Rising East Online

Feature

Fortress Olympics

By Brendan O’Neill

If Athens is anything to go by, the Games in an era of fear and terror are destined to be a regimented, risk-averse and pretty dull affair.

An official in the office of London mayor Ken Livingstonge once infamously said that ‘New Year’s Eve is not an event. It’s a public order problem.’ If that is officialdom’s view of the annual knees-up on 31 December - when a few thousand people descend on central London for a few drinks, a kiss at midnight and (fingers crossed) a fireworks display - imagine what they must think of hosting the Olympics.

If New Year’s is a public order problem, then the possibility of hosting Olympics 2012, with the migration of hundreds of Olympians and thousands of spectators into the city, alongside increased use of public transport as the masses move east to watch, cheer and maybe even get inebriated at various events, must be viewed as something akin to a state of emergency.

The New Labour authorities have long had a problem with public events; indeed, they often appear unable to distinguish between a ‘public event’ and ‘public order’, seeming to believe that you cannot have the one without strictly enforcing the other. From restrictions on the right to protest to new rules and etiquette dictating how loud you can chant at football matches, New Britain is a place distinctly uncomfortable with large gatherings of people that are not hemmed in by equally large numbers of police or public order officials.

Add to this the government’s penchant for overriding longstanding civil liberties, and the way in which fear of terrorism today gives rise to new restrictions on freedom of speech and movement, and it seems that, if Britain were to host the Olympics, the first big loser might be individual liberty.

Events at the Athens Olympics of 2004 do not bode well for London 2012. An obsession with safety not only led to clampdowns on freedom of movement but also threatened to stifle and strangle the atmosphere, that sense of openness and universality that is integral to the this event. Under pressure from the European Union and the USA, Greece spent a record $1.5 billion on security; more than 70,000 security personnel, including 16,000 soldiers, guarded the country’s borders and the city of Athens. American troops assisted Greek troops, in a mammoth three-week training exercise codenamed Shield of Hercules 2004, teaching them how to prepare for and respond to potential ‘catastrophic scenarios’, such as dirty-bomb attacks and hijackings.

The Athenian authorities installed a vast computer surveillance network, consisting of thousands of hidden cameras and microphones that could analyse dozens of languages for any hint of ‘terrorist chatter’. Chemical sensors were also placed around the city, which could pick up the first whiff of a bio-terror attack. Hi-tech CCTV cameras were installed on streets and roads near the Olympic Village, designed to swivel and zoom in at the sound of a gunshot (or, as residents soon discovered, anything else that sounded like a gunshot - such as a car engine backfiring in the morning).

The Olympics were surrounded by an arsenal of Patriot missiles, fighter planes and US battleships. According to Associated Press, Piraeus, the port where visitors to the Games were accommodated in cruise liners, resembled ‘a fortress’, complete with menacing, gun-toting guards and barbed-wire barriers.

During the Games, flights into and out of Athens were placed under extraordinary restrictions, effectively making the city a no-fly zone. US troops were stationed offshore so that they could respond to emergencies as and when they arose. Athens became, not only home to the greatest show on Earth, but also a temporary battleground in America’s war on terror. It was, in effect, placed under US occupation for the duration of the Games (albeit at the invitation of the Greek authorities), as both shorelines and airspace fell under the command of US and Greek troops.

What was most striking about this transformation of a spectacular sporting event into a mini-occupation was that there was little, if any, evidence that a terror attack was likely to occur (and in the event, no terror attacks did occur). It was not al-Qaeda or any of its offshoot groups that threatened to unleash terrorism on Athens, leaving the authorities with no choice but to adopt these stringent measures. Rather, the fear of terrorism came from the top down, from jittery administrations in Europe and the USA who simply presumed that something awful was bound to occur at some point during the Games.

This helps to explain why the security at Athens was so extreme. Measures taken in response to a specific threat can generally be targeted and unobtrusive, focusing on dealing with a single problem without upsetting everyday life and liberty. Measures driven by a general sense of ill-feeling, on the other hand, by a belief that something terrible is bound to happen somewhere at some time, are, by their nature, sweeping and indiscriminate. So Athens was effectively shut down and Greek borders closed on the basis that…it’s better to be safe than sorry. And those who disagreed could do little to vent their spleen – rule 53 of the International Olympic Committee bans political demonstrations anywhere near Olympic events.

