brazilian city that sounds most similar to the term; "Bellend" which is an English slang term that it hardly complimentary.
From Belem Craven had to make a treacherous journey in his wheelchair across the length of Brazil passing many of its famous people, Rainforests, rivers and towns on the way. His arrival in Rio de Janerio was marked by a shot of Craven sitting at the feet of the famous Christ the Redeemer statue. With much Closing Ceremony just gone focused on my 'stigmata' I'll take that as a compliment.
Craven was then shown making his way through the streets of Rio where he encountered many Para-Olympic sports such as what seemed to be the wheelchair marathon. Finally Craven made his way through the halls and passageways of the Maracana stadium where the ceremony was being held.
The video then suddenly ended and we cut to Craven sitting in his wheelchair on a platform inside the arena. After being introduced by the announcer Craven pulled on a giant rope hanging next to him. This unfurled a giant number 10 that began another 10 to 1 countdown.
Although I suspect they were sequenced by computer in much the same way that commercial breaks on TV are these days the numerals themselves were distinctly low-tech. They were simply cloth banners that unfurled around the arena until they reach 1.
There was then a giant sculpture of a zero that stood in front of a ramp. Down that ramp came hurtling Aaron Fotheringham who is quite possibly the World's only wheelchair stuntman. This native of Las Vegas, Nevada, US regularly competes in BMX and Skateboard competitions alongside able bodied athletes.
However Fotheringham is probably most famous for appearing in the UK broadcaster Channel 4's "Yes I Can" Para-Olympic trailer; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IocLkk3aYlk
As I mentioned at the time of the Closing Ceremony there was serious concern that these Sultan Mehmed games would be a complete flop with only 12% of tickets. In an effort to prevent that from happening Channel 4 dubbed this trailer into Portuguese and let it be shown across Brazil. Along with an endorsement from the Pope and the "#FillTheSeats" campaign this has significantly helped boost interest in the games.
Unlike in the trailer during the ceremony Fotheringham came down this huge ramp and then jumped through the zero which let out fireworks as he did so. This gave it the full Evel Knievel stuntman effect.
It might just have been me but I thought this oval zero seemed to resemble the opening of a woman's vagina. This gave the whole sequence an air of a man in a wheelchair hurtling down the birth canal and then being born into the world through a giant flaming vagina.
Apart from producing an image that will stick in the mind this raised an interesting talking point.
The Para-Olympics feature a wide range of competitors with a wide range of disabilities. Some of these are congenital disabilities meaning that people are born with them. Others - particularly the amputees - will have lived much of their life as able bodied only to suddenly become disabled.
During the 2014 Sochi Para-Olympics I seem to remember discussing this by comparing British Skier Kelly Gallagher and Russian Rower Alexey Chuvashev who performed that memorable "I'm Possible" sequence. Kelly Gallagher suffers from Albinism which is a congenital condition in which a certain protein is not produced or the receptor sites don't respond to the protein. Chuvashev was simply a soldier who stepped on a bomb and his legs fell off.
To answer the question Aaron Fotheringham suffers from Spina Bifida which is a congenital condition. So he was born that way. Although I think his mother might remember it slightly differently.
Wheels Within Wheels: The next sequence began with a traditionally Brazilian circle of Samba drummers.
As part of this circle was the older man who featured in the earlier Opening Ceremony teaching a young boy to dance. At the time I said that I didn't catch his name. I have since found out his name and written it down. Unfortunately I have forgotten where I wrote it down. So it seems this poor guy will have to wait a little bit longer to receive his due credit.
All the members of this Samba circle were black. In fact at one point I commented that they looked like some of my Caribbean neighbours. I then remembered where Brazil was on the map and what I'd just said. Some of the male members of the circle were wearing red and white striped tops that made them resemble characters from the children's books that are known in the US as "Where's Waldo" but in the UK as "Where's Wally."
With their Afro hairstyles they also seemed to resemble the British "Golliwog" or the similar US "Sambo" dolls that are now considered wildly racist. This seemed to be another reminder that Brazil like much of the rest of Latin America shares the US' history of slavery and racism.
As the Samba circle was perform onto the arena floor around them was video projected a sequences of cogs all whirring as if in some giant machine. The arena floor was then taken over by performers wielding all sorts of wheeled objects.
The were giant "Penny Farthing" bicycle style wheels being pushed. There were wheelchairs pulling wheeled trailers carrying what appeared to be giant plant pots - there's definitely a "Bill & Ben the Flowerpot Men" joke in there somewhere. There was also people carrying medium sized wheels on sticks above their heads which seemed to resemble giant lollipops. I think this was a reference to the movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" whose star Gene Wilder died recently. It seems his body of work will live on across the globe.
