F
TORONTO 2008? POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
Stefan Kipfer
1. PURPOSE:
At the last MNJS Steering Committee Meeting, it was decided that the MNSJ
endorse the concerns of Bread not Circuses and that I should act as the
connecting link between Bread not Circuses (BNC) and the MNSJ. In the
meantime, I have been attending BNC meetings and represented the MNSJ in
front of the new Toronto's quasi-executive committee. What has become clear
to me in the process is that we should define more clearly our role in
Toronto Olympic politics. Hence the need for a discussion at the level of
the Steering Committee about analysis, strategy and commitment. The
following is a intended as a stimulus to such a discussion. IF YOU DO NOT
HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO READ THE WHOLE THING, JUST READ THE SECTIONS ABOUT THE
MNSJ (eg. points 5 and 6).
2. THE OLYMPICS, A TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATE MOVEMENT.
The Olympic Games are driven and organized by a web of forces composed of
the International Olympic Committee and big transnational corporate
sponsors, including the corporate media. While the latter control the bulk
of the corporate sponsorships, the former decide on the rules and
regulations of the Games and link the big global sponsors to the host cities
and the respective national Olympic Committees. Particularly since the Los
Angeles games in 1984, the Games have become primarily a global corporate
billboard and money-making machine. Corruption is part of this machine.
The corporate organization of the Olympic Games has also had significant
impacts on the nature of competitive sports. "Amateurs" (i.e.
non-professional, part-time athletes) have had little to no chance of
success at the Olympic level for quite some time. The admission of
professional athletes that are recognized as such (e.g. tennis stars, NHL
and NBA stars) and the IOC's lenience towards doping have pushed this
professionalization further since the 1980s. While many athletes have little
prospect of becoming rich, elite athletes have effectively become
posterboys/girls for the corporate Olympians.
Despite the global scope of the Olympic 'movement', the Olympic Games are
not "external" forces which impose themselves on host cities from the
outside, as it were. They function as a linchpin connecting the IOC and
transnationals to "local" growth interests that initiate the bidding
process. The latter include different branches of the state, newspapers,
the tourist and hospitality industry, developers and businesses with real
estate interests and headquarter firms located in the particular host city.
Many of these "local" business interests are themselves national or
transnational in scope. At least in North America, ad-hoc, private or
semi-private Olympic organizing or bidding committees connect and fuse these
forces and institutions.
Finally, the Olympics represent a powerful, if contradictory set of symbols
to legitimize what is a transnational capitalist growth project. While the
Coldwar connotations of the Olympic Games have disappeared, the capitalist
ideology of sports as the quintessential sign of competitive individualism
and moral self-discipline has become predominant. In turn, mild or
aggressive forms of nationalism continue to permeate Olympic culture despite
the formal appeal to ideals of international cooperation, cosmopolitan
friendship and peaceful competition. Locally, cultural festivals and
invocations of "community spirit", "volunteerism" and "civic pride" are
central to stimulate the "excitement" and "enthusiasm" that are necessary to
rally the troops behind Olympic boosterism.
3. WHAT ARE POSSIBLE EFFECTS OF STAGING OLYMPIC GAMES?
Olympic projects are much more than an issue among others. They are the most
visible expression of how the world's major cities develop in the 1990s.
Olympic growth strategies have a defining impact on urban and economic
development and shape the decision-making processes which organize urban
development in the respective host cities. At the same time, the particular
ways in which Olympic Games are organized in host cities depend both on the
histories of urban politics and development in each city and on the
composition and orientation of the political coalitions that promote and
support the respective Olympic projects.
All this means two things. First, the detailed effects of a particular
Olympic Games depend on the political constellations of the particular host
city. Second, the capacity to have a substantial effect on how the Olympics
are organized locally is constrained by the fact that Olympic Games are
subject to the principle of profitability and corporate imagineering.
Positive spin-offs, if they materialize, are just that: secondary and
subordinate to the imperatives of transnational capitalist urbanization.
While particular effects thus cannot be predicted in detail for each host
city, recent experiences suggest that THE OLYMPICS POSE A DANGER TO
DEMOCRACY, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY in our cities. Others, including Bread not
Circuses and Women Plan Toronto have researched past Olympic experiences and
compiled more detailed lists of some of these dangers. Let me just highlight
a few strategic issues.
OLYMPIC GAMES DEEPEN A POLARIZING, UNSUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT MODEL.
