Treat your people well
In grad school, I did a bit of research on how hosting the Olympics impacted relations between host countries and indigenous cultures. Canada (who will host the next Winter Games in Vancouver) and Australia (who hosted the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney) both have a very interesting history in this respect.
Canada’s isn’t quite as interesting. They just built an exhibition out of sacred artifacts the Lubicon Cree may or may not have realized the Glenbow had, sparking quite the conversation between Canada and their indigenous culture, the First Nations.
Australia, on the other hand, should be very grateful the International Olympic Committee (IOC) wasn’t quite so interested in human rights in the 50s. When Sydney made their bid for the 1996 Summer Games, the Aborignes were legally classified as “flora and fauna”. As a result, the IOC awarded those Games to Atlanta (which had a minor cultural brouhaha of its own) becasue they felt this was a violation of the Aborigines’ human rights. The Australian government legally recognized the Aborigines as humans, started trying to teach them about their own history, and then Sydney submitted a bid for the 2000 Summer Games, which they won. Australia petitioned for, and won, the right to fly the Aboriginal Flag at Olympic venues (only recognized nations’ flags are allowed to fly at the Games). Winners’ bouqets were composed from Aboriginal flowers. Every venue was covered in Aboriginal art.
Nearly ten years later, Australia has finally apologized to the Aborigines for what they did.
(Metafilter recently had a post sharing some of the Aborigines’ dance culture. It’s pretty cool.)
Of course, Sydney wasn’t the only city turned down for human rights violations. The year Sydney was awarded the Games, Beijing was informed that China’s human rights violations would keep it from becoming a Host City. Clearly, Beijing cleaned up its act enough to convince the IOC to award them this year’s Summer Games. But you have to wonder if the IOC would willingly strip that honor after everything that has happened in regards to Tibet recently. (At least one country has threatened to boycott the Opening Ceremonies over it.)
It’s very interesting to watch Host City bids.
