Torchin'

With the recent hubbub about the Olympics (France is threatening to boycott the opening ceremonies, SF is gearing up for massive protests as the torch relay comes to town, etc.), British historian Mary Beard reveals some interesting facts about the whole process:

I don’t quite understand how we have forgotten that the “Olympic Torch” ceremony was invented by Hitler and his chums.

If ever there was an “invented tradition” well worth stamping out, it is this ridiculous, Fascist-inspired waste of money...

Hardly any commentator stops to mention that this silly torch ceremony has nothing to do with the ancient Greeks, and was really invented to be a magnificent shot in Leni Riefenstahl’s movie (choreographed by Carl Diem). This is one of Hitler’s most pervasive legacies.

I think this is a case where an invention has outlived and surpassed its inventors, and the torch relay, in its symbolic uniting of the world, is a spectacle worth keeping. But Beard's argument is a useful one nonetheless. There really is no way to completely separate the political from the non-political, and we could certainly do with a lot less huffing and puffing about the "sanctity" of this and that.

(For what it's worth, my opinion on the boycott/protest issue is: go ahead and protest Chinese repression, China deserves it. But don't boycott the games themselves--the games are about the athletes, and depriving them of their chance to compete at the highest level (and to earn some endorsement money in the process) after so many years of training in order to make a statement that will likely have zero effect on Chinese policies wouldn't be right.)

(via HNN)