implications of olympics as a mega event, focusing on the case of vancouver 2010 winter olympics

7/31/2019 Implications of Olympics as a Mega Event, Focusing on the Case of Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics

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IMPLICATIONS OF OLYMPICS AS A MEGA EVENT: FOCUSING ON THE

CASE OF VANCOUVERS 2010 WINTER OLYMPICS

Enrico Montaletti1

ABSTRACT:

This article looks at the Olympic games as a chance both for the organizing

committees/sponsors as for the host cities and regions to improve their brands worldwide. To

get things done well every stakeholder must secure some guarantees , like having a good

product to sell which can be adapted well to a selected market. The ideological themes hiding

the Olympic Industry are strong components of the Olympic brand, while the chance that

have host cities is to act like ideological hosts at the same time doing long-lasting structural

changes to their land. The failure of promises made by some Olympic host cities, the political

use of the Games and the non-inclusive characteristics of a particular kind of development are

eventually the other side of major improvements linked to mega-events. The case of Vancouver

2010s Olympic Games is taken as an example due to some peculiarities.

Acronyms: IOC International Olympic Committee;

NOC National Olympic Committee;

OCOG Organising Committee for the Olympic Games;

Keywords: Olympics, mega-events, rebranding, capitalism, tourism, Aboriginal people,

sustainability;

1. INTRODUCTION The world (-) system has now reached a point at which both theold inter state system based on separate national capitalist

classes, and the new institutions representing the global

interest of capital exist, and are powerful simultaneously. inthis sense, the old inter-state system now coexist with a more

globalized or transnationalized world economic system

brought about by the past two decades of neoliberal economic

globalization. In this light, each country can be seen to have animportant ruling class fraction that is allied with the

transnational capitalist class. (Chase Dunn and Gills, 2003)

Modern Olympic games comes from an idea of the former French educator and noble Baron

Pierre Fredy de Coubertin, who in the last decades of the XIX aimed to institute a sporting

event with an universalistic dimension, in order to promote sport as ideologically linked to

principles like goodwill, friendship, and cooperation between countries and peoples. To make

his dream come true he took as a model the Olympic Games from Ancient Greeks society,

games that were effectuated every four years in Olympia, a town of ancient Greece, because

these were characterized by themes like ethics, stopping of belligerant behaviour between cities,

excellence and fair play (but even elitism and discrimination, being it a meeting of sole noble

educated men). This message, with promotion of sport as a vehicle, in this way could be spread

1Article done for the semestral course Recursos, populaao e conflitos, lectured by Prof.ra Margarida Queirosat Instituto de geografia e Ordenamento do Territorio, Universidade de Lisboa, Semestre Par, Ano Lectivo2010/2011.


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to the whole world, with a special regard to young generations (Malfas et al., 2004; COHRE,

2007). There was certain sense of civilizing mission, and even a sense of strengthening of the

French empire in the dreams of de Coubertin, having seen that the promotion of sport and

scoutists education among British youth was, in his thoughts, directly linked to the successes of

the British empire (Schantz, 2008). Much progress has been made from the first edition of

Athens 1896, and also from the first edition of the Winter games, which took place in Chamonix

in 1924, from that time becoming formally complementary of , though less bigger than, the

summer games (Essex & Chalkley, 2002) . From relatively little events, affiliated to other

international events in the same place (like the editions of Paris 1900 and that of St. Louis 1904,

attached to the World Fairs), Olympics got more and more bigger, increasing the amount of

athletes, spectators and media coverage at every edition. The direct consequence was an

improved probability for the games to be used by the city in order to promote its visibility

among the media, and the chance for the cities themselves, and for the country, throughout

linking itself to the principles and the spirit of Olympism1 (that they can exploit because of their

status of host city/nation), to present itself as a promoter of that values, something that has

permitted that the Olympics could take place there, and makes this message being reached by

the national and international audience thanks to the big media coverage of the games. We could

cite the Berlin Olympics that took place in 1936, when the repressive and xenophobic activities

of the Nazi regime were already well known among the other countries: that games were

strongly used by the German government to promote the image of Germany and of its capital

throughout the world, with films and radio programs exalting Hitlers government and Germany

as a place of excellence, eventually erasing from the streets signs of states brutality like papers

and writings against ethnic and religious minorities. The torch relay program borns here, and

the main thing that remains visible in historical photographs is the Swastika flag aside that of

the Five Rings (Anti2010, 2009; Chatziefstathiou, 2005). Similarly, after 72 years, Beijings

2008 games has being considered by the mass media and also by scholars (Liu, 2007), as a

vehicle for a major opening of the Chinese government to a fair treatment of its citizens, in

terms of human rights and civil liberties. The government has invested huge amounts of

financial resources to build astonishing ceremonies, in order to present Beijing as one of the

most important places in the contemporary world, at the same time place of and for- the

Olympic values, getting involved in a massive operation of beautification of city areas and

improvement of transport facilities to assure that all the event went as good as possible

(COHRE,2007): they will be remembered as the most spectacular Olympics ever2

. In order to

become a candidate host, every city must sign, approximately nine years in advance and often


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for several editions in order to acquire skills for further biddings (Gold & Gold, 2008), the Bid

Book, a document in which are enlisted qualities that the city has and improvements that it is

going to do by itself and can do in order to host better the event, making in this sense the

competition of cities a competition between bid books, where they represent themselves as a

perfect potential host, with wonderful facilities, great coverage for funding Olympic venues and

infrastructures, and peculiarities at the historical, cultural and even behavioural level. In a

competition that increases virtually at every bid since the successful Los Angeles 1984 and

Barcelona 1992 summer Olympics, this is done in order to stimulate the IOC (International

Olympic Committee, based in Lausanne, Switzerland) to make a decision favourable to this or

that city, being the IOC the unique, supreme responsible of choice, accurately examining the

better condition for the organization in order to improve every aspect of the Olympics. The IOC

has a long-term interest in the full success of the games, being the owner of the Olympic

trademark (De Moragas sp & Kennet, 2002; Lenskyj, 2008). We can call it a

commodification of sport, because the trademark of the Olympic event is a certain

interpretation of sport, and it moves every two years thousands of athletes and journalists, and

tens of thousands of related operative personnel and tourists around the world, in this way

owning a multi-billionaire business that is centered in the event itself but even more in its

surroundings and implications. If we focus only on the mere aspect of sporting competitions, on

the live spectators and the athletes, even considering the fact that among years the number of

athletes has increased from tens to thousands and of the live spectators from thousands to

millions (but it depends on the population of the host city, as for example, tickets available for

Turin 2006 Winter Olympics were 1 million, but for Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics were

approximately 8 million, and the Olympic and Paralympic games cover 1 month of events), few

things should let us think of the games as the major example of mega-events choose by

specialists to explain these kind of happenings (Roche,2000; Essex & Chalkley, 1999 & 2002).

If we look on media coverage of todays Olympics, then, we discover that the connection

between media and games couldnt be more strict, to be sure that without large-scale television

broadcasting with correlative revenues from selling television rights, the Olympics never could

be able to become a massive event like they are today. The simplest thing to understand is that,

while live spectators dont have the access to all sports, taking them place simultaneously, the

becoming media studios of Olympic venues is done in order to let the media spectator to

move from competition to competition, by a simply change of channel. As a matter of fact,

what are the 80 million of direct ticket selling for the Beijing Olympics when compared with

the 1.8 billion of US dollars revenues from TV broadcasting companies? And the 8 million of


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spectators competing with the 3 billion total viewers worldwide? (IOC,2009). It isnt surprising

then, that beside broadcasting revenues, the most important ones that follows are those from

sponsorships, because of the association they can do between their brand and the five rings (like

coke bottles or McDonalds packaging), that have been defined the best brand in the world.

