SPORTS: The Sydney Olympics--Mexico

Whether international sports promote world peace or not is an open question.However, they certainly promote racial understanding. Kathy Freeman, the Australian Aborigine, and the darling of the crowd, was the best example of this. Sports also allow people of humble origin, notably from Mexico, to rise socially and economically. Mexican TV showed the training classes for them , and it certainly is a way to produce healthy, drug-free youths.

Nevertheless, nationalism raised its ugly head as each country stressed its own victories or complaints. The superpower, the US, was the target of nationalist jibes. Spain boast that its soccer team beat the Yanks, while Mexicans, brooding over the disqualification of Bernardo Segura, asked it the US would have been penalized if it had been found guilty. [yes.RH]. The TV of other countries paid no attention to Mexico's grievances, but Mexicans brooded over them, and once again, almost a whole TV newscast was devoted to them. Protesters held up protesting placards in the streets of Mexico, and one protester parked his car in front of the Independence Monument and staged a hunger strike, reading his Bible. He was clearly a Protestant protester. Methinks he doth protest too much.

It's just a game! ¡Viva México!

Ronald Hilton - 9/26/00