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Africa: Olympic Rebels With a Cause

Muthoni Wanyeki

16 August 2008

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The Olympics are now in their second week, with the US finally overtaking China in the total medal count towards the end of last week.

I, of course, share the concerns raised around the world about China's internal human-rights record (which is not dissimilar from the record of far too many other countries in the world), its position vis a vis Taiwan and, more so, Tibet, and its continued support for Sudan (through arms exports and oil imports) despite the lack of resolution to the conflict in Darfur.

And so on and so forth. But... I love the Olympics.

So I'm glad that, while the Olympics provided the opportunity for those concerns to be highlighted, China has carried its hosting of the Games off with aplomb -- from the spectacular opening ceremony, to its concerted efforts to address pollution around Beijing and host the unprecedented number of spectators, to the exceptional performance of its athletes.

I know, too well, the dangers of nationalism. But I love the nationalism of the kind that the Olympics engenders. I'm happy that Kenya is represented not just by long-distance runners, for example, but by swimmers and tae kwon do practitioners.

And, just as we all do during the World Cup, my nationalist loyalties expand quite flexibly when deciding who to support in sports where Kenya is not represented --from Kenya, I move to any other sub-Saharan African country, then to North African countries, then to anybody from the so-called Third World, then to any person of African descent from anywhere else in the world.

Call it rooting for the underdog. While sports should be the great equaliser, dependent on nothing other than innate skills honed to perfection by years of disciplined training, we know that that simply is not yet the case. Innate skills are actually almost irrelevant in today's world. Access is all.

APART FROM TRAINING SPECIFICALLY for the sport one is in, one also needs the right combination of complementary aerobic and strength training, nutritional support and so on and so forth.

As the debate about the drag minimised by the new generation of swimsuits shows, every micro-second that can be legitimately gained matters.

Kenyans -- and most Africans -- simply do not yet have access to the battery of experts you need to become an Olympian today. The advantages of altitude and body type the Rift Valley runners enjoy do not hold for anything other than long-distance running.

This is why any Kenyan, any African, any so-called Third World citizen present among the Olympians has achieved the near-impossible.

Win or lose, they really are among the world's elite -- and their being there says far more about their innate skills, their determination, their discipline than is the case for those from countries where access is less of a problem.

It also says far more about their capacity to negotiate the hurdles of national sporting associations ruined by corruption and nepotism and managed, in the main by those who know nothing about the sport they're responsible for.

And not every deserving athlete succeeds in this -- that Kenya has no cyclists at this Olympics this time round is certainly not because we have no cyclists who could have qualified.

Our sportsmen and women do not just overcome the limitations of their own minds and bodies. They also overcome the limitations of the external obstacles imposed by what passes for sports management in our context.

My version of sporting nationalism is a tribute to their power to overcome. In their own way, our sportsmen and women are rebels --rebels with a serious cause.

L Muthoni Wanyeki is executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission.

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