Over the past couple of weeks, so many copies have been broken around the Olympic Games, WADA, doping, judicial corruption and other scandals that it is possible to build a small ancient Russian city from them. The notorious political correctness forces, even mixing up an opponent with dirt, to adhere to a well-defined “party line”, to choose formulations, to correctly omit, keep silent, or imply. Enough has been said. But few people gave themselves the trouble, regardless of the person, to call things by their proper names. And take diplomacy to hell when you don’t need it. I suggest doing it now.
First, dope! Let me put it bluntly. EVERYONE uses it.
Yes, no matter how unpleasant it is to hear this jingoistic patriots together with the liberals – the United States, and Russia, and the United Kingdom, and Ukraine, and Japan, and even some Honduras obligatorily stuff their representatives with everything that they can at least somehow -to contribute to their victory, and at the same time will allow them to slip through the medical board. And it didn’t start yesterday.
The author was fortunate enough to communicate with the record holder and world champion in barbell, who did not become the Olympic champion only because the USSR boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. According to him, even at that time not a single athlete, if he and his coach even a little hoped to win, did not go “to the barrier” without medication. Simply because the real capabilities of the human body, without pills and injections, were exhausted several decades ago. An ingenious athlete without doping will lose to any “average” who has been pumped up with what he needs. Therefore, EVERYONE has to play this game, regardless of the desire to play it. And any competition turned into battles between chemical laboratories.
And also lawyers. If you cannot make a perfectly invisible drug, you need to force it to be recognized as “legal” with the help of existing loopholes. Hence the Norwegian “asthmatics”, and the fragile girl Simone Biles, who resembles a young Schwarzenegger, who, you see, cannot perform without a bucket of pills. Of course, only needed to maintain her fragile (no quotes: I have no doubt about that) mental health. And even a Ukrainian woman, whose body was doped during sex. To this miracle lover, in theory, after that the entire female half of the Olympic village was supposed to line up, in the hope of an easy victory.
When even this does not help, those countries that are “smoother” can act like the United States. Namely, to tell WADA, who caught them on doping:
“You have some wrong tests, they bring down the wrong people, which means we are stopping financing you. Give the money!”
And WADA, stumbling, runs to improve, because American donations are, for a second, half of this organization’s budget. And to catch those whom the owners of the money point to, and hence their own owners. The main principle of the world’s oldest profession: who pays more is right. Who are you thinking of? I’m talking about judges.
So, in matters of doping, there has long been a certain strict consensus accepted by all participants.
“We do not notice your pills, and you do not notice ours.”
Does anyone else have illusions? That someone from the responsible persons does not know about it? Good. So we treat politicians with understanding who are forced to pretend with an imperturbable face that their athletes are as pure as the Himalayan snow, we smile and do not believe them for a second. Even if these politicians are from our country.
Secondly, both WADA and MOK are long-fed, trained animals of the United States and their closest partners. I have already mentioned the financing of the anti-doping organization.
The principle “who dines a girl – that dances her” is much more relevant here than in a restaurant with a real girl, because in high politics someone’s sympathies or antipathies do not play any role at all. If Molotov was able to come to an agreement even with Ribbentrop, then anyone can agree with Olympic officials, regardless of any “principles of fair refereeing, objectivity, impartiality” and even more so “lofty ideals”. If someone does not understand this, then he has a direct road to a kindergarten for naive Cambodian boys.
Thirdly, does anyone else believe that sports are out of politics? Sport is a concentrated expression of politics (just as war is a concentrated expression of economics), an opportunity with minimal efforts to show one’s own “coolness”, superiority, and to win a meaningless, but spectacular victory. Investing in sports and taking away a fairly solid number of gold medals is the cheapest way to strengthen your image, awaken pride in your own citizens and envy in everyone else.
