Just before Putin's Winter Olympics in Sochi, we should not make the same mistake as when we let predecessor Stalin dictate Norway in 1936. Just listen to Magnus Carlsen's teacher.
(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
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Olympiad. At the time of writing, there are 71 days, 22 hours, 38 minutes and 10 seconds for that 22. The Winter Olympics opens in the Black Sea city of Sochi.
This city, with just under 350.000 residents, will 7. February be ready to arrange what is often referred to as "President Vladimir Putin's prestige project". For many Norwegians, Olympic Winter Games are a sporting highlight with almost mythical tales of skiing performed in cities such as Chamonix, Cortina and St. Moritz. Not to forget Oslo 1952 and Lillehammer 1994, as well as maybe Oslo once again in the 2020's.
But if the Olympics in Sochi in February do not bring out the same romantic, white and innocent winter joy and longing for the big moments – then it will be with good reason. There is an Olympic distaste throughout the event. It has been many years since the Winter Olympics have been held in a country as openly brutal and dictatorial as in Putin's Russia.
"We are not afraid to die!" say the two Russian journalists Olga Beskova and Irina Gordienko. Last week they visited Norway. Gordienko is a colleague of Elena Milashina, who writes for Ny Tid from Novaya Gazeta. They are both colleagues of the journalist, author and New Time columnist Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed outside her home in Moscow in October 2006. Being a critical journalist in Russia is a life-threatening risk sport.
According to Amnesty International, 16 journalists have lost their lives in Russia over the past ten years.
“Our profession involves a great risk. Every year I lose colleagues and friends, ”Gordienko told Amnesty International Norway's website. The two journalists visited Oslo and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee on November 22.
sabotage campaign
Olga Beskova is editor of the independent newspaper Sochi Novosti. She says that the Olympic preparations in the small town have brought an increased number of police and security police. The journalism work has become more difficult:
"Two years ago, the police started pouring in and making 'special preparations.' For journalists, it is very difficult to obtain information. The only thing we have access to is superficial, short and official information. The press tool on the website is very limited. What we see and hear about is only magnificent buildings ", Beskova explained during the visit. She tells of a colleague who has been threatened in the most serious way when the authorities thought he had gone too far in a case.
It is also not long since the Norwegian TV 2 journalist Øystein Bogen and photographer Aage Aune came home from a reportage trip in the Olympic city.
Their attempts to create journalism from Olympic preparations were constantly sabotaged by Russian police. The book's immediate description of it all was "Terrible!". They felt systematically harassed and, among other things, arrested twice. They finally had to get help from the Norwegian embassy in Moscow.
"I have worked as a journalist for TV 2 in Russia since 1995. I have never experienced anything like this. It's been pure harassment, "Bogen told TV 2, well at home. When Norwegian journalists, with embassy staff in the back, are treated in this way, how is it for local journalists who will challenge the regime's decisions?
Gay attacks
This is the status of press freedom in Russia just over two months before the entire Olympic show is to open.
But it is not just a gagged press that makes the joy of the winter sports event has faded for many. The increasing repression of gays in Russia also makes it difficult to relate to a Putin skiing on the Black Sea. Increased violence against gays is reported in Russia. The Central Station nightclub in Moscow has been attacked with firearms and gas several times in the last two weeks. The mob knows where to find their outcast minorities. And they film abuses against gays and post them online. These are gangs close to Putin's youth groups.
For the regime commits similar abuses, in the form of law. Russia's authorities have faced international criticism of the law against "propaganda for non-traditional sexuality orientering», In practice homosexuality, which was introduced this summer. Former Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide (Labor Party) was one of the critics:
"I fear that the law in practice criminalizes information about homosexuality and openness about homosexual matters. The law contributes to the marginalization of sexual minorities in Russia and may in specific cases conflict with fundamental human rights. Human rights apply to everyone, regardless of sexual orientation orientering and gender identity. ”
For those who want to see even more backs of the Sochi medal, the new documentary by Alexander Gentelev – Putin's Games – be to recommend. Gentelev has previously, among other things, made a film about the Russian mafia in the film Thieves By Law (2010)
Boycott or no boycott
What is Norway doing? Norway thus has a neighboring country that violates basic human rights towards sexual minorities, dissidents and independent-minded people. The same neighboring country where journalists are arrested, threatened and even killed for doing their job.
Under these conditions, and as a showcase for Vladimir Putin, some of what most Norwegians know about sporting events will be arranged. Should it boycott?
Yes, anyone thinks. Like the captivated revolutionary punks of the band Pussy Riots. Or the 12.300 members of the "Boycott Sochi 2014" Facebook group.
Some activists believe that one must learn from the lack of a boycott of Germany's Summer Olympics in Berlin and the Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936. It will of course be too extreme. Although many do not think that it was Adolf Hitler who opened the Winter Games in Bavaria in 1936, when Norway had figure skater Sonia Hennie (1912-1969), jumper Birger Ruud (1911-1998) and figure skater Ivar Ballangrud (1904-1969 ) as the big stars. But Norway boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980, due to the Afghanistan invasion. Why not debate the same thing now?
Perhaps a better method now is the recommendations from former World Cup champion in chess, and newly-baked World Cup champion Magnus Carlsen's former teacher, the opposition Garry Kasparov. He writes in a chronicle in The Daily Beast earlier this year: "Boycott Putin, not the Sochi Olympics".
Kasparov Council
Kasparov therefore recommends the intermediate solution. All countries must send their sports stars, but that is it. He advises world political leaders to stay away. The same should sponsors.
"Let [Putin] fill the seats around him with his oligarchic friends and the lackeys he pays, and not the leaders of the free world."
We pass on this call to the King and Prime Minister. The question is whether they will listen to the old Russian chess master? Hardly.
But then the silent, conservative majority in general does not come out of it so well a few years later. In 1936, it was not just Hitler that Norway allowed itself to be charmed or pressured by. Stalin also demanded that Norway expel the opposing Lev Trotsky, which then happened.
For the sake of our own conscience and honor, but mostly for the citizens of our neighboring country, we should now choose something other than to play with Statoil's oil and gas flirt and Norwegian business sector after new billion-dollar contracts with the Putin regime. We should rather play on teams with our own reason and with our cross-border sisterhood and brotherhood ties.
Boycott Putin! Now! ■
(This is an excerpt from Ny Tid's weekly magazine 29.11.2013. Read the whole thing by buying Ny Tid in newspaper retailers all over the country, or by subscribing to Ny Tid -click here. Subscribers receive previous editions free of charge as PDF.)