As I've said the Para-Olympics features a wide range of competitors with a wide range of disabilities. However the ones that are most obvious to the untrained eye are the people confined to wheelchairs. Although I should point out that there are a host of reasons why someone might need to use a wheelchair.
As a result the wheelchair is largely considered the internationally recognised symbol of disability.
Within the wheelchair events there is actually something of an engineering arms race to see who can get the best performance out of their equipment. It leads to lots of scandals with people accusing each other of using illegal designs. If you are super into wheels then the Handcycling events are definitely for you. Not least because they feature Alex Zanardi who by all accounts is just as mad now as he was when he was a Formula 1 driver.
However I think this sequence was also a reference to the indirect and sometimes mysterious way in which politics and international diplomacy. The famous Irish poet Seamus Heaney used a bicycle as a metaphor for this type of complexity in his poems "Wheels Within Wheels."
An example of this that I am particularly familiar with that seems very relevant to Brazil is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations to find a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol.
Using made up examples in this you would find that say the UK was resistant to a legally binding agreement due to fears that it would impose unduly onerous Greenhouse Gas (ghg) emission reduction targets.
Once the UK had been reassured it could set its own targets its cog would shift to allow for legal force to the agreement. This in turn would impact say the Norwegian cog that wanted to give more money to nations such as Brazil but needed a legally binding structure to make sure that money wasn't squandered. Once Norway had got its legally binding structure from the UK its own cog would turn releasing money to Brazil. In turn this guarantee that they would receive a baseline of funding below what the market could provide Brazil's cog would turn allowing for market based funding. This is turn would move say Nepal's cog so they too would allow for market based funding.
Amid this complex array of turning and whirring cogs eventually you would end up with an agreement that suits everybody.
Or at least we would have done if at the last minute US President Barack Obama hadn't turned up and once again declared;
"I'M HERE TO SAVE THE WORLD!"
And smashed it all to bits with a hammer.
As this "Where's Wally" sequence ended Philip Craven once again found himself in the spotlight. This time he was sitting in the stands where he was formally introduced by the announcer.
17:45 on 8/9/16 (UK date).
Wednesday, 7 September 2016
The 2016 Heritage Flame Lighting Ceremony.
Yes. I am fully aware that I have not yet finished writing up the Closing Ceremony of the 2016 ISIL games.
However even by last Friday (2/9/16) the UK had decided to add to everybody's workload with a ceremony marking of the heritage flame. Rather than being a tradition this is something the UK started in 2012 and is desperately hoping will catch on.
The main feature of the ISIL games Opening Ceremony was of course the Parade of Nations. As part of this competitors were asked to plant a single seed in seedbanks which would then be used to plant an Olympic forest. This obviously carried with it an air of sexual innuendo. The seedbanks then burst open to reveal the Olympic rings in the form of what resembled Marijuana plants.
The heritage flame ceremony took this idea and ran with it. The ceremony being entitled "Seeds of Diversity."
Ward X: The ceremony began where the Para-Olympic movement itself began - in 1944 in Stoke Mandeville military hospital in Buckinghamshire, UK.
Here Jewish-German Doctor Ludwig Guttmann was treating 26 British combat veterans for spinal injuries in a special ward designated as "Ward X." He chanced upon the idea of using an archery competition to get these men out of their beds and into wheelchairs to show them that they could still achieve despite their newly inflicted disabilities. From that seed of an idea the Paralympic movement was born.
The action focused on a small wooden hut that initially represented Ward X which was just a small wooden hut with 26 beds in it. From that hut emerged two below the knee amputees in World War 2 British military uniforms being pushed on hospital beds by performers who were wearing strangely very modern medical uniforms.
After they had strapped on their prosthetics and risen from their beds the 'soldiers' were joined by two wheelchair dancers. One of these was Laura Dajao a professional dancer who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis (MS). She was the first wheelchair dancer to join the prestigious Saddlers Wells dance company.
The male dancer who accompanied her whose name I did not catch appeared to be suffering from Downs Syndrome. This is unusual because normally people with that type of severe developmental disability do not compete in the Para-Olympics. Instead they compete in the Special Olympics.
The fact that the Para-Olympics are often mistaken for the Special Olympics is a longrunning source of irritation. After all you can see how telling a brain surgeon who happened to lose their lower leg in a motorcycle accident in their mid-thirties that they're suddenly mentally retarded would be offensive.
During the dance number performers appeared on top on what are called "Sleigh Poles." The way that these elasticated metal poles flex under tension obviously reflects an archers bow. However with the medical staff these performers that seemed to fly in the air invoked memories of the sequence in the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony that referenced Britain's National Health Service (NHS).
This sequence proved rather controversial because during the 2014 Sochi Olympic ceremonies Britain chastised the Russia organisers claiming the use of video projection made it hard to understand. The Russians snapped back that at least their ceremonies didn't include tedious sections of healthcare funding and policy.
