Nadine Dorries
Main Page: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Bob Blackman
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I well recall the great performance of Mary Peters in winning her gold medal, which is something to be celebrated, but, sadly, it is remembered along with the terrible events in Munich.
Another key fundamental principle of Olympism is:
“Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.”
The principles make clear that no person or country should be discriminated against, that violence should be abhorred and that human dignity should be valued. I merely ask for those principles to be upheld by the IOC. I am certain that had the 11 murdered Olympians been from any country other than Israel we would not be having this debate. The IOC would have organised a memorial at each and every subsequent Olympic games.
The Olympic ideals of friendship, brotherhood and peace are not just words—not a slogan for nothing. In the words of Mrs Spitzer:
“Our message is not one of hatred or revenge. It’s the opposite. We want the world to remember what happened there so that this will never happen again.”
The message of the campaign and the ethics of the Olympic movement are synonymous and harmonious. It is important that this humanitarian, rather than political, request is granted to show that the IOC still understands that. We should honour the 11 Olympians who lost their lives. We should honour them not because they were Israeli athletes and coaches, but because they were Olympians. We should remember the terrible event and I hope, Ms Dorries, that you will allow us to do so by honouring their memory with a one-minute silence at the conclusion of the debate.
Nadine Dorries (in the Chair)
We have discussed the one-minute silence. The Minister and Dame Tessa Jowell agree. There will be a Division at 4 o’clock and we do not want the bell to cut across the one-minute silence, so the wind-ups need to start at 3.35 pm. We will call the one-minute silence at 3.58 pm, so we will be through before the Division bell rings.