The IOCs creation of an official sponsorship program after the summer games of Los Angeles

1984, The Olympic Program (TOP) including worlds leading services and goods companies

with a multi-billion worldwide business, that has not saved the committee from charges of

commercialization of the event, has made the IOC one of the worlds wealthiest organization

(Lewie, 1990, quoted in Chatziefstathiou, 2005). Moreover, news coverage is a strong

opportunity to promote both the brand and the host city: with the aid of advertisements on

newspapers and TV, the Olympic committees (OCOG, NOC, IOC) help media from one side

to get benefits from the Olympics, on the other to improve the possibility of media coverage to

be aligned to giving news in convergence with the Olympic spirit and its ethical message:

however, to make this happens, the host city must do its homework, doing operations more or

less urgent of urban renewal, urban beautification, and mass cooptation in order to present itself

in the pre-defined logic of the Olympic host city ((Lenskyj, 2008; De Moragas Sp, Kennet,

2002). These operations are plural and important, vary from the showing of cultural,

environmental and social characteristics of the city, creating a very proper semantics and

simbology, and associating it to the Olympics in the designing of Olympic symbol and Olympic

mascottes, to the valorization of citys proper heritage itself to help tourism boost also, and even

more, in the post-games era. Last but not least, had to be made infrastructural changes and

transport improving in order to present a standard-based city that is defined not only, mainly in

immanent terms, by the Olympic values (so a city that must looks like friendly, sustainable,

accessible, clean...), but also in diachronical terms by a simple-growing from precedent

editions, with an increase in urban changes, media coverage, association of cities to the world-

class city concept, ready to be showed to the world in the best way possible. These

implications, that make us almost forget the sporting aspect of the Olympics, make them, at the

same time of World cups, Pan-american games, and other types of international sponsored

meetings, a great occasion for the mise en scene of the financial interests of local, national and

transnational capitalists classes. The same concept of world class-city explains this, meaning

the importance of urban growth for capitalist development (...) and that the notion of world

class city is functional to a neoliberal agenda of urban governance (...) (It) describes the

rising importance of key-cities in the growth and maintenance of the capitalist economy. Theworld class city is an urban imaginary that further manufactures and


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normalizes the idea that the neoliberal urban development model is

replicable and sustainable(Birkinshaw, 2009).

1. CONNECTIONS BETWEEN TRANSNATIONAL CAPITALISM AND MEGA-

EVENTS POLICIES

Mega events like the Olympics are characterized in their role to be catalyst of urban renewal for

the city that is going to host them: this means that host cities are going to make major or minor

changes according to their size and the capacity of structures that are already part of the city, in

order to exalt on one side the moment of the event, which approximately lasts one to three

months (according to the Olympic Charter, one month before and one month after the games is

the period of time that Olympic Identity and Accreditation Card allows the holder to stay in the

host country), on the other making improvements that will have, or that must be told that they

will have4, positive repercussions among years, because of the massive amount of public

funding that is needed in order to make changes required by the games, even with the strong

incomes from sponsorships, contracts, and tickets to the IOC, NOC, and OCOG, which

obviously are not included in funding urban changes. The catalyst effect comes directly from

money fluxes incomes which are expected at the city level from the province and the state,

according to what has been defined by Lenskyj the Olympic leverage argument, which means

that the political class can be pressured to approve generous public finding of sporting

facilities, housing, and infrastructures if the city is going to host the Olympics (2008). The

promotion of the host city and of the host region and country as a place for tourism and

industrial investments is once again the main theme behind these behaviours. According to

Naomi Klein, in the case of Vancouver-Whistler Olympic bid, with the logging and fishing

industry crisis (read delocalization), the hosting of the games will be a 17 days long

advertisement to the world, regarding the most prominent industry of the XXI Centurys British

Columbia: winter tourism5. Truly, with the hard industry production crisis in Europe and North

America, metropolitan centers are increasingly facing the problem to erase or at least redevelop

their industrial and class-struggling past, passing from centers of production to centers of

consumption (hosting of mega events is advertised as a big boost in this direction). The logic of

consumption without visible production leads the transnational capitalist class, which is the

same that delocalizes production where still that can take place, like the developing countries,

export processing zones and countries or districts with low-cost working class, to export

consumption were production is not allowed anymore (or, less forcely, with a shifting of labour


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forces from production of goods to the offering of services). Here the competition isnt anymore

between cities in the same country as Molotch says in his classical work on city as a growth

machine (1976), but it has become a transnational competition to get represented by the light of

the world as a world-class city. Rebranding can be called the process that cities had to be done

to do this, and Nel-lo, talking about Barcelonas case, named the Olympics a tool for urban

renewal. Direct benefits that host cities can or must expect from mega-events are surely a

workplace availability boom in the construction sector (middle-term) and in the bureaucratic

sector in order to administrate the games (short-term), a short-term tourist boom for the games

and a hope of a well done tourism campaign for future tourism incomes, in order to place the

city in a higher spot in international competition of the tourism market. The chance that the city

has to show to a selected audience an accurately studied image of itself is a great occasion to

marketing the city selling its new brand made of local, provincial, and national peculiarities. At

the industrial level, with a increasingly more delocalized and travelling business elite,

promotion of cities on the international market can strengthen (or create) the role of the city as

a place opened to industrial consumerism, that is, being place of investments by transnational

corporations to make directional centers or being a good place to stay for a ruling class from

around the world that travels in business class, in an intertwinement between industries of

tourism and tourism of industries (Fanstein, 2007).

2. REBRANDING THE CITY

Regarding competition between cities on global market, the so-called scandal that have

involved IOC members, that were sistematically targeted by local committees and public figures

of candidate cities with gifts and facilitations which included honoris causa academic degrees,

free studies for members relatives, and paid stays in high-class hotels, highlights how attractive

can be these kind of events to local elites (Chatziefstathiou, 2005; Mallon, 2000). Molotch

(1976), talking about the problem of jobs, states that growth doesnt create jobs as said by

developers and builders, meaning those that have interest in the fact that investments come

to a determined area-, growth (re)distributes jobs. All that a place can do is securing that a

portion of the distribution of job dependent on the allocation of financial resources will be in

that area. Paraphrasing, the world in those years will see anyway an increasing number of cities

with major investments by transnational corporations, increased real estate prices and

economically linked to the promotion of its brand, the point is what cities6. Hosting the

Olympics can guarantee to before low-considered cities a first-class place in the market, even if

these prospective had been unattended in much cases (Baade & Matheson, 2002), and it can be


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an added value for cities already sites of mass tourism and investments, such as London and Rio

de Janeiro, acting as a catalyst for major urban renewal (as in the case of Londons Lower Lea

Valley7). During the various editions of the games, at least from the 1960 Rome Olympics and

in a more gradual way for the Winter games' edition, the constant has been a restructuring of

international airports, the construction of new buildings (or renovation of the old ones) for the

accommodation of athletes and journalists, sports centers and stadiums enlarged or built ex

novo, improved public transport and significant expansion of roads (Essex & Chalkley, 2002).

