I am not a fan of sports except the World Cup. To me, the Olympics were always about watching opening and closing ceremonies, and reading about outstanding performances and medals won.
However, as I watch France24 for news updates, they broadcast for almost a year programmes about how the French were getting ready for the Olympics.
From French dishes they are planning to dazzle their visitors with to cleaning the Seine for the triathlons (both turned out to be huge disappointments as the attendees were too broke to wine and dine in fancy restaurants and a few dozen athletes came out of the Seine vomiting due to its high contamination).
I missed the opening ceremony this time but, in the morning, Mom told me that she heard on the Monte Carlo radio station that the ceremony was so grand and successful that the Arab announcers were tearful and speechless throughout it, feeling the pride of how French culture was represented.
I got excited and decided to watch the highlights on YouTube.
However, the first thing that came was the infamous Last Supper drag performance. The outrage was understandable of course but what wasn’t was dragging Muslims into this with mindless comments like: “If they were Muslims, you would’ve never dared to represent them this way!”
May I remind the selectively amnesic West about Charlie Hebdo’s publishing of the offending Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) cartoons in 2012 that caused France later many unnecessary losses of lives which could’ve been avoided with a simple apology (that never came of course).
The Christians should be thankful for getting a reluctant apology a week later - after a period of denial and removal of the video from the Olympics website - along the lines of 'not meaning to offend anyone' and 'just representing French secular values.'
As for France24, they broadcasted updates about the events but failed to mention problems that were occurring on an almost daily basis (some were handled with a Parisian attitude): the unexpected torrential rains in the opening ceremony that drenched the spectators and contaminated the Siene even further, mixing up between the two Koreas and not understanding the fuss afterward (how about the French being called English?), banning the participation of scarved Muslim French athletes (till they find a practical solution for the Hijab that suits their secular values, which never happened), the Olympic Village with its uncomfortable cardboard beds, suffocating rooms, crowded bathrooms, and low-quality food.
Besides, recent complaints from non-European teams- except the Americans- about discrimination and unfairness. Yet, the real highlight of the Paris Olympics was Algeria. In the opening ceremony, the Algerian athletes threw roses in the Siene when passing by the bridge where the French police had thrown and killed peaceful Algerian protestors by the hundreds in 1961, reminding France of its brutal colonial past.
Then came the case of the Algerian biological female boxer who defeated Italian Angela Carini in 46 seconds. The whole world went against her calling her unjustness, to which the organisers were dead silent for days before suspense fully revealing her feminine gender (the same world was uncertain last year about the trans-weightlifter who broke women’s records by almost 200 kgs).
Then came Kaylia Nemour, the half-French, half-Algerian gymnast who won Algeria’s and Africa’s first gold medal in gymnastics. Funny enough, the French stopped her from participating in their Olympic team on medical grounds, yet she went to represent her father’s country and become the pride of the whole Arab world.
As for the closing ceremony, I think I am going to skip it. Hypocrisy and double standards were never my cup of tea.
Rasha Al Raisi
The writer is the author of The World According to Bahja
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