During the ceremonies so far the Brazilians made extensive use of video of projection this seemed to be a sign of support for Russia over the UK. However the Brazilian ceremonies also dealt with extremely technical topics. I think to understand the Opening Ceremony in particular you actually did need to hold a Geography degree.
That could be interpreted as a sign of support for the UK over Russia as Brazil tried to be a good host and keep all sides happy. However everyone knows that Brazil can throw a good party. What everyone's less sure about is whether Brazil can manage serious and tedious topics. Therefore making the ceremonies very technical helps to dispel Brazil's image as; "Not a serious country."
In the 2012 ceremony London's Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) was used to tell the story of the creation of the NHS. To this day GOSH really exists as a private hospital that occasionally treats NHS patients. As a result it also served as an example of the reforms to the NHS the government of the day wanted to introduce which would effectively scrap the NHS and replace it with GOSH style private hospitals.
About a year after the ceremony that government of the day scrapped the economic policy that it claimed made the NHS reforms essential. Back in June of 2016 the Finance Minister George Osborne behind that policy was forced to resign. As was the Prime Minister. Curiously the Health Minister Jeremy Hunt kept his job despite mounting strike action by NHS doctors opposed to the policy.
Those NHS doctors had scheduled an unprecedented five day long strike during the games next week. As such I'm getting the distinct impression that those NHS reforms are about to join the changes to housing policy and education policy that were discussed during the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest and be completely withdrawn as a threat to the British way of life.
Sadly the NHS seem to have lose their nerve and cancelled next week's strike. I guess they're much better at healthcare than they are at politics.
One thing that did catch my eye is that along with the white coats the performers playing the role of medical professionals were wearing very crisp, new pink medical scrubs.
Yesterday the Turkish based propaganda group Syria Civil Defence (The White Helmets) claimed that the Syrian government had carried out a Chlorine gas attack in Aleppo City. The video released to back up their claim showed the 'victims' all dressed in those same crisp, new pink medical scrubs.
Like all the other rumours going around this could be a complete coincidence. However I think its clear that the hospitals in Aleppo City are under nowhere near as much pressure as they like to claim. After all they clearly have no problem obtaining fresh supplies.
The Allotted Time: The scene then changed to resemble what in the UK is known as an "Allotment." This is an allotted patch of government owned land that that people use to grow vegetables. This is a very British pastime. Allotments also played a critical role in feeding Britain during the Second World War.
Allotments can also be used as a form of therapy for people with disabilities. By getting people out into the fresh air and sunshine and providing them with structure and purpose they can be a particularly good way of treating the type of depression and other mental health problems associated with a life changing injury such as an amputation or a spinal injury.
My mothers are very into their allotment. On the site that they use there are actually a number of plots fitted with raised soil beds specifically for use by wheelchair users.
Along with their dungarees, spades, potted plants and other gardening supplies performers then started parading placards featuring the faces on significant people in the Para-Olympic movement such as Ludwig Guttmann. It was claimed that these were "Seed Packets" and some were adorned with pictures of Orchids. However others were adorned with pictures of Poppies.
The Poppy of course is used in Britain to mourn the war dead particular the dead of the First World War. The poem "In Flanders Field" by John McCrae is particularly resonant. As a result the 'seed packets' bearing Poppies alongside black & white photographs resembled with World War One recruiting posters or the memorial photographs giving to the relatives of those killed in battle.
Those battles of Flanders are particularly important to the creation of Northern Ireland and therefore the Northern Irish Troubles. It was due to the way that Irish Protestants fought during the battles of Flanders that led to them being allowed to establish Northern Ireland in the 1920's rather than becoming part of a united Irish Republic under majority Catholic rule.
With it being 2016 we are mid-way through the 100 year anniversary of the First World War that raged from 1914 to 1918. Back in March we had events marking the anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign. In June we had the very strange ceremony marking the Battle of Verdun. The commemorations of the Battle of the Somme began in July but like the battle itself won't end until November.
Sadly with trench warfare, chemical weapons and claykickers all back on display in Syria in many ways we seem to be closer to 1916 now than we were just 10 years ago.
Danger Naked Flame: During the allotment sequence the Ward X hut had rotated to show a side resembling the type of Greenhouse you find on many allotments. Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas (ghg) emissions have of course been big themes of the Brazilian ceremonies.
From the Greenhouse emerged Kelly Gallagher the Northern Irish skier who won the UK's first ever Winter Para-Olympic gold medal in Sochi. Appropriately enough she was carrying the Heritage flame in a wheelbarrow in front of her.
Kelly Gallagher was wearing a very elaborate gold dress that made her resemble the Danenerys Targaryen character from "Game of Thrones." However being an Albino that mass of very blond hair was all Kelly Gallagher's own.
