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January 6, 2014

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UPDATE to PROVOCATION - IOC Does Not Want Olympic Flame To Light Up In Ancient Olympia

A couple of days ago we featured a story on HellasFrappe which was even shocking to us. We revealed that several days before we rang in 2014, the Greek Olympic Committee received a letter from the International Olympics Committee informing them that the traditional flame lighting ceremony in Ancient Olympia will not be held this year for the 2014 Youth Games in Nanjing, China (between August 16-28) because the organizers of the games wanted to reduce costs. As with all such events, the Olympic flame that initiates the start and end to the games is usually lit up in Ancient Olympia and then flown to the relevant country that is hosting the games and we revealed that these games were not going to follow the same procedure.

We also discovered that the IOC and the organizers were going to hold their own flame-lighting ceremony somewhere else in China (which will not have any relation to the prestigious ceremony that is held in Ancient Olympia)!

In this article we clearly stated that we were afraid that this action would open the door to the permanent abolition of the flame lighting ceremony in Ancient Olympia and urged our readers to begin making some NOISE on the matter, by getting the word out. Well, since then much has happened. (Click HERE to read story)

For one, the story went completely viral. Success! Greeks and non-Greeks made quite a bit of NOISE. HellasFrappe was the only blog on the web to feature it in the English  language and we were not surprised with its results. The news struck a nerve in our Diaspora, which was totally infuriated over this development, but it also frustrated many friends of Greece who could not comprehend the logic behind this decision.

While this was going on, the Greek press began featuring the story and following all the noise the Greek organizing committee gave a press conference on the matter. The Greek Committee admitted that the International Olympic Committee is not going to use the "Olympic Flame" at the 2014 Youth Games in China, but will instead use -as stated by the (Anti-Hellenic) Greek Organizing Committee- the "Flame of the Games".

The Greek Committee which is trying desperately to downplay the issue, noted the IOC's commitment to Greece that the flame lighting ceremony will always be held in Ancient Olympia for both the Winter and Summer Games, while during the ParaOlympic games the flame lighting ceremony will be held at the Pnyx.  However, since the Youth Olympics were never a substantive issue, it decided to write its own rules, and therefore the lighting ceremony prior to these games will not be held in Ancient Olympia.

Many Greek based anti-Hellenic sites are saying that in this way, there is no national issue raised, nor any damage to the prestige and significance that the Olympic flame has.

We disagree.

The only thing it does is reveal the incompetency of the Greek Olympics Committee to defend these rights, and at the same time also attempts to "put a lid" on an issue that is obviously of national importance!

Our argument is not based on whether or not the IOC wants/wanted to capitalize on our Olympic Flame, our argument is that they are creating their own rules/ceremonies on a product and brand name that is directly linked to OUR history and our country.

Let us explain: If we created a cola, could we bottle it under the brand name Coca-Cola?

Obviously NOT!

Speaking to the Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia, the chairman of the Greek Olympic Organizing Committee and husband to ND MP Dora Bakoyianni Mr. Spiros Kapralos said that "the request of the Chinese was verbal and aims at reducing the costs of the ceremony". He admitted that a "similar" ceremony will be held somewhere in China but was abruptly interrupted by former IOC member Lambis Nicholas who said Greece is not at risk of losing the flame.

But then he said something that was indeed frightening. The flame will remain is the sacred symbol of the Olympic Games, but there is "no need" to hold a lighting ceremony every so often for smaller events. He said that it should only light "every four years" in major sporting events.

Excuse us... But aren't the Youth Games held every four years?

And do they or do they not use the brand name "Olympic"?

In an effort to deflate the issue even more, the spokesman of the Greek Organizing Committee Mr. T. Papachristou told several news services that the games in China this August will not involve the official Olympic Flame but a simple flame, which in no way will be characterized as Olympic.

He forgets of course that prior to the previous Youth Games the ceremony was indeed held in Ancient Olympia! More exactly, the first Youth Games were held in Singapore in 2010 and the next Games will be held in Sri Lanka. If they used the lighting ceremony at the first games then why not now? China is not in dire need of money. This decision was not taken to reduce costs, this is hogwash! Besides, the aim of the Youth Olympiad (because that is what it is called) is to inspire children with the "Olympic Spirit" from an early age.

Notice that the brand name Olympic is being used for the games and the purpose of these games?

Does this brand belong to the IOC or to Greece?

Also, how can children be inspired about an Olympic event without learning the history of these games?

Finally, how can the Olympic Organizing committee develop new sporting events using the brand name "Olympic" by ignoring the nation which invented these games?

We believe this is just another scheme by multinational companies who would like nothing more than to capitalize on weaker nations.

