Jakartass Home thoughts from abroad. Alien thoughts from home.

The Olympic Games start today. I have a vested interest in them because I’m a born and bred Londoner, and I have family there. I also have an interest in the Olympic Games because I have a sneaking admiration for any one who can dedicate themselves to the punishing hours – years even – to reaching physical perfection in their particular discipline.

Yet I’m told by StartPage, my Google surrogate, that the logo on the left “may be subject to copyright.”

But, hey, who on earth thought that a cracked Nazi swastika was suitable? Why haven’t they used this one?

The only reason that I’m not allowed to show it is because I’m not a corporate sponsor, such as Dow Chemicals – who bought Union Carbide responsible for the Bhopal disaster which has claimed thousands of lives.

What sticks even further in my gullet than a Big Whopper is that for the duration of the games, foreign companies can treat the Olympic sites as tax havens.

Mind you, it won’t matter to anyone wishing to watch the Games here in Indonesia because no-one – with the exception of the minority who’ve got satellite TV with ESPN or a good broadband internet connection giving access to an ‘exclusive’ YouTube channel – will be able to watch them.

Back in 2004, when Taufik Hidayat won the gold medal for the men’s singles badminton he said that he did it for the millions who were watching. We weren’t because no TV station had paid for the broadcasting rights.

The cost would have been c.$6 million and RCTI stated that “Learning from our past experience, it is not commercially advantageous to buy broadcasting rights for a multi-event sporting showcase like the Olympics, because we have to buy it in one entire package, while our viewers are only interested in a few sports such as badminton and soccer.”

In 2008, they would have had to pay $13.7 million, so state-run broadcaster TVRI did their bit for Indonesian viewers.

Or did they?

As Agnes Johan wrote in the Jakarta Post: All of Sunday afternoon, when the Olympic Games were in full swing, TVRI was broadcasting a boxing match from several years ago.

From what I’ve seen so far, half the time is used for advertisements, a quarter of the time is spent listening to the Beijing-based reporter and no sport can be seen. Often the summary of the events of the day show the ultimate winners on the podium, not the last, say 50 metres, winning dive or lift of whatever sports is practiced.

And this year?

It will be more of the same because TVRI have once again been granted the broadcasting ‘rights’.

But I don’t care, no siree.

At least we’ll be spared the subliminal advertisements from Obese Macs, Cocaine-Cola, Shabidas and all the other corporate ‘sponsors’ who’ve hijacked what used to be the ‘people’s games’.

Thirty years ago, we Brits thrilled to the duels on the race track (video) between Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett, and, later Steve Cram. All of them were world record breakers in middle distance running

I – erm – overtly took against Coe because he seemed a bit posh, the smooth operator preparing himself for a life in politics that would eventually lead to the House of Lords, whereas Ovett was ‘one of us’, the edgy one who would emigrate to the classless utopia of Australia.

And now Lord Coe is presiding over London Corplympics which are turning into a public relations disaster.

For many of the athletes settling into the Olympic camp the sight of troops was a home from home. Flora Mwandira, the chief of mission from Malawi’s Olympic team, gave an insight into her view of how the UK is run.

“We thought it was just a normal part of British life,” she said.

Well, it wasn’t, but what is now are the widespread food banks, and McDonalds paying subsistence wages, if that, at the London Olympics to sell unhealthy food including ‘French’ fries made from reconstituted potatoes – while the British staple chips are banned.

The main corporate sponsors aren’t British and any musicians in the Olympic Park are expected to play for free. So what could have, and indeed should have, been a showcase for British enterprise and community spirit appears to have been sold down the river along with the family silver.

What further disenfranchises the local communities is that an Advertisement Enforcement Office has been established to prevent any local business benefitting from the Olympics.

Hundreds of uniformed Olympics officers will began touring the country on July 16th … Almost 300 enforcement officers will be seen across the country checking firms to … the right to enter shops and offices and bring court action with fines of up to £ 20000.

Safeguarding the ‘good names’ of McDonald’s, Coke and Cadbury (who give the lie to any notion that the Games are about promoting healthier lifestyles unless you suffer the delusion that a diet of cheeseburgers, liquid sugar and Mars bars will turn you into a rival to Usain Bolt) is a clear demonstration of a world gone mad.

Any faint admiration I’ve had for ‘Seb’ Coe for his past athletic performances has now gone irretrievably: he’s a worldwide ambassador for Nike, the notorious sponsor of sweatshops which produce high-priced sportswear, much of which will be visible over the next couple of weeks.

For the past couple of years I’ve given my limited support to the TeamSweat, the organisation run by Jim Keady. He has just published an open letter to Nike’s CEO, Mark Parker  regarding the disposal of scrap materials by their contracted factories in Indonesia.

However, the response to the earlier letter seems to be to not “let any Nike logos get into the trash. It doesn’t matter if the scraps are from the Nike shoe parts, just don’t let it be identified by having our logos mixed in with it.”

Quite. At this profit-boosting time, they’ve got to be seen as being a caring, environmentally aware company doing their bit for humanity – just like Dow Chemicals.

Nike may well take comfort from the deep doodah that their main competitor and preferred sponsor at London 2012, the German company Adidas, is under investigation for the conditions in their sub-contracted sweatshops in Indonesia.

The UK newspaper, the Independent, has revealed that the Olympic-branded gear – to be worn by British athletes and Games volunteers – is being manufactured for Adidas in sweatshop conditions in Indonesia, on the borders of Jakarta, in Tangerang, making a mockery of claims by London 2012 organisers that this summer’s Games will be the most ethical ever.

Indeed: they’ll be the complete opposite. Why, even the Royal Mint is coining it in.

 

This is a scan of a limited edition £5 coin  – sold at twice the price. (And before you ask, it was a present for Our Kid – who’s taking even less interest in the Olympics than I am.)

One final thing: I wish every success to Indonesia’s archers, weightlifters and badminton players in their quest for personal fulfilment. As we won’t be watching you, try to get team-mates to take some videos which you can show SBY and your folks when you get back home.