I must confess that I am very behind in my watching of Game of Thrones. I've still got the DVD's of Season 4 sitting on a coffee table to still wrapped in cellophane. However from what I've heard the most recent Season features the Danenerys Targaryen character in a very big nude scene. I think it involves her emerging from fire and then walking towards the camera fully nude with everything on display.
Throughout much of 2015 & 2016 what can be shown in terms of sex and nudity has been a big discussion point amongst British TV broadcasters. During the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest this got elevated into a discussion about how to integrate large numbers of refugees from conservative Muslim societies into much more liberal European societies. In turn this seems to have morphed in to France's current debate over the Burkini and swimwear.
Part of the discussion about why there seems to be less nudity on British TV centred on the role of the Internet. This discourages actresses from appearing nude because those scenes will be immediately uploaded to pornographic sites where they're taken out of all artistic context. I gather that the producers of Game of Thrones are engaged in a big battle with those pornographic sites to stop this from happening.
At this point I have to say that I find that extremely frustrating. After all if I'm being forced to write an analysis of this particular Game of Thrones nude scene it would really help if I could see it. As I'm sure you understand I am particularly interested in the state of her brazilian.
Without too much work I'm sure you could turn that it into a discussion about how little coverage the Para-Olympic games receives compared to the Olympic games.
The Heritage flame lighting ceremony was broadcast live in the UK as part of Channel 4 News.
Britain's Channel 4 is I think the only network globally that will be broadcasting tonight's Opening Ceremony and parts of the games themselves live. However not even they could be bothered to broadcast all of the heritage flame ceremony live. Instead they cut away to a panel discussion followed by a weather forecast.
I gather though it ended with a performance of a specially written Operatic song.
16:00 on 7/9/16 (UK date).
Edited at around 01:15 on 8/9/16 (UK date) to add;
The Opening Ceremony of the parallel games has now ended. I will try and make a proper start on it later on in the morning. Or possibly the afternoon. In the meantime I like to think that I've left some thwacking great clues on Twitter. Amid the usual stream of casual racism.
Anyway. While all that was going on I suddenly remembered something. The Danenerys Targaryen character in Game of Thrones is played by British actress Emilia Clarke. In an effort to move away from that very blond character this brunette actress has recently appeared in a number of movies including "Terminator Genisys" in which she played Sarah Conner
However it was in the movie "Me Before You" in which she plays a care worker to a man who'd recently become a quadriplegic following a motorcycle accident. The main message of this film seems to be that disabled people deserve to be euthanized.
So while she may be the Mother of Dragons I doubt she's going to be particularly popular amongst this crowd.
01:25 on 8/9/16 (UK date).
However even by last Friday (2/9/16) the UK had decided to add to everybody's workload with a ceremony marking of the heritage flame. Rather than being a tradition this is something the UK started in 2012 and is desperately hoping will catch on.
The main feature of the ISIL games Opening Ceremony was of course the Parade of Nations. As part of this competitors were asked to plant a single seed in seedbanks which would then be used to plant an Olympic forest. This obviously carried with it an air of sexual innuendo. The seedbanks then burst open to reveal the Olympic rings in the form of what resembled Marijuana plants.
The heritage flame ceremony took this idea and ran with it. The ceremony being entitled "Seeds of Diversity."
Ward X: The ceremony began where the Para-Olympic movement itself began - in 1944 in Stoke Mandeville military hospital in Buckinghamshire, UK.
Here Jewish-German Doctor Ludwig Guttmann was treating 26 British combat veterans for spinal injuries in a special ward designated as "Ward X." He chanced upon the idea of using an archery competition to get these men out of their beds and into wheelchairs to show them that they could still achieve despite their newly inflicted disabilities. From that seed of an idea the Paralympic movement was born.
The action focused on a small wooden hut that initially represented Ward X which was just a small wooden hut with 26 beds in it. From that hut emerged two below the knee amputees in World War 2 British military uniforms being pushed on hospital beds by performers who were wearing strangely very modern medical uniforms.
After they had strapped on their prosthetics and risen from their beds the 'soldiers' were joined by two wheelchair dancers. One of these was Laura Dajao a professional dancer who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis (MS). She was the first wheelchair dancer to join the prestigious Saddlers Wells dance company.
The male dancer who accompanied her whose name I did not catch appeared to be suffering from Downs Syndrome. This is unusual because normally people with that type of severe developmental disability do not compete in the Para-Olympics. Instead they compete in the Special Olympics.
The fact that the Para-Olympics are often mistaken for the Special Olympics is a longrunning source of irritation. After all you can see how telling a brain surgeon who happened to lose their lower leg in a motorcycle accident in their mid-thirties that they're suddenly mentally retarded would be offensive.