Examples such as the Olympic Stadium for Montreal 1976 (Gold & Gold, 2008), the Olympic

complex of Maroussi in Athens 2004, the Olympic village and sport venues left abandoned in

Turin, let us think about the transformation into white elephants (Cashman, 2002; COHRE,

2007) of the Olympic infrastructures, despite promises of continuative, post-event use, and they

become visible examples of the waste of public money for two weeks of sport, to the

detriment of the local community and to the benefit of contractors, developers, sponsors and the

Olympic Committees, thus of national and transnational capitalist class. White elephant is a

concept that means the abandoning of infrastructures because they are too expensive to

maintain, too large or badly located, therefore useless once the mass influx of tourists and media

has left the city. Also for this reason, then, the cowardly practice of displacing people from their

homes, either directly or indirectly, for operations related to games, houses belonging to the

poorest of the urban population, as has been reported in many cases (Seoul, Atlanta, Sydney,

Athens ... Vancouver) raises issues regarding social justice and allocation of resources towards

the most disadvantaged population (COHRE, 2007). Even in Barcelonas case, proclaimed as an

example of the very positive impacts that the Olympics can have on urban renewal, to suffer the

worst effects of them have been the working-class areas of the city core and the lower sections

of the population, such as drug addicts and prostitutes (Lenskyj, 2008). Despite the fact that for

the construction of the Olympic village has been demolished "only" 300 houses and firms with

more than 2000 made, the promise made by the municipality to grant houses at a price lower

than the average market price was rejected because of the presence in a majority percentage of

banks and real estate groups in the management company8 (Nel-lo, 1997). Moreover, the legacy

of the Olympics has led to an embourgeoisment of the city in the form of an increase of houses'

price (with a consequent increase in the amount of houses for rent), a lower tolerance to the

phenomenon of squatting and visible poverty, and the annihilation of the industrial and working

class past in terms of increased entertainment and cultural tourism (Caselas, 2002 quoted in

Lenskyj, 2008). This has lead to that kind of image trick of Barcelona cited by Richard (2004)

which is to eventually forget the difference between the City of Barcelona and Metropolitan


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Barcelona where the former is a very compact city, where careful planning is required to avoid

spatial and social problems, and the latter is a much wider area where urban sprawl and poor

planning are evident. Tourism has played a major role in converting the centre of Barcelona into

a landscape of consumption, and the city centre has been turned into an historical theme park:

also that has made of Barcelona one of the favorite destinations of youth tourism in the last 15

years, at least among young Italians. So even in best cases, if on the one hand the focus on

financial gains by investors and the improvings to the city in terms of tourism and renewal

make us think to the benefits for middle and upper classes -which are those who can afford and

interact with all of this- and that is what makes cities compete for the hosting of mega-events,

when we look at the post-games decadence of the structures, corruption, ethical issues relating

to the official sponsors, censorship and repressive measures against the press, hyper-

surveillance and the deployment of massive police structures, environmental destruction and the

impact on the poor of the games, certain issues come to the surface that cannot be silenced, and

that a growing number of scholars are emphasizing. Edelman, quoted in Molotch, distinguishes

between two types of politics, symbolic politics, with the redundant moral and ideological

motivations (in this case, the Olympic spirit, fair play, prestige and excellence) that fills the

front pages of newspapers (also them, according to Molotch, representatives of local interest

groups, and ironically, funded by sponsors and Olympic Committees abundantly through

advertising contracts). The other politics is the process through which goods and services are

distributed in society. This are the politics determining who, physically, takes what, when, and

how. And at the local level, basically, we're talking about land, as the ultimate place of policy

provision of goods and services (1976). As Queirs (2010) stresses in his article on integrated

urban revitalization in Montreal, the disadvantaged and poor areas of a city are, basically, the

ones who have seen a lack of financial investment among past years: in other words, land that

was not the subject of a (re)distribution of goods and services as other, wealthier parts of the

city. The influx of large investments and important public-private agreements may therefore be

a way to renew and align the "disadvantaged" zones to the policies of the rest of the city, whose

management is in the hands of a ruling class that has interests in the development of the land for

their advantage. Sponsors and suppliers decided well before the games, so, the productive

machine can get started, (re)distributing resources for an event whose total cost is estimated in

several billion of US dollars.

In summary, the IOC, in partnership with the sponsors of the TOP, all transnational companies

of goods and services, decided to ally with major national companies producing goods and

services (the representatives of which happens to be some representatives of National Olympic


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Committee) which in turn ally with local authorities (public authorities, with people often

elected for private career successes) to allow the mise en scene of a two a week sporting event

on thatpiece of landthat is the host city. Given this, we can start talking about the edition of the

2010 Winter Olympics held in the city of Vancouver and resort community of Whistler.

3. THE BEST PLACE IN THE WORLD

The former company that submitted the application in the period between 1999 and 2003 (the

year of IOCs decision), Vancouver-Whistler 2010 Bid Corporation, was formed by leading

personalities from the world of real estate business, sport tourism and hotel market9. It later

became VANOC (Vancouver Organizing Committee, local OCOG), in which more than half of

its members had close relationships with private interests in the property market, were financial

advisors, managers or employees of media sponsors of the Olympics, pulp and forest industry

representatives, and tourism entrepreneurs (Vancouver bid corporation, 2002; Anti-2010,

2008). The corporate sponsors of the Olympics at the national level were the main producers of

goods and providers of financial services and managed the coverage of the Games along with

official suppliers and the TOP sponsors, many of which are in ethically questionable positions

and at odds with the so-called Olympic values10.As a Canadian example could be cited the

Hudsons Bay Company (HBC), the oldest European trading company in North America, and

the first government entity in what is now British Columbia, whose merchants are referred to by

Franz Boas, despite its well known reluctance to the introduction of non-native elements in

descriptions of the populations of southern British Columbia (Smithsonian Institution, 1897), as

those who have introduced commercial products among the native population of the area, often

in exchange for furs (the first trade of the HBC, now a great company with diverse interests,

mainly financial services and resale)11. Official sponsor of the Olympics, its history is seen by

some as the history of colonial oppression on the Aboriginal population of North America 12.

Petro-Canada, another official sponsor, is involved in the exploitation of oil resources of the tar

sands of Alberta, one of the most controversial crude oil extraction site of recent years, which

threaten the lands owned by the Aboriginal people of northern Canada and the global climate

with a high-profile environmental impact related to extraction13. The city of Vancouver is

located on the southwest coast of the Canadian Pacific, with a population of about 570000

inhabitants is the eighth most populous city in Canada, and Whistler is about a hundred

kilometers from Vancouver, linked to the city by the 126 km of the Sea to Sky highway, and is

embedded into the mountains. While the area of Whistler is considered one of the richest of

British Columbia, especially in regards to the real estate market (where a family home costs an


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average of 1.5 million Canadian dollars), Vancouver is a city that had to do with social issues

such as poverty and homelessness for many years, with a special concentration in an area of

Vancouver, Vancouver Downtown East-side (DTES), to which the literature refers to Canadas

poorest postal code (Lenskyj, 2008; Schatz, 2010; Vandecayasten, 2010;) . Vandecayasten

(2010) cites as an example of hallmark event the International Expo of 1986, which had a

negative impact among the disadvantaged segment of population that mostly lives in this part of

the town. The conflict occurred among residents in SRO hotels at low cost (which are

commonly found in this area) and those who were eager to purchase or renovate the space to

accommodate tourists and visitors of the fair, and resulted in between 500 and 850 evictions for

renovations directly linked to the needs of tourism industry (Olds, 1998, Vandecayasten, 2010).

