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May 24, 2004
Don't you wave that flag!
Posted by McQ
James Lileks informs us that per the UK's Sunday Telegram the USOC has told American athletes to cool it with the flag waving in Athens this summer:
"American athletes have been warned not to wave the U.S. flag during their medal celebrations at this summer's Olympic Games in Athens, for fear of provoking crowd hostility and harming the country's already-battered public image. ... U.S. Olympic officials have ordered their 550-strong team to exercise restraint and avoid any jingoistic behavior."
"Jingoistic behavior"? Tell me ... is it only "jingoistic" if the US team waves a flag? Is jingoism strictly an American fault?
Of course Lileks is none to happy about it and takes a look at it in his own inestimable way:
Apparently if an athlete grabs an American flag and runs around the stadium, it will enflame the European Street. And the Arab Street, the Asian Street, the African Street, the Central and South American Streets, the Canadian Rue, and various other roads and alleys from assorted islands and subcontinents. The world simply is not able to take the sight of an American waving a flag in victory.
It would remind everyone that the United States spent months getting U.N. approval for a resolution authorizing force against Iraq, and we actually backed up the U.N.'s empty words with action – over the objections of France, which had been in bed with Saddam for so long they were no longer sleeping together, just reading until one or the other fell asleep.
That's our sin. That's the stain for which we must slink around in Athens. If an athlete wants to say "We're No. 1," he had better mean the grade-school definition of a bodily function. And heaven help the American fan in the stands who starts a chant of USA! USA! He'll unite many nations. Which is to say everyone will take turns kicking him in the head.
But we all know that it doesn't take much for anti-Americanism to surface ... and frankly, its now considered to be cool with many European nations. I can't recall the reporter, but recently I read a story about a trip an American made to Iran to guage how Iranians felt about the US. He said he was very cordially treated everywhere he went and was only verbally abused one time while in a cafe talking with some Iranian students.
The abusers were a table full of Germans.
The Olympics should add to a very "interesting" summer. Lileks, however, puts it all into perspective for us:
Imagine if an Iraqi Olympic team beat the U.S., grabbed its new flag and ran around the track celebrating the achievement. The crowd would nearly expire from ecstasy, as though a conquering brute had been shown up by its plucky victims. Never mind that the Iraqis can compete this year without fear of having their kneecaps liquefied, because the United States killed the butchers who tortured athletes for losing.
Life's strange and bizarre little ironies, eh?
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