During the dance number performers appeared on top on what are called "Sleigh Poles." The way that these elasticated metal poles flex under tension obviously reflects an archers bow. However with the medical staff these performers that seemed to fly in the air invoked memories of the sequence in the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony that referenced Britain's National Health Service (NHS).
This sequence proved rather controversial because during the 2014 Sochi Olympic ceremonies Britain chastised the Russia organisers claiming the use of video projection made it hard to understand. The Russians snapped back that at least their ceremonies didn't include tedious sections of healthcare funding and policy.
During the ceremonies so far the Brazilians made extensive use of video of projection this seemed to be a sign of support for Russia over the UK. However the Brazilian ceremonies also dealt with extremely technical topics. I think to understand the Opening Ceremony in particular you actually did need to hold a Geography degree.
That could be interpreted as a sign of support for the UK over Russia as Brazil tried to be a good host and keep all sides happy. However everyone knows that Brazil can throw a good party. What everyone's less sure about is whether Brazil can manage serious and tedious topics. Therefore making the ceremonies very technical helps to dispel Brazil's image as; "Not a serious country."
In the 2012 ceremony London's Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) was used to tell the story of the creation of the NHS. To this day GOSH really exists as a private hospital that occasionally treats NHS patients. As a result it also served as an example of the reforms to the NHS the government of the day wanted to introduce which would effectively scrap the NHS and replace it with GOSH style private hospitals.
About a year after the ceremony that government of the day scrapped the economic policy that it claimed made the NHS reforms essential. Back in June of 2016 the Finance Minister George Osborne behind that policy was forced to resign. As was the Prime Minister. Curiously the Health Minister Jeremy Hunt kept his job despite mounting strike action by NHS doctors opposed to the policy.
Those NHS doctors had scheduled an unprecedented five day long strike during the games next week. As such I'm getting the distinct impression that those NHS reforms are about to join the changes to housing policy and education policy that were discussed during the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest and be completely withdrawn as a threat to the British way of life.
Sadly the NHS seem to have lose their nerve and cancelled next week's strike. I guess they're much better at healthcare than they are at politics.
One thing that did catch my eye is that along with the white coats the performers playing the role of medical professionals were wearing very crisp, new pink medical scrubs.
Yesterday the Turkish based propaganda group Syria Civil Defence (The White Helmets) claimed that the Syrian government had carried out a Chlorine gas attack in Aleppo City. The video released to back up their claim showed the 'victims' all dressed in those same crisp, new pink medical scrubs.
Like all the other rumours going around this could be a complete coincidence. However I think its clear that the hospitals in Aleppo City are under nowhere near as much pressure as they like to claim. After all they clearly have no problem obtaining fresh supplies.
The Allotted Time: The scene then changed to resemble what in the UK is known as an "Allotment." This is an allotted patch of government owned land that that people use to grow vegetables. This is a very British pastime. Allotments also played a critical role in feeding Britain during the Second World War.
Allotments can also be used as a form of therapy for people with disabilities. By getting people out into the fresh air and sunshine and providing them with structure and purpose they can be a particularly good way of treating the type of depression and other mental health problems associated with a life changing injury such as an amputation or a spinal injury.
My mothers are very into their allotment. On the site that they use there are actually a number of plots fitted with raised soil beds specifically for use by wheelchair users.
Along with their dungarees, spades, potted plants and other gardening supplies performers then started parading placards featuring the faces on significant people in the Para-Olympic movement such as Ludwig Guttmann. It was claimed that these were "Seed Packets" and some were adorned with pictures of Orchids. However others were adorned with pictures of Poppies.
The Poppy of course is used in Britain to mourn the war dead particular the dead of the First World War. The poem "In Flanders Field" by John McCrae is particularly resonant. As a result the 'seed packets' bearing Poppies alongside black & white photographs resembled with World War One recruiting posters or the memorial photographs giving to the relatives of those killed in battle.
Those battles of Flanders are particularly important to the creation of Northern Ireland and therefore the Northern Irish Troubles. It was due to the way that Irish Protestants fought during the battles of Flanders that led to them being allowed to establish Northern Ireland in the 1920's rather than becoming part of a united Irish Republic under majority Catholic rule.
With it being 2016 we are mid-way through the 100 year anniversary of the First World War that raged from 1914 to 1918. Back in March we had events marking the anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign. In June we had the very strange ceremony marking the Battle of Verdun. The commemorations of the Battle of the Somme began in July but like the battle itself won't end until November.
Sadly with trench warfare, chemical weapons and claykickers all back on display in Syria in many ways we seem to be closer to 1916 now than we were just 10 years ago.
Danger Naked Flame: During the allotment sequence the Ward X hut had rotated to show a side resembling the type of Greenhouse you find on many allotments. Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas (ghg) emissions have of course been big themes of the Brazilian ceremonies.