The DTES is an adhesive area of the city, sandwiched between two areas with high tourists'

frequentation (Gastown and Chinatown) and with a very high volume of pedestrians because of

its unified position between the east of the city and the heart of Downtown (Shatz, 2010). This

area is plagued by a rate of HIV disease that has been considered to be the highest rate of

transmission in the Western world, proportionally affecting more women than men, with

Aboriginal heritage respect to non-Aboriginal, with prostitution, drug use and begging clearly

visible, and that never fail to arouse indignation, criminalization and law enforcement

measures . Last but not least, there are cases of murders and abductions of women, here also in

majority Aboriginal (Schatz, 2010; Anti 2010, 2009). The extreme situation that these people

are facing over a number of years, however, has encouraged the flourishing of social

movements and organizations that play a key role in mutual aid and co-existence in DTES.

According to Pivot Legal Society, a law firm born right to denounce and resist the hardshipness

of living in the DTES, the loss of SRO hotels due to revitalization (read gentrification) has

mushroomed four times confronted with the trend of previous years, in the years of the Olympic

waiting (post 2003 awarding) (PIVOT, 2006). The loss of accommodation was because of the

conversion of buildings (housing for students and tourists), due to closing processes with not

respected legal criteria such as fire safety or health (and therefore open to improvement of

facilities), and rent increases, thus bringing those who could not afford prices to leave to the

metro area, or to remain homeless (PIVOT 2006; Eby, 2006). The process of gentrification,

along with the application of legal measures designed to clean the city from the open viewing of

those behaviors that are not acceptable in the promotion of the city as a product of mass

consumption (tourism), if not directly attributable to the consequences the Olympics, at least

happen regularly in Olympic host cities: the case of Atlanta 1996 is paradigmatic14

. When the

World Arrives in Vancouver in 2010, what kind of city will they find ?, Are the words of the


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freshly elected mayor of Vancouver Sam Sullivan, in his inaugural speech of 2005 (Pivot,

2006), and precede a policy increasingly focused on public order related issues, which in 2006

culminated in the presentation of the project Civil City (Lenskyj, 2008), an initiative that had as

its main aims, by 2010, the reduction of 50% of activities such as aggressive panhandling, drug

use and selling in open space, homelessness, and even the noise of motorcycles and car, thus

equate illegal behaviors, noise and environmental pollution problems, and a personal, in most

cases forced condition such as lackness of home, being this a bridge for a potential

criminalization of people in such a state. Other initiatives listed in the project are the closure of

the rubbish bins (with the consequent impossibility of looking for recyclable items),

replacement with new benches that do not allow people to lie upon, increase of private guards

and CCTV cameras (Lenskyj, 2008; Pivot, 2008; Anti-2010, 2009;). For the city of Vancouver,

the expenses related to the economic infrastructure which is directly involved in the event (i.e.

sports structures and Olympic Villages in Vancouver and Whistler) were covered by public

funds, as stated clearly in the bid book (Vancouver Bid Corporation, 2002). If it is still complex

to assess the real costs of operations related to the games, ranging sources estimate a cost that

varies from 1 million and a half of official fonts (BC Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games

Secretariat, 2010), from which however are excluded important works of urban renewal, to the

2 billion and a half, until the estimation of 5 billion made by the no2010 campaign and some

newspapers15. As part of awareness of the population, surveys were made, and a poll exited

saying that the majority of people supported the games16, benefits for the community at local-

social and world-class level has been proclaimed, and has been exalted the crucial importance

of co-optation of the First Nations populating the territories where the Olympics took place,

proclaimed it as a success of massive importance after the adoption of those features that are a

fundamental part of the contemporary Olympics' ideological background, such as the

incorporation of the United Nations' Agenda 21 into the Olympic program (which happened in

1999), which basically means a social and ecological sustainability of the Olympic games. The

four Indian Act Band Councils17 of the territories, Lil'wat, Squamish, Musqueam, and Tseil-

Watuth, that then will be united under the official name of the Four Host First Nations (FHFN),

are represented in several academic and media places as the voice of the interests of Aboriginal

people in the Olympics, and this agreement has been referred to as a revolution in relations

between the Crown, the First Nations and private companies in Canada. On the other hand, one

of the major expressions of opposition to the Olympic Games in Vancouver, among other

characteristics, was a strong anti-colonial and anti-capitalist theme, one in all emphasized by the

slogan "No Olympics on Stolen Native Land".


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4. VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA

A careful analysis brings to light the deeper meaning of this slogan into the history of Canada

and Canadians, in a series of intertwinements between neocolonialism, globalization,

brandification of cities and places, and ongoing oppression of the Aboriginal population of

Canada. Among the examples that connect globalization to brandification of the city of

Vancouver is the cooptation of the leading Aboriginal elite (which are also the chiefs of the

Indian Band Councils) within the organization of the Olympics, which by their nature,

regardless of ideological universalistic proclaims , are the product of a multinational

corporation with branches in almost every country of the world, rooted in Switzerland, which

based his career on a concept from Ancient Greece18. According to Dunn (1999) the benefits of

participation in the planning stages and management of the games to Aboriginal people are an

increase in accessibility to the labor market, economic benefits, transfer of portions of land from

the province of the nations with increased capacity in the management of their own territorial

autonomy, partnership in the management of Olympic infrastructure and the construction of

cultural centers19 , and an openness to the world of Aboriginal culture and heritage through the

exhibition of the same through the window of the games, its inclusion in the opening

ceremonies and closure, as well as the stimulation the production of local artists. While these

for some aspects may be true, inprimis, OBonsawin highlights the fact that the Olympic logo

is an Ilanaaq, a modified form of an Inukshuk, a symbol of the Inuit people. While the meaning

of this symbol had not been yet fully understood, unless the fact that it is a human form that the

VANOC said symbolizing Canadas friendliness and openness to worlds people during the

Olympics, it is a symbol from another nation, contrasting sharply with the so-called

partecipation of the FHFN in the organizational phase of the Olympics. It is akin to Russians

planting their flag on the Parliament Buildings or the White House without permission said the

Squamish hereditary chief in 2005, Gerald Johnson (OBonsawin, 2010). Moreover, Despite

agreements with First Nations artists, manufacturers and suppliers, much of the Olympic

merchandise manufacturing has been outsourced to China. Products such as Aboriginal

themed baseball hats, scarves, tshirts, etc. have been made offshore, and this information is

not made clear on the Vancouver 2010 Stores website. The exploitation of the native culture

under the pretext of using the Olympics as a vehicle for reconciliation had already taken place

in the case of Sidney, and we find equivalents in the fact that the study of Cashman and

Cashman (2000) on Aboriginal culture and the Olympics states that "the 42 % of Australian

tourists come to Australia to take part in some way to Aboriginal culture". Likewise, the report


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of the Canadas Tourism Commission on the tourism campaign to maximize Olympic legacy

highlights the cultural characteristics of Canada as a major attraction for tourists, including in

its international business and tourism program an international media awareness campaign on

Aboriginal heritage. The commodification of native cultural heritage, which is done through the

construction of cultural centers, museums, shows for medias and tourists, and the abstraction of

the political and religious heritage from their situational context, coincides with a branding of

the place where this happens as typical, and the websites promoting tourism in City of