Obviously, Olympic Games do have major employment effects on a particular
city. There is no guarantee that Olympic jobs are good, unionized jobs,
however. Olympic Games promote growth primarily through construction
mega-projects and low-level service employment in the tourism and
hospitality sector. As we know from the Toronto of the last two decades and
other cities, modes of urban development driven by finance, real estate,
tourism, entertainment, sports and associated personal services leads to a
highly polarized employment profile dominated by high-level business
services on the one hand and precarious, low-paid and often part-time McJobs
on the other. Construction mega-projects do provide major employment boosts,
but they are one-time investments and are notoriously inefficient in
employment terms because of their high capital intensity. Indeed,
megaprojects like the Olympics absorb investments that might otherwise have
gone directly into socially useful and ecologically sensible investments.
OLYMPIC GAMES ARE A THREAT TO LOCAL DEMOCRACY. Olympics are about big bucks
and high stakes. Consequently, investors are likely to insist on a maximum
of control and secrecy in matters of decision-making. The Olympics also
require organizational capacities that easily outgrow the capacities of
public institutions and existing growth coalitions. In the current global
context of restructuring and right-wing politics, Olympic projects can
easily function as models for a reorganization of urban political processes,
up to a FORMAL privatization of decision-making in matters of urban
planning. The Atlanta Games, for example, were organized by a literal
shadow government that incorporated corporate interests and the state of
Georgia but bypassed the city of Atlanta, where most of the sports
activities took place. In the context of amalgamation, downloading, and
bureaucratic reorganization in the new city of Toronto, the Olympics are a
golden opportunity for elites and landed interests to shape the formal and
informal processes that govern urban development in their own interest.
THE OLYMPICS ARE ABOUT CONTROLLING URBAN SPACE. There are two aspects to
this point. First, host cities literally have to "make room" for the Olympic
Games. Existing land-uses have to be displaced or transformed. This can be
achieved indirectly, through a inflation of land and rent values, or
directly, through redevelopment aided by zoning changes or expropriation in
the areas where the Olympics take place. In Toronto, the Olympics are
planned to be held along theToronto waterfront, where over the last two
decades real estate interests have revalorizee land by discouraging
industrial uses and affordable housing and by promoting highly profitable
land-uses: high-end condos, gentrified shopping areas and spectacular
entertainment complexes. The Olympics are a powerful opportunity to extend
the high-value land uses towards the East (the Portlands) and the West (the
Ex.). Second, the Olympics inevitably come with a massive security
apparatus to secure space for tourists and global elites and purify the
image of the host city from undesirable elements: poor and homeless people,
squeegees, protesters, etc. The Olympics thus reinforce the ongoing trend
towards the "militarization of urban space": the systematic deployment of
policing, surveillance and security mechanisms to control or fence off
whatever remains of public space in our cities.
4. WHAT IS THE SITUATION IN TORONTO?
Many people expect the new Olympic bid to be different from the last one.
The mere shift from Henderson to Crombie at the helm of the Olympic
organizing committee is read as an indication that critical groups and
individuals will have input into the bidding process and thus can affect the
character of the Games. Crombie's presence, and his capacity to mediate
conflict, is thus seen as a spill-over of old Toronto reform politics into
the new Mega-Toronto. Following these expectations, many individuals and
organizations have opted not to oppose the bid but to ask the local
Olympians and Toronto council to commit to a revenue-neutral, socially
benign and ecologically sustainable Games.
Apparently Crombie is trying to bring politicians and activists into his
orbit by wheeling and dealing behind the scenes. At the same time, there is
no solid evidence yet that the Toronto Olympics will be substantially
different from those in other cities. There has NEVER been a public
discussion about whether the Toronto should or should not pursue an Olympic
bid. From its first signs in the summer of 1996, Toronto's Olympic bid has
proceeded in almost complete secrecy. Crombie has so far refused to say Who
is behind BIDCO, the 2008 Toronto Olympic Bid Corporation.
Also, the first Olympic document presented to Council by BIDCO is extremely
vague and full of assumptions. The few references to public consultation and
social/ecological impacts are unsubstantiated and contradictory. And so far
both BIDCO and Toronto council have demonstrated little commitment to PUBLIC
consultation and no willingness to grant concessions. Toronto council
rejected motions to modify the bid after the public face of BIDCO, Mr.
Halstead, said that asking BIDCO for commitments now would undermine the bid
itself. This means that Council has already traded away much of the leverage
it had vis-a-vis BIDCO by refusing to make its support for the bid
dependent on concrete conditions. Olympic politics thus continues to
gravitate around BIDCO, a private, almost "invisible" organization.