It is impossible to predict what the world will be like in 2012, but we can be sure that if Britain were to host the Olympics now, it would be little different to Athens 2004. Britain, too, would be effectively closed down, on the basis that the Olympics represents an ‘opportunity’ for terrorists and therefore severe and stringent measures should be brought in to ensure the nation’s wellbeing.

The London 2012 committee has already made clear what will happen during the Olympics. It says that, ‘For 2012, the Metropolitan Police is working closely with London 2012 on an all-encompassing security plan in which counter-terrorism, crowd management, general policing and other measures will be developed in line with established public safety strategies. Its full resources, now in excess of 30,000 officers, as well as regional police forces and other policing agencies, would be dedicated to ensuring a safe and secure environment in 2012 for athletes and spectators alike.’

Here, two phrases capture what we should expect from a British Olympics – counter-terrorism and crowd management. And if anything is likely to put a damper on the spirit of the Olympic Games, it is the presumption that evil terrorists are lurking and waiting to strike, and that the rest of us need to be ‘managed’ (for our own good, of course). We can look forward to an ‘all-encompassing security plan’, in which suspicions will be running high and Olympic events will come to be viewed, not as things to relax at and enjoy, but, in that Livingstonean phrase, as ‘public order problems’.

Some commentators claimed that the Greeks, keen to impress the European authorities and the Americans, purposefully overreacted to the potential for a terror attack during the Games. Yet there is little to suggest that the British authorities would act differently. British officials and police have, over the past three years, made an artform of overreacting to terror chatter and vague warnings.

So despite the fact that there has been no terror attack in Britain since 9/11, we already have a Civil Contingencies Bill designed to ‘improve the resilience of the UK’, which will grant the authorities sweeping powers during ‘emergency situations’. The government, police and NHS have carried out high-profile ‘disaster training’ exercises, on the London Underground for example, which have done little more than ratchet up people’s fear of terrorism.

In 2002, British nurses became the first in the world to get training in how to deal with bioterrorism, despite doubts raises by many terrorism experts about al-Qaeda and other groups’ ability to pull off such an attack. In the same year, the British government spent £28million on stockpiling millions of smallpox vaccines – not because there was any evidence that terrorists have access to smallpox, which was eradicated as a natural disease in the 1970s and now exists only in two high-security labs in American and Russia, but in the name of ‘intensive planning, just in case’.

In November 2002, then home secretary David Blunkett issued a warning about terror scenarios, including the claim that terrorists might try to ‘develop a so-called dirty bomb or some kind of poison gas’. Two hours later the warning was withdrawn and toned down, as there was little evidence for some of the wilder claims. The Greeks are not the only overreactors out there.

If this is how Britain deals with terrorism, or at least the potential for terrorism, in everyday life, imagine what might happen during the Olympics – when there will be additional pressure from the USA, the EU and the International Olympic Committee to enforce stringent security measures. In such a climate, many of us may not even enjoy the Games, as our basic rights, to move around and associate freely, will be sacrificed at the altar of safety. In this instance, it is not better to be safe than sorry; rather, the safety mantra will make spectators feel unnecessarily fearful and cautious, where we will end up treating every visit to the Olympic village as a risky rather than fun day out.

This promise of a regimented and risk-averse Olympic Games leaves some of us in a dilemma. What should we do if we are keen to uphold liberty but we also want to avoid joining the killjoy brigade who are miserablist about every aspect of the Olympics - if we want to uphold our freedom of movement and speech but also want these great Games to come to Britain, for our viewing and sporting pleasure?

Perhaps we should remind spectators and organisers alike of the true spirit of the Games, which are a celebration of the best of humanity and the noble aim of striving for perfection in body, mind and spirit. Such a spectacular event deserves a better reception than can be provided by authorities who only seem to see people, especially foreigners, as a threat, and crowds as something to be feared and managed.

Brendan O’Neill is a journalist and editor based in London.

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