Vancouver cite just the city' s international airport as the first, great example of the First Nations

of the coast: what follow are directions to the anthropology museum, restaurants to eat typical

First Nations home cooking, and the places and dates of major events. Fanstein (2007), talking

about the consumption of cultural heritage of European cities with particularly attractive

features as Barcelona, said that "We do not have the uses for which were these places originally

intended. (...) People do not go into churches to worship anymore; They go into churches in

order to look at the statuary and the frescos. They become frozen, they become postcard images

of themselves. We are familiar with these places precisely because we have seen the postcards,

we have read the guidebooks (...) If you are trying to attract visitors on the basis of culture,

cultures that you have to make evident to the observer. Naomi Klein reports that Rosalin Sam,

Lil' wat said, regarding the construction of a ski resort at Mt. Currie against which she wanted

to oppose with all her strengths, "Some people go to church, we go to the mountain" (Klein,

2003). Anti2010 cites "The mountains are the most spiritual place for us" (Anti2010, 2009). In

the Vancouver historical area, Gastown area, the native heritage is at once erased (in the form of

the city that has completely eliminated what was there when the Europeans werent) and

celebrated, with its high end tourist shops and galleries displaying Northwest Coast and Inuit

art in every window (Culhane, 2003, quoted in Schatz, 2005). At the same time, the near

DTES has been egregiously described by Schatz as a full product of neocolonial history,

beginning with the First Nations settlements where now is Vancouver, and describing a

continuative presence of Aboriginals in what now is called the Downtown Eastside. Then, with

the urbanization and forced education of native people to western values trough residential

schools, the dispossession of their lands, the discrimination because of race and gender and so

the discrimination in work places and the believes that European values were stronger than

native ones, not only has lead to a majority of aboriginal in poor neighbourhoods and with bad

social conditions, but also of those neglected because of interlaced discriminations of gender,

race, creed or heritage (Schatz, 2010) . In protests and direct actions during the organizational

phase of the Olympics, and during the convergence of anti-Olympic events 10 to 15 February


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2010, "No Olympics on Stolen Native Land " has been the most irruptive slogan together with

"Homes not Games", with several civil disobedience actions in order to show the world the

living conditions of the homeless and the effects of beautification and increasing in house

prices, the most prominent being the Olympic tent Village, established on Monday, February 15

on an empty lot in the DTES, property of Concord Pacific, also major Olympic sponsor, which

planned to build 160 condos on that site. At time of occupation by villagers, that was used as a

VANOC's parking lot20. According to IOC's official sources, the Olympic sponsors, the

organizing committee, the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics were held in the name of

environmental sustainability through the registration of the gases emitted into the atmosphere

from the proclamation of Vancouver as hot city in 2003, through the total recycling of bottles of

Coca-Cola, the use of innovative measures in the construction of infrastructure in respect of the

environment, and the promise that was made that the event does not cause evictions,

displacement or other negative consequences for the disadvantaged segments of population.

Looking on the other side, we find that the number of homeless people in the years before the

Olympics has tripled, from less than a thousand people in 2001 to more than three thousand in

2008 (PIVOT, 2006; Anti-2010, 2009) and that, although there were built temporary dwellings,

to the same after April 2010 funds has been cut, with the problem of going back to the

precedent issues21, and this shall make one think cinically of an operation made to hide the

visible poverty in the city for the period of the Olympics. In the same way, the recruitment of

FHFN can be seen as a move made by VANOC to prevent massive protests by the whole

segment of the local Aboriginal population, which in the area of the Olympics like across

Canada lives in a condition of historical hardshipness and oppression, with conditions of social

exclusion and poor living conditions that demonstrate themselves in higher rates of drug

addiction, suicide, infant mortality, poverty and unemployment (Vancouver Coastal Health,

2009). This was done through a massive donation in money and participated ownerships in

Olympic and Olympic related resorts infrastructural project by VANOC to the Chiefs, but on the

other hand did not affect either of the other First Nations as the surrounding Secwepemc

territory, eventually didn't searching for grassroots approval of FHFN chiefs (as protests

demonstrated), despite the revolutionary although generalist approach talking about

reconciliation between Aboriginal people, government agencies, and private companies, based

on a criterion of representation imposed by the Indian Act, and at least on an inaccurate

geographical and urban evaluation. In fact, it can be difficult to talk in terms of territoriality as

tight as was the cooptation of "the First Nations in which games will take place", because

ironically, for reasons closely linked to issues related to the colonization of the Canadian land,


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in the Vancouver area there are people with Aboriginal heritage coming from at least 35

different nations (Heritz, 2010). Furthermore, the representativeness of the chiefs of the Indian

Act band councils is also doubtful according to their words, because themselves did not

guarantee the total condescendence of their reference group the staging of the games. The

environmental impact has been significant also for the expansion of the Sea to Sky Highway,

that is the artery that connects Vancouver to Whistler and has the same name of the Olympics

Sea to Sky Games, a project costing more than 1 billion Canadian dollars that destroyed by

dynamite blasts the Eagleridge Bluffs, a mountain ridge with secular tress and forest habitats of

several animals including bears and bald eagles. The act of civil disobedience carried out by a

group of environmentalists and natives in 2006 led to the arrest and detention of two old-aged

women by the police22. Similarly, the construction of the Whistler Olympic Center has led to

massive deforestation of the Callaghan Valley, resulting in further loss of forest and an increase

of bears on the run and hit by cars. The use of gravel and sand for construction has been taken

largely from areas of the Fraser River, with the pretext of widening the embankment to prevent

flooding, although the areas from which the material was collected have little to do with the

swelling of the river and parts of key salmon habitat have been destroyed, killing millions of

them23 . When it comes to legacy also must be taken into account the fact that showing Canada

(because this is the strategy) as a venue for luxury winter tourism do boost luxury winter

tourism in all the area, not only in Vancouver. The construction of ski resorts has flourished as

relevant to the 2010 action strategy. Members of the Stat'imc group (which includes the Lil'wat,

one of the FHFN) since 2000 have established a permanent camp in the Melvin Creek area, in

the British Columbia's interior, against the construction of a ski resort (Cayoosh ski resort) that

threatens Aboriginal people living there, that still are dependent on hunting, with environmental

destruction. One of the board members of the Vancouver Bid Corporation was the former

Olympic skier Nancy Greene Raine, who is also the director of the department of Sun Peaks ski

resort and a member of the Canadian Senate. His company, NGR Resort Consultants, was the

company sponsoring the development of Cayoosh sky resort: in 2010 the permanent camp

"Sutikalh" celebrated its tenth anniversary24. The opposition within the First Nations was

extensive, as wide and varied as was the protest by the organizations that support social policies

in the city of Vancouver. How, in fact, can be interpreted the policies of increasing urbanization

and touristization of cities and of mountains, with massive changes in the lifestyle of secularly

oppressed people that cannot exercise their right to their lifestyle on their own ground, if not as

a colonialism at an exponential level (historical, social, economical and political, regarding to

development of imposed education and universality of values)? "The genocide continues in


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2010"25. Protests and resistance of the "other" indigenous representatives and indigenous

people, rather than being regarded as a legacy of a concluded past and even rather harmful for

the development of Aboriginal people based on hegemonic characteristics , deserves to be taken

into account, more to the fact that it was not promoted by leaders who have agreed to receive

generous economic and real estate funds as a "big thanks" for supporting the Olympic Games26.