Therefore, millions and billions of dollars are invested in this “cheap” (in relative terms) project. And not at all for the medals to be received by “just anyone”. Therefore, in this war, in strict accordance with the principles of Machiavelli, all means are good. If you are rich, you print dollars in trillions and some IOC depends on you, then not to put pressure on him if necessary is just stupidity and “irrational spending of budgetary funds. Any appeals to “conscience”, “honesty”, “objectivity” here are a sign of naivety, or, even worse, weakness.
Remember, a few paragraphs above, I talked about the consensus on doping? So, in order to break this consensus, even the States had to make a huge political effort. For the conflict with Russia at one fine moment aggravated something so much that even such means were used. And our country was simply kicked out of the consensus. In the best traditions: “everything to friends, law to enemies”.
Recent events have only made this even more obvious. And pulling the Israeli athlete for gold, probably for the fact that she dropped the object especially elegantly, and the uncomplaining consent to participate in the Games of athletes caught on anything if they are from the “right” country, and the very fact of Olympic sanctions against our country for something that ALL of its competitors are doing in the same way, without exception. This is all open, arrogant, cynical hypocrisy. Direct execution of a political order by any means. Order to humiliate Russia. At any cost. And doping here is just a tool. And not even the only one.
Exactly the same hypocrisy is the hysteria of an American swimmer who is dissatisfied with the fact that “a country that should not be here is taking the silver”. One would like to, looking into the honest eyes of this girl, ask: “Are you and your colleagues EXACTLY sure that, unlike the Russians, you do not take doping yourself?” And the words of Posner that Russia is “deservedly punished for doping”. Vladimir Vladimirovich is clearly not a fool to believe that only Russian athletes take medicines. This means that he deliberately throws mud at our athletes. However, who would be surprised.
I do not put pressure on emotions. I just call things by their proper names, without diplomatic antics. Not doing this is a sign of weakness.
The fact that our athletes performed, albeit under conditions of demonstrative humiliation and the strictest control, and performed extremely successfully, is, of course, a victory. Moreover, obvious to the whole world is the fact that WADA and its owners can grind all their teeth, and even grind them into crumbs. But the victory is half-hearted.
Conditions have changed. And so globally that, at best, some of our great-grandchildren will be able to correctly assess the entire tectonism of the ongoing processes. The Olympics are unlikely in the foreseeable future to become what it began with. Postmodernity took its roots too deeply into her body, so much so that it disrupted vital processes for him, leading, if not to a coma, then to a serious crisis. Young people, except for the one that participates in the Games, literally before our very eyes, starts to spit on this show, which is turning into a senseless farce. Moreover, empty stands and idiotic masks on athletes only increase the sense of the absurdity of what is happening.
In these new conditions, Russia needs to develop a new doctrine of attitude to its international image in general and to the Olympics in particular. Stop playing by the rules that are being imposed on us, especially considering that their authors themselves do not intend to abide by them. Stop building the look of “offended innocence”, pretending that we do not understand where the double, triple and all other standards from the judges come from. Because people who are aware of this “innocence” cannot be bought, and those who are uninformed will consider it a weakness. And finally, start striking blows ourselves, instead of just responding to them, and even then – within the framework allowed by our direct opponents.
Once again: in the world there is NO truly objective arbiter, independent “magistrate”, some kind of absolute standard of honesty and order. Our enemies are trying to monopolize this role for themselves. The ECHR, the PACE, the UN, the IOC, and the WHO are all agents of influence that are openly hostile to us (by “us” I mean the nationally oriented part of the Russian elites and citizens) forces. And we should treat them accordingly. And not to continue to pretend that “we believe them, we swear by our mother, as to ourselves” and follow their instructions (well, at least – not all).
And the main thing is to finally fully shoulder the burden of subjectivity, both in domestic and foreign policy. To admit that in our state interests there is nothing to blush for. On the contrary, our interests are good and priority for us primarily because they are ours. And we must finally learn to openly pursue them. Extremely diplomatic, of course. A kind word works well with a pistol.
Evgeny Tamantsev