Olympic Games and Paralympic Games 2012

Lord Bates Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, it has been a tremendous privilege to listen to this debate, which is the type that provides a kind of warming for the recession-battered soul. We have heard from many quarters that things are happening on time and to budget and that expectations in so many areas are actually being exceeded. That is wonderful to hear and to behold. I particularly welcome my noble friend Lord Shutt to his new responsibilities on the Front Bench, and my noble friend Lady Rawlings to her new responsibilities alongside him. This debate has also been graced by the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, whose inspirational speech has been fitting for this setting. Although she is a Welsh-born athlete, she makes her home in the great north-east of England and in that we share great pride. I am sure that she will make a strong contribution to this House.

We have heard about the tremendous work that has been done in so many areas in terms of the legacy and the organising committee, as well as on the cultural aspects of the Games as outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Hall. All that is welcome. But there is one important aspect of the Olympic Games that has been omitted. I think that I have heard every single debate on the Olympics, and I do not think it has been mentioned once: it is the issue of the Olympic truce. Today this is seen as a symbolic gesture that surrounds the Olympics, a bit like the torch relay. Everyone is a little uncertain about what it means. I have to say that I come here with no sense of piety. Were it not for a rather zealous supervisor who made me do an extended literature review for a research degree on ethics and foreign policy, I would not have come across the Olympic truce either. While it may be tangential to the modern Games, it was central to the ancient ones. The truce was actually their raison d’être. In 776 BC, the Greek King Iphitos, frustrated at the perpetual state of war, consulted the oracle at Delphi, who proposed a sporting competition to be held every four years which would have as its aim the bringing together in one place—and under a sacred truce—of all military and political leaders so that they could resolve their differences by non-violent means.

The sacred truce ran for three months and sanctions were agreed against violators. It was remarkably successful. The ancient Olympics ran, unbroken, for 1,168 years until they were ended under the Romans. During that time, violations of the truce were extremely rare. The most serious violation was an attack by the Spartans—there is a surprise—on the Persians, which earned them a suspension from the Games for that year. They did not reoffend and they were reinstated the year after.

By contrast with the record of over 1,100 years of the ancient Olympiad, built on the Olympic truce, the modern Olympiad was established in 1894 and focused on an elite sporting competition with only a symbolic truce. During the 116 years of the modern Olympiad, the Games have been cancelled three times due to war, have experienced major boycotts at least five times, and have been the focal point and the victim of terrorist attacks on two occasions. Why is this so? Is it that we are less civilised and more warlike than our Greek and Persian forebears? I think not. Of course, the world has changed and there is no longer a unifying deity in whose name a sacred truce could be called; there is no neutral ground, such as Mount Olympus and the temple of Elis, in which the Games could be held, and there is not the proliferation of non-state actors. I believe that we have not given the truce a real chance to work because of a lack of real political leadership and vision.

Attempts were made in the heady international optimism which existed after the Cold War and before the 11 September terrorist attacks on the United States to give that political leadership through the United Nations, where, in 1993, all 193 states adopted unanimously resolution 48/11, which urged member states to,

“take the initiative to abide by the Truce, individually and collectively, and pursue in conformity with UN principles the peaceful settlement of all international conflicts”.

This was very successful. In 1992 the truce was used to secure access for athletes who were caught in war-torn Yugoslavia to attend the Barcelona Games; in Sydney in 2000 it was used as a vehicle to arrange for the North and South Korean teams at the Olympics to parade together as one team; and in the Athens Olympics, a permanent body—the International Olympic Truce Centre—was established. However, throughout my research I could find no record of any action by any Government or combatant, at any time during the modern Olympiad, to take the opportunity offered by the Olympic truce to abide by the UN resolution in seeking to resolve their differences by non-violent means.

I believe, to coin a phrase, that there is a real opportunity to do things differently this time. First, London is without doubt the most ethnically diverse city ever to host the Games—a true crossroads of the world. However, it is also one which bears the scars of the aerial bombardments of World War I and World War II and terrorist attacks in the name of Irish republicanism and Muslim fundamentalism, the most recent and most deadly being the 7 July 2005 bombings, which claimed 52 lives and injured 700, and came the day after it was announced that London had been awarded the Games. It is also the place where the world came together in 1946 for the first General Assembly of the United Nations at Methodist Central Hall across the road. It is the place of the Downing Street declaration. It is the place that hosted the Live Aid concert, which drew an international response to famine in Ethiopia, and the Live 8 concert which led the jubilee campaign for debt forgiveness at the millennium.

Secondly, we have a coalition Government who have transcended narrow partisanship to create a new politics. They are uniquely positioned to secure maximum leverage for the truce should they wish to do so. They have a pivotal role as the country is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, the host to the Commonwealth, and a key member of the EU, NATO and the G8, as well as being a centre for world finance and trade.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Coe, who has patiently heard out my claims in this area for a more serious and meaningful treatment of the Olympic truce. It is, in my view—and probably in his—unfair and inappropriate to place such a serious international matter on the shoulders of LOCOG, which is already under enormous pressure to deliver a world-class sporting event, or on the IOC, which is a non-governmental body, when most conflicts involve at least one governmental party. If this is going to be a meaningful truce then it needs to be led by the Government, for they alone have the diplomatic and political apparatus of state with which to pursue it.

Many would see such a call in the present climate as at best naive and at worst dangerous. Clearly this is not an easy issue when the threat level is real and the first duty of the Government is the safety and well-being of their citizens. However, no one can be in any doubt that security concerns, as my noble friend Lord Patten said, are significant in the run-up to the Games. Surely, therefore, anything which can be done to defuse international tensions ahead of the Games is an act of enlightened self-interest.

Indeed, I was struck by the Statement on the situation in Afghanistan, delivered by the Prime Minister in another place, which interrupted this debate. Some of the turn of phrase gave me hope that perhaps the message of the ancient Olympic truce has resonance within the current corridors of power. The Prime Minister stated today that insurgencies usually end with political settlements, not military victories. That is why I have always said that there needs to be a political surge to accompany the military one. We need a political process to bring the insurgency to an end. This strikes a chord with the original objectives of the Olympic truce.

Advancing a meaningful Olympic truce and using it as an opportunity to resolve differences between and within member states is surely the greatest prize the founders of the ancient Olympics have given to the modern era. It does not require a new international mandate; it only requires us to take seriously the one that is already there. It requires the same scale of ambition and courage to be shown by political leaders operating in the corridors of power as will be evident in the sporting arena by the athletes competing in the Games. If just one gun falls silent, one life is saved, one hopeless and intractable conflict is given the prospect of peaceful negotiation and end, then it will prove to be a legacy of which this city and this nation can rightly be proud.