From the Greenhouse emerged Kelly Gallagher the Northern Irish skier who won the UK's first ever Winter Para-Olympic gold medal in Sochi. Appropriately enough she was carrying the Heritage flame in a wheelbarrow in front of her.
Kelly Gallagher was wearing a very elaborate gold dress that made her resemble the Danenerys Targaryen character from "Game of Thrones." However being an Albino that mass of very blond hair was all Kelly Gallagher's own.
I must confess that I am very behind in my watching of Game of Thrones. I've still got the DVD's of Season 4 sitting on a coffee table to still wrapped in cellophane. However from what I've heard the most recent Season features the Danenerys Targaryen character in a very big nude scene. I think it involves her emerging from fire and then walking towards the camera fully nude with everything on display.
Throughout much of 2015 & 2016 what can be shown in terms of sex and nudity has been a big discussion point amongst British TV broadcasters. During the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest this got elevated into a discussion about how to integrate large numbers of refugees from conservative Muslim societies into much more liberal European societies. In turn this seems to have morphed in to France's current debate over the Burkini and swimwear.
Part of the discussion about why there seems to be less nudity on British TV centred on the role of the Internet. This discourages actresses from appearing nude because those scenes will be immediately uploaded to pornographic sites where they're taken out of all artistic context. I gather that the producers of Game of Thrones are engaged in a big battle with those pornographic sites to stop this from happening.
At this point I have to say that I find that extremely frustrating. After all if I'm being forced to write an analysis of this particular Game of Thrones nude scene it would really help if I could see it. As I'm sure you understand I am particularly interested in the state of her brazilian.
Without too much work I'm sure you could turn that it into a discussion about how little coverage the Para-Olympic games receives compared to the Olympic games.
The Heritage flame lighting ceremony was broadcast live in the UK as part of Channel 4 News.
Britain's Channel 4 is I think the only network globally that will be broadcasting tonight's Opening Ceremony and parts of the games themselves live. However not even they could be bothered to broadcast all of the heritage flame ceremony live. Instead they cut away to a panel discussion followed by a weather forecast.
I gather though it ended with a performance of a specially written Operatic song.
16:00 on 7/9/16 (UK date).
Edited at around 01:15 on 8/9/16 (UK date) to add;
The Opening Ceremony of the parallel games has now ended. I will try and make a proper start on it later on in the morning. Or possibly the afternoon. In the meantime I like to think that I've left some thwacking great clues on Twitter. Amid the usual stream of casual racism.
Anyway. While all that was going on I suddenly remembered something. The Danenerys Targaryen character in Game of Thrones is played by British actress Emilia Clarke. In an effort to move away from that very blond character this brunette actress has recently appeared in a number of movies including "Terminator Genisys" in which she played Sarah Conner
However it was in the movie "Me Before You" in which she plays a care worker to a man who'd recently become a quadriplegic following a motorcycle accident. The main message of this film seems to be that disabled people deserve to be euthanized.
So while she may be the Mother of Dragons I doubt she's going to be particularly popular amongst this crowd.
01:25 on 8/9/16 (UK date).
Tuesday, 6 September 2016
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).
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).
Monday, 5 September 2016
The 2016 ISIL Games: Closing Ceremony Pt.5
This should be read as a direct continuation of Part 4; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/the-2016-isil-games-closing-ceremony-pt4.html
Following the Claykickers sequence the ceremony then dealt with some elements of protocol. Although this can be less than thrilling to watch it is often where much of the serious business is done.
Games Highlights: A short video montage of some of the games highlights was broadcast in the arena. This obviously gave the athletes the opportunity to look back and reminisce on what had just happened.
One event that particularly caught my eye in the montage was Russia's Yana Egorian defeating Olga Kharlan of Shamali Province in the women's individual Sabre fencing.
The 2014 Winter Olympics held in Sochi, Russia were of course rather ruined by the US' decision to violently overthrow the government of Ukraine invalidating it as a nation state and turning it into the Northern or Shamali Province of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
With the International Olympic Committee (IOC) largely resisting the US and the UK's campaign to have all Russian competitors banned from the 2016 games everyone was on the edge of their seats waiting to see where in the World the US would violently and stupidly lash out this time around.
For much of early 2016 attention focused on Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan's attempts to reignite the long running conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh Region (NKR). Both Armenia and Azerbaijan who contest the NKR sit directly south of Georgia. It was during the 2008 Beijing games that Georgia decided launch into a war against Russia that it promptly lost.
Fortunately several months of concerted international pressure seemed to put the lid back on NKR - at least for now. Sadly that only meant that attention switched back to Shamali Province where Turkish backed terror groups are a particular problem.
Within the first week of the games on August 10th (10/8/16) Russian security services foiled a Shamali Province backed plot to launch a terror attack in the Russian province of Crimea. In response Shamali Province began massing its military on the border with Russia. This created a fear that Shamali Province would attempt to invade Crimea rather like Georgia attacked Russia back in 2008.
