Surreal, bizarre
by
Marcel Van Silfhout |
European economies are slowly but unavoidably going downhill
For over a century, the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games has mostly been a great show. Though, the latest British version planned by the famous film director Danny Boyle and has been inspired by Shakespeare’s ‘Isles of Wonder’ with such a brilliant sense of clarity, satirical humour and self-mockery, is truly impressive. Many millions of people throughout the world witnessed how rich, but also how dark modern British history has been up to today. It’s the art of storytelling at an ‘Olympic level.’ Quite intriguing, Boyle did this in the midst of Europe’s most severe crisis after World War II.
Just after his show, a perfect, painful irony appeared in the form of athletes from Greece who, by tradition, always are the first sportsmen to enter the stadium of the Olympic Games. Why this ‘timing’ was so sublime? At the same time Greece was visited by representatives of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in that order – according the German magazine Der Spiegel – to tell the Greeks they should leave the euro-zone. True or not, nasty or not, it’s clear that it might happen.
It would have been a bit too much for Boyle to start his ‘Isles of Wonder’ with the ancient roots of the Olympic Games but like the phenomenon of democracy, both were long ago invented by the Greeks who may be set to become the first people to be thrown out of the modern European Union. The Greeks invented the Olympic Games in the fifth century BC. The Olympics disappeared almost a millennium later thanks to the then ruling Roman emperor who banned it in the fourth century AD.
The ban lasted until the late 19th century and the Olympic Games we’re given new life. Another remarkable fact: democracy was invented in roughly the early 6th century BC. One only has to read the European newspapers or weekly magazines to see that there is fear amongst many intellectuals and philosophers throughout the continent that the current political and economic crisis undermines democracy. Instead of a system in which ‘ordinary people voting who their rulers will be’ its more and more a matter of anonymous technocrats and political and financial elite lacking vision who runs our lives and societies.
And, apparently, in their policies – as long one can speak of any –all European nations are mainly driven in the same direction as bankers and neo-liberals want them to go. In order to keep the existing financial system and the euro-zone alive, money is thrown to bankrupt states and banks. Nations are not able or not willing to stop these cynical dead-end policies; and if they would be – in a sort of uncontrolled chaotic dynamics - the existing crisis might become even more dramatic. A true catch-22 situation, although it’s strange if not surrealistic and bizarre that some proposals for a way out are still effectively ignored or passed by.
At the same time European economies are slowly but unavoidably going downhill and this has been caused by too severe cut-backs and other measures that undermine trust and faith in a prosperous future. Most people, amongst them journalists, economic ‘specialists’ and a wide range of politicians cautiously though openly admit: “We just don’t understand it anymore, we haven’t the slightest idea how to get out of this mess.”
Danny Boyle, known for his lucid yet also humorous films, like Slumdog Millionaire, was the right guy to confront Europe and the rest of the world with a tremendous mirror. He literally showed how important and beautiful it is to tell the lessons of history, the painful and the glorious.
A reader in the British paper The Guardian wrote adequately: ‘”Imagine what Britain could be like if politicians or bankers had such organising skills.” Somewhere in between the glorious and the pain of Boyle’s ‘Isles of Wonder’ we’ll find ourselves, and the Greeks too. Let’s hope democracy and the Olympic Games will last for at least some millennia.
I wonder if the next Olympics ceremony will be directed once more by an alchemist like Boyle who knows how to turn even ugly stories into gold.
Oman Tribune
|
Other comment for Marcel Van Silfhout
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| NEWS UPDATES |
|
|
|
|
|
|
