Every few years, the Olympic Games arrive as an unexpected interruption that we secretly need. They emerge during periods of profound political, moral, and civic exhaustion, when democracy appears fragile, public discourse has hardened into mere slogans, and power increasingly belongs to those who mock cooperation and promise greatness through domination.
A World at a Crossroads
These are times when authoritarian leaders flourish, when cruelty is packaged as strength, and when entire populations are taught to view one another not as neighbors but as threats. It is precisely in such moments that the Olympics become dangerous to the wrong people.
Authoritarianism survives by shrinking the moral imagination. It reduces human beings to mere tools of the state or obstacles to be removed. This system thrives on spectacle but fears genuine empathy. It glorifies the nation while hollowing out the individual, insisting that history is made by force rather than restraint, and that dignity flows downward from power instead of upward from our shared humanity.
The Olympic Counter-Narrative
The Olympics, despite their well-documented compromises and hypocrisies, tell a fundamentally different story. You cannot watch an athlete falter, recover, and finish their event without being reminded that human worth is not determined solely by conquest. You cannot witness competitors embracing after a race without seeing how thin the line of permanent enmity truly is.
These moments do not erase injustice or absolve oppressive regimes, but they reveal what propaganda works so diligently to conceal: that people are more complex, more decent, and more alike than the systems governing them typically allow.
Dignifying Effort and Loss
The Olympic Games show us loss up close, with all its accompanying tears and heartbreak. They dignify effort that does not culminate in gold medals. They insist that losing does not erase a person's inherent value. This represents a radical message in an age when losing elections is often treated as treason and compromise is frequently viewed as betrayal.
Canada's Parallel Journey
This is why Canada and the Olympics somehow belong together. Our nation's uneasy and sometimes flawed shared project has been one of coexistence between languages, cultures, Indigenous nations and settlers, old arrivals and new immigrants. We fail often in this endeavor, but it's the aspiration itself that truly matters.
We continue trying even when we don't reach the podium. The Olympics remind us that difference need not collapse into chaos and that shared values can hold a diverse community together without demanding uniformity. They demonstrate that the world is at its best when we build it together, even through respectful competition.
In a world increasingly sliding toward authoritarian rule, the Olympic Games send a crucial message that there is still hope. They prove that effort has value beyond mere victory, and that our shared humanity can transcend political divisions and national boundaries.