Obviously this forced Russia to mobilise its forces to deter any attack by Shamali Province. The games also set out to deter Shamali Province's aggression with lots of results - particularly in boxing - suddenly going Russia's way. This was to send the message that Russia rather than Shamali Province had the majority of international support.
The Sabre event is particularly interesting because unlike other fencing events where you are only allowed to stab or "Touch" your opponent in Sabre you're allowed to slash and hack at them.
The women's Sabre event is even more interesting because the US was being represented by Hijab wearing Ibtihaj Muhammad. The US media made a big fuss about her claiming that she was dispelling many negative stereotypes about Muslims.
However I would think a woman who refuses to show her face in public and keeps slashing at people with a sword only serves to reinforce many of the negative stereotypes people have about Muslims thanks to ISIL.
In fact I would go so far as to say that Ibtihaj Muhammad could only really be nicknamed; "The Sword of Jihad" or "Abu Sayyaf."
Although I don't think Ibtihaj Muhammad made it through the first round having Russia defeat Shamali Province in her event sends a strong message of support to Russia over its opposition to ISIL.
Particularly when it's included as one of the highlights of the games.
Medal Ceremony: It is IOC protocol that the medals for one of the events that takes place on the final day of competition are awarded during the Closing Ceremony. This allows for recognition of all the other medals that have been handed out during the games.
The event selected for this particular Closing Ceremony was the men's Marathon. This was won by Kenya's Eliud Kipchoge with Feyisa Lilesa of Ethiopia taking silver Galen Rupp of the US taking bronze. As he crossed the line in the event Lilesa crossed his arms in the gesture of the Ethiopian Oromo protest movement.
That turned the medal ceremony into a talking point about this so-called Paris Agreement to combat climate change that the Opening Ceremony focused so heavily.
The problems with the Paris Agreement are really too numerous for me to list again here. However it is fair to say that it will do absolutely nothing to combat climate change. In fact in drags global efforts to combat climate change back to the point before the Kyoto Protocol was introduced in 1997.
With the Paris Agreement being such an absolutely atrocity many nations have been forced to sign up to it not because it's a good deal but because they - often literally - have a gun to their heads.
A lot of this intimidation has focused on the threat of terrorism to East African nations such as Kenya. However the US also leapt onto the Oromo issue as a way to intimidate the Ethiopian government into sign up to the Paris Agreement.
During the ceremony we saw this all neatly lined up on the podium.
As Lilesa has now refused to return to Ethiopia and has sought refugee status claiming making the Oromo sign will get him killed it also promotes discussion about the refugee issue. Particularly the validity or lack thereof of many of these refugee claims and why so many people have been forced from their homes these past 8 years.
The absolute last scheduled event of the day was of course the Men's Basketball final. This is the favourite sport of US President Barack Obama. The final saw the US face off against Serbia who often stand in for Russia in sporting events.
I don't think I was alone in frustratedly waiting for this stupid n*gger game to draw to a close so we could draw breath and focus on the excitement of the Closing Ceremony. You could almost say that we were sick to death of it.
The IOC Athletes Commission: It is IOC protocol that at every Closing Ceremony four more athletes are elected to serve on the IOC. Three of those elected this year were;
As I've mentioned the US and the UK have been running a big campaign to ban all Russian competitors from the games. Although the IOC largely resisted this the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) did ban all Russian athletes.
This seemed specifically intended to target Russian Pole Vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva who is widely considered to be the absolute best at her sport in the World and unlike say Michael Phelps has never been implicated in drugs cheating. The fact the Isinbayeva was prevented from competing did in the eyes of many completely devalue the games.
So the fourth person athletes elected to represent them at the IOC for the next 8 years was: Yelena Isinbayeva.
Just moments after IAAF Chair Sebastian Lord Coe had appeared at the men's marathon medal ceremony.
20:30 on 5/9/16 (UK date).
Following the Claykickers sequence the ceremony then dealt with some elements of protocol. Although this can be less than thrilling to watch it is often where much of the serious business is done.
Games Highlights: A short video montage of some of the games highlights was broadcast in the arena. This obviously gave the athletes the opportunity to look back and reminisce on what had just happened.
One event that particularly caught my eye in the montage was Russia's Yana Egorian defeating Olga Kharlan of Shamali Province in the women's individual Sabre fencing.
The 2014 Winter Olympics held in Sochi, Russia were of course rather ruined by the US' decision to violently overthrow the government of Ukraine invalidating it as a nation state and turning it into the Northern or Shamali Province of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
With the International Olympic Committee (IOC) largely resisting the US and the UK's campaign to have all Russian competitors banned from the 2016 games everyone was on the edge of their seats waiting to see where in the World the US would violently and stupidly lash out this time around.