While BIDCO's commitment to a different Olympics appears purely rhetorical
so far, the Toronto Olympic project will have a major impact on the future
of politics in this city. Given that Toronto politics is in flux thanks to
amalgamation and downloding, the Olympic bid might function as a "model" for
how urban development is organized. Unfortunately, the deck is even more
stacked now against reform-minded forces than it was in the late 1980s, the
time of the last Olympic bid. Amalgamation, downloading, and the recent
municipal elections have strengthened right-wing forces in the city to the
point of endangering what is left of urban reform in Toronto. In this
context, the Olympics are a powerful opportunity for the elites of this
city to tilt the decision-making processes even more in their favour.
Indeed Olympic spectacles represent the perfect opening for the populists
and Lastmans' of this city to solidify their right-wing boosterism. The
general nature of Olympic Games, the current state of Toronto politics, and
evidence from the early stages of the bid process suggest that there is very
limited room for "reform" in the Toronto Olympic bid.
5. WHY SHOULD THE MNSJ BE INVOLVED IN "OLYMPIC POLITICS"?
In effect, the MNSJ has already become involved in Olympic politics.
Nonetheless, it does make sense to discuss possible reasons behind our
involvement. The MNSJ is an URBAN movement committed to economic and social
justice. This commitment implies a critique of NEOLIBERALISM and the
CORPORATE AGENDA. In Toronto, nothing will come closer to a neoliberal and
corporate project than the Olympics. The scope and importance of the
Olympics requires an equally comprehensive critique that takes into account
considerations close to the MNSJ: democracy, justice, equity and
sustainability. To sit on the sidelines of the Olympic politics would mean
the MNSJ has nothing to say about a project that will strongly shape
dominant urban and economic development strategies in the next decade.
There are of couse risks in getting involved in Olympic politics. Corporate
control and a lot of money are at stake. Yet the without the involvement of
organizations such as the MNSJ, groups such as Bread not Circuses will have
to face the flak and smear campaigns alone. Moreover, the Olympics also
represents an opportunity for the MNSJ to branch out into "new" dimensions
of urban politics: land-use, planning and economic development. In this
sense, Olympics are a strategic opportunity for us to develop our urban work.
6. WHAT SHOULD THE ROLE OF THE MNSJ BE?
While there are many reasons for us to keep being involved in Olympic
politics, it is less clear what the nature of our involvement should be.
First, what should be our level of involvement?. Given that the bid is for
2008, staying in the Olympic game requires a degree of long-term
organizational commitment. This is particularly the case between now and
November 1999, when Toronto will have to hand in its final bid. Who has the
time, resources and commitment to be involved in the Olympics? What parts of
the MNSJ could and should be engaged? Individuals, the urban movement group,
EPL?
Second, what should our relationship be with other groups such as Bread Not
Circuses, OCAP and C4LD? So far we have played a supportive role within BNC.
This kind of engagement requires relatively limited resources. Do we want to
continue working through Bread Not Circuses and take a more active role
there? Do we want to have a more independent voice on the issues? Or do we
want to make use of our networking capacities to bring different
organizations together?
Third, what will the strategy be behind our involvement? So far, we have not
opposed the Games but asked that the Toronto bid be open, accessible,
socially benign and ecologically sustainable. The credibility of this
strategy will depend on either of two things. Firstly, we would have to
demonstrate our capacity to "play the game", gather expertise and provide
"positive" suggestions to BIDCO or council, if that opportunity should
arise. This would also mean clarifying our priorities. Secondly, we would
have to be willing to change strategy (i.e. oppose the bid) if input is
impossible and conditions are not met. This implies a capacity to monitor
and assess developments as the bid progresses.
7. SOURCES
Various Newspaper articles.
Bread Not Circuses, Bread Alert 2.1-5, 1998.
Roger Keil, "Weltstadt-Stadt der Welt: Internationalisierung und lokale
Politik in Los Angeles." Muenster: Westfaelisches Dampfboot, 1993.
Charles Rutheiser, "Imagineering Atlanta: the politics of place in the city
of dreams". London: Verso, 1996.
Brenda Sanford and Brenda Farge, "How Women lose at the Games: An Olympic
Intervenor Report for Women Plan Toronto". 1990.
City of Toronto, "Toronto 2008 - The Olympic Bid", February 1998.
(
geocities.com/CapitolHill)