The incorporation of Aboriginal culture through its inclusion in a competitive market acting

between cities and worldwide tourist attractions, in order to promote the features of the city,

coincides with the co-optation of the Aboriginal ruling class that is fully aware and vigorously

in defense of this so-called change, so contributing to the freezing and abstraction of the of First

Nations integral heritage, whose signifier can be arbitrarily consumed as a product because the

signified has been eradicated (and the distinction here is near to Saussurian terms27).

5. BUILDING CONNECTIONS

Security measures that has been taken for the Olympics, with the installation of CCTV cameras

and a massive deployment of security forces in counter-terrorism and surveillance operations, if

one one side were a result of the choice of Vancouver as the safest city for the Olympic event

(Klein, 2003), in this way trying to fulfill as much as possible to Rule 51 of the Olympic

Charter that states that no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is

permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas (in this way prohibiting the freedom of

speech and assembly, committing a political violation of a human right), are on the way to be

maintained after the Olympics, such as the Sydney or Beijing case, where the Olympics as an

increase in human rights are realized such as broadening of the categories of behaviors as a risk

for security in sports events, surveillance operations, and repression of protests (Lenskyj, 2008;

COHRE, 2007). Likewise, the fact that real estate developers and builders are the real

winners of the Olympic Games in Vancouver28 reveals that, in addition to being the game a real

estate transaction widely favored by those who are called by Lenskyj Olympic rationales29, the

connections between private interests of public officials and privates private interests is done to

the detriment of the taxpayers by creating public debt, the exploitation of the environment and

of lower classes, putting them in front of a general increasing of the cost of living. The boosting

in workers demand for construction industries has led to a massive migration to the region, in

an estimated labor force increased by 80,000 people in British Columbia in 2001 to 140,000 in

2010, mostly in construction. The cases of labor exploitation in the construction of great works

can be found in all cases of the recent Olympic history, because the construction works should


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be carried out quickly due to the Olympic schedule -"ticking clock"- and is a labor force willing

to work with less money for more hours is required, being the one of the variable cost of the

work more attractive to obtain the construction contract . Gentrification directly or indirectly

related to the event is grounded in the prospect of increasing revenues and economic profits for

the local ruling class, at the same time when international capital is attracted by investing in

more or less lasting measures and tourism, according to the program that best suits with the city

in question: the image renewal of Beijing, the tourist bubbles in Atlanta, the erasing of Turins'

industrial past of the city and British Columbia and Canada as "the best place in the world",

home of brotherhood, tolerance, sustainability, where you can enjoy a stay on the snow at the

same time enjoying the warmthness and the rich cultural heritage of Canadians, or to stay in the

downtown doing business operations in what aims to become, in 9 years, the "greenest city in

the world30".I hope that the potential of the Olympics as a catalyst for these possibilities,

although they includes themselves in a policy of overall renewal of cities, but in which they

could play a major role, has been amply demonstrated in this article, at the same time hoping

that the operations of resistance and opposition to the Olympics, and the ideological

contradictions in the so-called Olympic Movement were equally highlighted. Even "watchdog",

resistance groups, have been for these reasons a constant within Olympics, emphasizing at each

edition the economic, social and environmental costs of hosting the event (and often were right

in their previsions). This has allowed the emergence of a social consciousness that, through the

dissemination of knowledge on the subject, has built connections between the international

social movements, social workers and interested people, in order to expose the concreteness of

these large industrial marketing operations that are hidden under abstract concepts like sport,

sustainability and cooperation. The most pressing issue that i would like to stress is the

perfectionism that institutions such as the Olympic games have achieved in promoting their

product,, therefore appropriation of this perfectionism, by extension, to its partners, which

consists precisely in the adoption of characteristics defined as universal principles, to which

were added, in more recent years, those of social and environmental sustainability. When we

look at the reality of the suppliers of the Olympic Games outside of the Olympic event, at the

operations of transnational and domestic suppliers and sponsors both before and after the

Olympic event, and at the operations of surveillance and security before, during and after, it is

clear that social and environmental sustainability isn't reached, or you have to question what

means sustainability. The question is whether a corporation that works for its benefit and that of

his partners on an international scale can be sustainable in itself, or whether the definition of

sustainability, as defined by Das and Padel (2006) in a work on mining operations in Orissa ,


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India, has become synonymous with "profitable over a number of consecutive years31": The

construction of environmentally sustainable infrastructures, I argue, has precisely this aim. Even

at the level of social sustainability promises fail, if we look at what is involved from the

Olympics: the sinking of social issues (the availability of temporary home during the

Olympics), the shifting of public resources from possible funding of the school system, health

care and social housing, the expansion of roads (basis for an increase in consumption of land

that the same roads connect, hence the practice of roadblocks as in the case of Mt.Currie blamed

by the FHFN Lilwat chief as a thing not to be remembered), and the correlative

beautification of urban structures , results in an increase in house prices and a more or less

forced policy to clean the streets from undesirable elements and behaviors that are not

responsive to the image of the city, leading to the disadvantaged population not to have a home

or to be indirectly moved in peripheral areas, far from services and from their community, were

urban sprawl is at risk in the case of metro Vancouver, and well done in the case of metro

Barcelona. . These are the same factors that led to the conditions of hardship and increased

presence in the health indexes in the negative aspect, of those who literally cannot afford the

price of this development. The incorporation of sustainable features, with a progressist and

reformist language, is the shield that some organizations are trying to build against the

attribution of responsibilities for these legacies. Financial guarantees by the national and local

committees, and the dismissal of structures after the Olympics, does the rest. The possibility

that people paying attention to social issues around the world can have on the increased

awareness on Economic, Social and Environmental Legacies of mega-events can help to build

an international consciousness of the effects of the Games. Alternative media can do these

operations well, and their role in increased denouncing of the corporative interest behind

contradictory ideologies has been fundamental, highlighting problems and helping to build a

global solidarity among resistance forces (Lenskyj, 2008). Alternative media inspired this

article. Chase Dunn and Gills (2003) state that the intensification of local and transnational

economic interaction requires a corresponding transnational and social political response, at the

same time, questioning if the movement(s) can achieve an organizational level that allows it

(them) to enter in negotiations with the neoliberal power structure in order to make it do

concessions to social and popular demands. Since private owned corporations (even if masked

as persons in public institutions with private interests) are trying to cover their interests behind

the sustainability and social responsibility mask, therefore another role of resistance is to

uncover the contradictions of these public relations choices to public opinion, in order to

increase the possibility of people to think outside of the box, and to have the chance to form a


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critical mass in order to solve the increased problems that afflict the wretched of the earth in/of

the XXI century.

Endnotes:1According to The Olympic Charter, Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balancedwhole the qualities of body, will and mind(1) The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the

harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation ofhuman dignity (2)Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion,

politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement (5) (IOC, 2009) .

2For more informations see the declaration of UNs chief Ban Ki- Moon athttp://en.beijing2008.cn/news/official/preparation/n214466836.shtml and IOCs president Jacques Rogges

statement at http://en.beijing2008.cn/venues/olympicvillage/headlines/n214498965.shtml (accessed January

2011).3 The IOC in the last years has formally blocked the entrance of additional sport competitions and the number ofathletes in them in order to prevent gigantism, even if it has become obvious in other ways (Preuss, 2002).