For much of early 2016 attention focused on Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan's attempts to reignite the long running conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh Region (NKR). Both Armenia and Azerbaijan who contest the NKR sit directly south of Georgia. It was during the 2008 Beijing games that Georgia decided launch into a war against Russia that it promptly lost.
Fortunately several months of concerted international pressure seemed to put the lid back on NKR - at least for now. Sadly that only meant that attention switched back to Shamali Province where Turkish backed terror groups are a particular problem.
Within the first week of the games on August 10th (10/8/16) Russian security services foiled a Shamali Province backed plot to launch a terror attack in the Russian province of Crimea. In response Shamali Province began massing its military on the border with Russia. This created a fear that Shamali Province would attempt to invade Crimea rather like Georgia attacked Russia back in 2008.
Obviously this forced Russia to mobilise its forces to deter any attack by Shamali Province. The games also set out to deter Shamali Province's aggression with lots of results - particularly in boxing - suddenly going Russia's way. This was to send the message that Russia rather than Shamali Province had the majority of international support.
The Sabre event is particularly interesting because unlike other fencing events where you are only allowed to stab or "Touch" your opponent in Sabre you're allowed to slash and hack at them.
The women's Sabre event is even more interesting because the US was being represented by Hijab wearing Ibtihaj Muhammad. The US media made a big fuss about her claiming that she was dispelling many negative stereotypes about Muslims.
However I would think a woman who refuses to show her face in public and keeps slashing at people with a sword only serves to reinforce many of the negative stereotypes people have about Muslims thanks to ISIL.
In fact I would go so far as to say that Ibtihaj Muhammad could only really be nicknamed; "The Sword of Jihad" or "Abu Sayyaf."
Although I don't think Ibtihaj Muhammad made it through the first round having Russia defeat Shamali Province in her event sends a strong message of support to Russia over its opposition to ISIL.
Particularly when it's included as one of the highlights of the games.
Medal Ceremony: It is IOC protocol that the medals for one of the events that takes place on the final day of competition are awarded during the Closing Ceremony. This allows for recognition of all the other medals that have been handed out during the games.
The event selected for this particular Closing Ceremony was the men's Marathon. This was won by Kenya's Eliud Kipchoge with Feyisa Lilesa of Ethiopia taking silver Galen Rupp of the US taking bronze. As he crossed the line in the event Lilesa crossed his arms in the gesture of the Ethiopian Oromo protest movement.
That turned the medal ceremony into a talking point about this so-called Paris Agreement to combat climate change that the Opening Ceremony focused so heavily.
The problems with the Paris Agreement are really too numerous for me to list again here. However it is fair to say that it will do absolutely nothing to combat climate change. In fact in drags global efforts to combat climate change back to the point before the Kyoto Protocol was introduced in 1997.
With the Paris Agreement being such an absolutely atrocity many nations have been forced to sign up to it not because it's a good deal but because they - often literally - have a gun to their heads.
A lot of this intimidation has focused on the threat of terrorism to East African nations such as Kenya. However the US also leapt onto the Oromo issue as a way to intimidate the Ethiopian government into sign up to the Paris Agreement.
During the ceremony we saw this all neatly lined up on the podium.
As Lilesa has now refused to return to Ethiopia and has sought refugee status claiming making the Oromo sign will get him killed it also promotes discussion about the refugee issue. Particularly the validity or lack thereof of many of these refugee claims and why so many people have been forced from their homes these past 8 years.
The absolute last scheduled event of the day was of course the Men's Basketball final. This is the favourite sport of US President Barack Obama. The final saw the US face off against Serbia who often stand in for Russia in sporting events.
I don't think I was alone in frustratedly waiting for this stupid n*gger game to draw to a close so we could draw breath and focus on the excitement of the Closing Ceremony. You could almost say that we were sick to death of it.
The IOC Athletes Commission: It is IOC protocol that at every Closing Ceremony four more athletes are elected to serve on the IOC. Three of those elected this year were;
- Britta Heidemann - A German Fencer,
- Ryu Seung-min - A South Korean table tennis player,
- Daniel Gyurta - A Hungarian swimmer.
As I've mentioned the US and the UK have been running a big campaign to ban all Russian competitors from the games. Although the IOC largely resisted this the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) did ban all Russian athletes.
This seemed specifically intended to target Russian Pole Vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva who is widely considered to be the absolute best at her sport in the World and unlike say Michael Phelps has never been implicated in drugs cheating. The fact the Isinbayeva was prevented from competing did in the eyes of many completely devalue the games.
So the fourth person athletes elected to represent them at the IOC for the next 8 years was: Yelena Isinbayeva.
Just moments after IAAF Chair Sebastian Lord Coe had appeared at the men's marathon medal ceremony.
20:30 on 5/9/16 (UK date).
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