We already had a taste of this two months ago when it was discovered that Sony Music (owned by Apple) was charging YouTubers with a royalty every time the Greek National Anthem was played. At the time we raised quite a bit of noise over the issue, as did other blogs, noting that it was incomprehensible that a corporation can own the copyright to a national anthem. When that story went viral, the Minister of Culture Panos Panagiotopoulos appeared on the George Tragas news show and admitted that it was indeed an issue that the Ministry was looking into, and announced that the issue should clear up in a couple of weeks.

We have been tracing developments on that story ever since, but we have yet to be convinced that the Ministry actually did something about it. Panagiotopoulos may have Greek interests at heart, and he is right about the symbolic significance of our national anthem -which he told Tragas is an emblem to every nation- however, the owners of Sony Music did not wake up one day and decide to begin capitalizing on the Greek national anthem. Someone, or some force, obviously agreed to hand over these rights to this multinational corporation right?

Can Sony Music do this for the American national anthem? The Russian, the British, the Chinese or the German? Obviously not. Those nations are not weak like Greece is.

Besides, it did this to a weaker nation that is plagued with many, MANY, Anti-Hellenes who are totally indifferent to Greek national issues and this nation's history and culture.

At the time Tragas asked the obvious: Who signed over the rights to the Greek national anthem & When were these rights signed over to Sony Music?

Our guess is that this was all signed by the number one Anti-Hellene we know: Mr. George Papandreou. And these rights were handed over when his government, along with LAOS, signed the first Memorandum of shame.

If you go over all the events that have happened since these agreements were signed, then you too will agree with us. When PASOK signed the first Memorandum it handed over all our sovereign rights to our creditors. We had featured stories back then noting that some creditors even wanted to use the Acropolis as collateral (Scandinavian countries in particular).

So back to our main news story: What is to stop the IOC of developing new events that will in the future also use the brand name "Olympic"? Nothing right? After all they developed the Youth Games which are incidentally held every four years just like the Summer Games are. What if one of their spokesman comes out in the future and claims that Greece did not invent the Winter Games and therefore the flame lighting ceremony in Ancient Olympia will not be necessary either?

And following this, what if they decide to then argue that since the flame lighting ceremony was reintroduced at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, then it was not necessary to hold this ceremony anymore? After all the torch relay that culminates in the ceremonial lighting of the flame was ordered by Adolf Hitler, who tried to turn the 1936 Berlin Games into a celebration of the Third Reich!

This from leaksource:
     "The revived 1936 torch race perfectly fit the Nazi design for the Olympics as a showcase for the New Germany. With its aura of ancient mysticism, the rite linked Nazism to the civilized glories of classical Greece, which the Reich’s academics were arguing had been an Aryan wonderland. (They were particularly fond of the macho, warlike Spartans Hitler was even inexplicably convinced that the peasant soup of Schleswig-Holstein was a descendant of Spartan black broth, a famously austere staple fed to the men in communal messes as they underwent their brutal training.) Hitler took considerable personal interest in the ritual, and pumped funds into its promotion: The Nazi propaganda machine covered the torch relay slavishly, broadcast radio reports from every step of the route, and filled the Games with the iconography of ancient Greek athletics. Afterward, the ceremony became permanently embedded in the popular imagination in part due to Leni Riefenstahl’s documentary of the Nazi Games, Olympia , which evocatively showed a Greek runner treading the gentle beaches of the Aegean at dusk." - Leaksource
Today's lighting ceremony has nothing to do with Nazis or with Hitler's ethnic nationalism, of course. For all of Hitler's legacies we've excised from the world, this is probably the only contribution that we are comfortable maintaining. But with the rise of nationalism all over the world (especially in Europe and Greece), who can convince us that this decision was taken because of costs? Are there political reasons behind this decision?

Internationalists and progressives believe that the Olympics elevates our pride in our nations. And they are right it does. Nationalism comes with rooting for our athletes, watching them parade in our nation's costumes, hearing the national anthem of cour country when they win medals and watching our flags standing proud alongside other nations. In fact it makes nationalism fun, something which they probably hate! So yes, it can be political because the Olympics is nationalism at its most appealing and harmless nature.

Are the people who financially support the Olympics in a position to dictate to the IOC how the Games can be organized? And if yes, then isn't that capitalism colliding with patriotism?

Which brings us back to the lighting ceremony in Ancient Olympia. Aside from the symbolic significance of this event, it represents an emotional element that no multinational company can replace. Aside from the historical significance of this moment, and an emotion that no company such as Coca-Cola, Adidas, Reebok, Nike, etc. can duplicate, it is a simple "Thank-You" to a nation that gave the world everything!

Our argument remains unchanged: No flame lighting in Ancient Olympia, then no use of the word "Olympic" at any such global event!

(*Final Note: We support Konstantine Karamanlis efforts to bring the Games back to home so that they can permanently be held in Greece!)

Signed
HellasFrappe Team


References in Greek:
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