4As Cashman states, Winning a bid is also like winning an election to govern a city or a country. During an

election manypromises are made which are not always possible to realize. Olympic cities like governments cannotimplement or afford to pay for all their promises. (Cashman, 2002).

5Essex and Chalkey, in an article appeared in italian on the Bollettino della Societ Geografica Italiana, statesthat Partially as a response to the growing demands of the event, after 1964 Winter Olympics had been

considered an instrument for regional growth (...) The growing dimension of the event requested also major

acknowledgments of environmental issues connected to infrastrucurals planning and development. Implementingnew projects in delicate ecosystems, and also the use of chemicals in order to create best conditions for

competitions, became a major argument in planning Winter Olympics (2002, translated from italian by me).

6 The original statement is The United States will see next year the construction of a certain number of newfactories, office units, and highways regardless of where they are put (Molotch, 1976).

7The London 2012 summer games will take place in the East side of the city, mainly in a place called Lower Lea

Valley, a sort of inner city wasteland that has been used among years by industries for illegally dumping toxicwaste (Gold & Gold, 2008). The case is similar to the area were Sidneys 2000 Olympic games took place, the

Homebush Bay, known as a wasteland and that Olympic Games will lead to a rebirth (Blaser, 2002). Thequestion if the soil was drained and renewed well is at dispute (Lenskyj, 2008).

8 With 40 percent public e 60 percent private, of which 40% real estate agencies and 20% bank membership.

9Regarding to his, I think it is quite enlightning, or at least it was for me, the description done in a chapter of a

book that Ive found on the net and that is available at http://www.umich.edu/~kcourses/smc435/PDFfiles/Text%201.pdf (accessed December 2010) that allowed me to soften my reflections in regards to the connections

between several random organizations with convergent interests, talking about organizations not as a group of

individuals connected each other, but as a collection of behaviours. And even if it talks about these collections ina different way, explaining the fact that sport organizations can be very small ones and so because of this often

few persons do several roles (management, PR, presidency, secretariat etc.), focusing on behaviours let me

thought about local and organizing Olympic Committees not as a symbolic-ideological organization only, but asa group of people that adopt this kind of behaviour in order to maximize the results that lead this or that person

to take part in the Committee. The fact that, for example, the Vancouver organizing committee lived as a not-for-profit organization demonstrate that profits of members were not linked to the Committe itself, but surely were

linked to stakeholders, which were simply the same people with different behaviours, having a long term interestin the Olympic Games that has lead them to try and to partecipate in the organizational structure.
http://en.beijing2008.cn/news/official/preparation/n214466836.shtmlhttp://en.beijing2008.cn/news/official/preparation/n214466836.shtmlhttp://en.beijing2008.cn/venues/olympicvillage/headlines/n214498965.shtmlhttp://en.beijing2008.cn/venues/olympicvillage/headlines/n214498965.shtmlhttp://en.beijing2008.cn/venues/olympicvillage/headlines/n214498965.shtmlhttp://www.umich.edu/~kcourses/smc435/PDFfiles/Text%201.pdfhttp://www.umich.edu/~kcourses/smc435/PDFfiles/Text%201.pdfhttp://www.umich.edu/~kcourses/smc435/PDFfiles/Text%201.pdfhttp://en.beijing2008.cn/venues/olympicvillage/headlines/n214498965.shtmlhttp://www.umich.edu/~kcourses/smc435/PDFfiles/Text%201.pdfhttp://www.umich.edu/~kcourses/smc435/PDFfiles/Text%201.pdfhttp://en.beijing2008.cn/news/official/preparation/n214466836.shtml


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10 The easiest corporations to blame which also are part of the TOP program are McDonalds and Coca Cola. For

more informations check http://killercoke.org and

http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/dalston/714/myribbon.htm (Accessed December 2010).

11George Hunt, the fundamental informant and friend of the anthropologist, is the son of a Hudsons BayCompany trader whom married a woman from the Tlingit First Nation. See Boas, F. The Social Organization and

the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians, first published in Annual Report or the Board of Regents of theSmithsonian Institution, report of The U. S. National Museum. Washington, Government Printing Office. 18 9 7,

pp. 331-739.

12 Beside accuses of corruption of the traditional lifestyle belonging to Aboriginal population of North Americadue to the introduction of capitalism in a system based essentially on equal trading (ORN, 2010), members of the

Hudsons Bay company are targeted as major contributors in the violent repression of Mtis and Cree warriorsrebellion in 1885. In another example, when a smallpox epidemic hit the settlement of Victoria in 1862, HBC

forced indigenous peoples out of town at gunpoint, to spread the disease to surrounding villages. As a result, 1 in3 of all indigenous peoples in what is now called British Colombia died. See The Hudsons Bay Compay: from

colonial empire to union-busting and the 2010 Olympics and http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org (AccessedJanuary 2011).

13

For more informations seewww.oilsands.alberta.ca andwww.tarsandswatch.org (Accessed January 2011).14According to the Centre on Housing Right and Evictions,1996 Atlanta Olympic Games were characterised bythe criminalisation of poor and homeless people and the introduction of ordinances and policies that targeted

minorities. As part of the preparations for the Olympic Games, six new pieces of legislation, called Quality of Life

Ordinances, were adopted in the year after Atlanta won the bid. The Quality of Life Ordinance criminalised peoplesleeping in derelict buildings, begging, or walking through parking lots if they did not own a car. These ordinances

were enforced specifically in the zones frequented by the homeless. Under this legislation 9,000 arrest citationswere issued to homeless people in downtown Atlanta between July 1995 and July 1996 (more than four times the

usual number).Many people who were arrested were held for trial until after the Olympic Games (COHRE,2007).

15See Guardian newspaper equates Vancouver Olympics with Nazism at http://www.squamishonline.com , and

And now for the bill: the cost of the Olympics http://www.policynote.ca (both accessed in January 2011)16 Although with contrasting responses among years. See Lenskyj (2008) and Zag (2010).17For a brief review of what is the Canadian Indian act and the conditions of land treaties in BC, just searchWikipedia. For a more detailed review of land disputes see Dunn (2007) and Sidsworth (2010).18I would like to highlight the universalistic and almost mystical use of the words (Lenskyj, 2008), which theIOC does in describing the organization's characteristics:Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and

combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind () seeks to create a way of life based on

the joy of effort, the educational value ofgood example and respectforuniversal fundamental ethical principles(Olympic Charter, emphasis added). The comparison is with the clear and frank admission of extraneity (if not

cultural, at least historical) between the Olympics and North America: Thanks to our indoctrination into

Western European society, most people know that ancient Olympics were held by the Greeks every fouryears()the establishment of the Olympics as a global phenomenon should be seen as a part of the overall

process of European colonization. How else could a relatively obscure, ancient, European sport & religiousfestival become a global event except trough colonization? (anti2010, 2009).

19For a detailed history of the Memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Vancouver Bid Corporation and

Musqueam, and Vancouver Bid Corporation and Tsleil-Waututh, and the Shared legacy agreement (SLA)between Province of British Columbia, Bid Corporation, Squamish and Lilwat, see Sidsworth (2010).

20For a history of the Olympic tent Village see http://olympictentvillage.wordpress.com/ (Accessed January

2011).

21 Homeless on Vancouver's streets drops 47 per cent,http://www.cbc.ca(Accessed January 2011).

22

One of whose, Betty Krawczyk, has been sentenced with 10 months of jail and the other, Harriet Nahanee,after two weeks of imprisonment has contracted pneumonia which eventually led her to death.

23See http://thetyee.ca/News/2006/04/19/SalmonKillsMining/ (Accessed January 2011).
http://killercoke.org/http://killercoke.org/http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/dalston/714/myribbon.htmhttp://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/http://www.oilsands.alberta.ca/http://www.oilsands.alberta.ca/http://www.tarsandswatch.org/http://www.tarsandswatch.org/http://www.tarsandswatch.org/http://www.squamishonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=754:guardian-newspaper-equates-vancouver-olympics-with-nazism&catid=49:news&Itemid=310http://www.squamishonline.com/http://www.policynote.ca/http://www.policynote.ca/http://www.policynote.ca/http://www.policynote.ca/http://olympictentvillage.wordpress.com/http://olympictentvillage.wordpress.com/http://olympictentvillage.wordpress.com/http://www.cbc.ca/http://www.cbc.ca/http://www.cbc.ca/http://thetyee.ca/News/2006/04/19/SalmonKillsMining/http://killercoke.org/http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/dalston/714/myribbon.htmhttp://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/http://www.oilsands.alberta.ca/http://www.tarsandswatch.org/http://www.squamishonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=754:guardian-newspaper-equates-vancouver-olympics-with-nazism&catid=49:news&Itemid=310http://www.squamishonline.com/http://www.policynote.ca/http://olympictentvillage.wordpress.com/http://www.cbc.ca/http://thetyee.ca/News/2006/04/19/SalmonKillsMining/


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24 Arthur Manuel, of the Secwepemc nation (2007) states "that Sun Peaks is selling Secwepemc Aboriginal Title

Land right from under our feet, money at Sun Peaks Resort is not made selling ski passes but in selling offrecreational property to the richest people in the world, who can afford these kinds of accommodation to live in

for only a few weeks a year...It is the Secwepemc hunters and their families () Sun Peaks is taking food offtheir tables". Quote from http://comcul.ucalgary.ca/HumanRights(Online paper, accessed December 2010). Just

look at http://www.sunpeaksresort.com/plan-your-trip/why-sun-peaks for information on the extension andservices of the SP resort. For information on the Sutikalh camp visit http://sutikalh.blogspot.com and

http://sutikalh.resist.ca/. (All accessed January 2011).

25See An invalid treaty http://www.squamish.net/mediacentreandarchives/newsarticles.htm (Accessed January2011)

26See Cash could pave the way for the Olympics, Olympic native bribe on

http://www.squamish.net/mediacentreandarchives/newsarticles.htm. The most known speech of a chief of the

FHFN is that of Tewanee Joseph, talking about Vancouver Games that mean no more Dime Store Indian. Fullspeech is available at http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/10/20/tewanee-

joseph-vancouver-games-means-no-more-dime-store-indians.aspx#ixzz1CZJi6lJC(accessed January 2010). Seealso http://www.fourhostfirstnations.com/27 The basic Saussurian and linguistic-semiotic explanation of signifier and signified is that the signifier is theword, the sign, basically an association of letters with no intrinsic relation to any signified, and also put together

in a totally arbitrarily manner, depending for their existence from the contrast with other words and othercombinations, in oppositional and collateral ways (For example the signifier blue signifies something only in

relation to the color blue, and the letters b-l-u-e are recognizable only in opposition/composition to/with otherletters etc.). The signified is the impalpable meaning to which the words, the letters and the signs refer, but that

isnt knowable from the sign itself, being it a simple, arbitrarious association. Also signified exists because ofdifferential characteristics (blue in opposition/composition with other colours/objects etc.). Between signifier,

signified, and the essence of things there is, in Derridas terms, a differnce.

28 Apart of Molotch (1976), see http://www.straight.com/article-93176/developers-are-the-games-real-winners

(accessed January 2011).

29According to Lenskyj, the Olympic rationales are 1. The ticking clock argument: Olympic construction mustbe completed on schedule, if not on budget. 2. The eyes of the world argument: Tens of thousands of

international visitors, including journalists and business people, visit host cities before, during, and after theGames, and millions more watch the television spectacle. A key part of the host citys image-building process

involves the disappearing of homeless people and slum housing, lest potential tourists and investors be deterred

by sights and sounds that are incompatible with the world-class city image. 3. The Olympic leverageargument: Politicians can be pressured to approve generous public funding of sporting facilities, housing, and

infrastructure if the city is going to host the Olympics. Citizens should value this window of opportunity and refrain

from criticizing these spending priorities. 4. The Olympic catalyst argument: Construction of new market-valuehousing (e.g., athletes and media villages) will generate a trickle-down effect in terms of affordable housing. In

the wake of Olympic-related construction and real estate booms. 5. Intangible benefits argument: the clichsthat bid and organizing committees employ in their appeals to patriotism and civic pride, and the immeasurable

benefits of world-class city status that accrue to Olympic hosts. (Lenskyj, 2008).

30 A delegation of Stat'imc and Skwekwekwelt people went to Lausanne and in 2002 in order to make the IOCaware of the condition of Aboriginal Canadians, but it didn't have any effect (Anti2010, 2009).

31 If any culture on earth is sustainable in the true sense of a lifestyle that does not damage the environment and

can sustain itself for hundreds of years, a tribal culture is, where people grow their own food, and interact withnature without taking too much and basically without waste. (...) Yet company literature actually suggests they are

bringingAdivasis (Indias tribal people) a more sustainable lifestyle! The use of this word sustainable hasactually lost any environmental content in the new concept of sustainable mining () has come to mean simply

profitable over a number of consecutive years Corporate culture comes down to a single value: profit.Companies are legally bound to put the aim of profit for shareholders above any other consideration. Green issues

are only considered important in their public-relations aspect (Padel, Das 2006) .
http://comcul.ucalgary.ca/HumanRightshttp://comcul.ucalgary.ca/HumanRightshttp://www.sunpeaksresort.com/plan-your-trip/why-sun-peakshttp://www.sunpeaksresort.com/plan-your-trip/why-sun-peakshttp://sutikalh.blogspot.com/http://sutikalh.blogspot.com/http://sutikalh.resist.ca/http://sutikalh.resist.ca/http://www.squamish.net/mediacentreandarchives/newsarticles.htmhttp://www.squamish.net/mediacentreandarchives/newsarticles.htmhttp://www.fourhostfirstnations.com/http://www.straight.com/article-93176/developers-are-the-games-real-winnershttp://comcul.ucalgary.ca/HumanRightshttp://www.sunpeaksresort.com/plan-your-trip/why-sun-peakshttp://sutikalh.blogspot.com/http://sutikalh.resist.ca/http://www.squamish.net/mediacentreandarchives/newsarticles.htmhttp://www.squamish.net/mediacentreandarchives/newsarticles.htmhttp://www.fourhostfirstnations.com/http://www.straight.com/article-93176/developers-are-the-games-real-winners


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http://elegacies.ca/userfiles/files/D3_2_8.pdfhttp://elegacies.ca/userfiles/files/D3_2_8.pdf


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Experience Vancouvers Aboriginal Culture

http://www.bctripideas.com/Libraries/Itinerary_pdfs/42_TVan_FINAL_R

implications of olympics as a mega event, focusing on the case of vancouver 2010 winter olympics

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