Greek expelled from Olympics
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18987678
A greek athelete has been expelled from the Olympic games for making a ‘racist joke’ on twitter.
:-/
Good! Serves her right!!!! :)
I have read what she said (tweeted) and I can’t see that it is racist, isn’t she just expressing her opinion.
Why shouldn’t she be allowed her views and support whatever political party she wants to, or have the powers that be finally made that illegal.Quote – The Hellenic Olympic Committee said Papachristou is "placed outside the Olympic team for statements contrary to the values and ideas of the Olympic movement."
No, they did it so as not to upset the sponsors – the real values and ideas of those involved with this publicly funded corporate circus.
Rubbish! Golden Dawn are Neo Nazis. That doesn’t exactly fit in with the Olympic Values does it?!!
Maybe if she had just commented on the Africans in isolation she would have got away with it but I think she has made HER views and values very clear, so good riddance!!!!I’m not saying that I agree with her, but you think that just because she made her views public, she should be excluded from taking part.
To Quote international law:
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, provides, in Article 19, that: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.Seems like it doesn’t apply when large amounts of money and corporate freebies are concerned.
"For today’s Olympic Movement, Olympism is constructed around three core values : excellence, friendship and respect." I think respect comes before free speech when you are competing in the Olympics.
Gem
I presume that is a quotation, but from whom? if it is, I suspect it’s from one of the organisers, or one of the sponsers.
I do believe that the athletes are in it for the desire to excel at their chosen event(s), though a lot of the more recently introduced ones should not be there (in my opinion)
Why do they keep introducing even more professional sports, (golf and rugby from 2016) is it so they can sell even more overpriced tickets ?
Ideally, I think that there should be a few Olympic venues located around the world which could be used in rotation, all participating countries could contribute to maintaining and running those facilities. It would cut the costs down enormously, but I suppose by doing that it wouldn’t make so much money for a lot of people.Or
To quote Al Murray "It’s going to be a bit sh*t"
Can’t wait till it’s over personally!
Just an opinion :)This isn’t a quote as such Peebee, this IS the Olympic Ideal!!!!! It is written by the Olympic committee probably some time ago. It is what the Olympics are about in theory. NOT written by Coca Cola etc…..
Voula Papachristou tweeted, after reports of a West Nile virus outbreak that, ‘With so many Africans in Greece, the West Nile mosquitoes will be getting some food.’
It should come as no surprise that the Greeks in general, never mind Ms. Papachristou in particular, are sick and tired of Greece being the drop off point for thousands, if not tens of thousands, of African born immigrants trying to illegally enter Europe. With 50% of her age group unable to find gainful employment in their own country some out there might be able to appreciate her frustration?
If a British judge can rule that John Terry was not racist when he called Anton Ferdinand ‘a f****** black c*** then can someone explain why Papachristou’s comment is racist?
I’ll be perfectly honest here, I no longer know what is racist and what is not!
Jon
As a matter of interest, I put the same post as below on my FB page to elicit the thoughts of friends and relations and an English neighbour here on Crete (who also happens to be a teaching law professor) came back with the following comment re the Terry / Ferdinand case.
"He was acquitted because there was a possibility that he thought Anton F had spoken the words first "did you say I’m…" and therefore the offence could not be established beyond reasonable doubt. That doesn’t mean that calling someone a FB isn’t racist."
I replied with the following:
Fully agree with the legal side but both the outside world and the judiciary believes they know what he really said yet because of ‘reasonable doubt’ the law courts have set something of a precedent. Is it not true that from now on anyone on the street can prefix any torrent of abuse with the words, ‘did you say….’ More to the point and say in an area where there was a predominance of black people, would they be charged if they called someone a F***ing White C***. By the way, I knew having a law professor as a neighbour would come in handy!!"
Jon
Jon, you should know by now, only white people can be racist.
Can’t wait to see what the FA come up with when they "try" John Terry. Apparently they are not burdened with having to prove "beyond reasonable doubt".
Andrew
6F41444441494677776D5B404D444A51280 wrote: This isn’t a quote as such Peebee, this IS the Olympic Ideal!!!!! It is written by the Olympic committee probably some time ago. It is what the Olympics are about in theory. NOT written by Coca Cola etc…..
Gem, an ideal does not need to be written down. The Olympic ideal is whatever the ancient Greeks had in mind when they came up with the idea.
The mere fact that the IOC have written something up makes many of us quite suspicious, and tends to seriously undermine the credibility of the quote.
Andrew
Well for as long as I can remember (a long time), the Olympic Ideal has been read out at opening and closing ceremonies. Perhaps you never listen. I think it’s rather nice in this day and age and worth sticking to!
Gem, you are missing my point. The fact that someone at the IOC concocted some flowery words, whenever it was, has no relevance to the debate about free speech etc in relation to an athlete tweeting a bad joke.
Point is, she’s been sent home as a sacrifice to political correctness. She may be a racist, we don’t know. She would certainly not be the only one at the Olympics.
Major over-reaction to something that should have just been ignored.
Andrew
As someone who has worked in America, Africa, the Middle and the Far East the so called PC Brigade make me laugh, although not with merriment. Racism in Africa, for example, is black on black and more often than not ends in genocide. We call it tribal, think Rwanda, but it’s racism.
Go to Dubai and see how the local Arabs treat their Indian and Pakistani labourers. Their disdain, their overt racism is evident in every walk of life.
Go to Jakarta and see how the locals despise the hard working Chinese.
Go to Lafayette, Louisiana or Houston, Texas and see the segregated communities and the way blacks and whites view each other.
By comparison Britain is a far more open and inclusive society. But let’s not fool ourselves, it’s not easy to accept different people’s into a once closed community. Aberdeen attracted thousands of Polish migrants in the nineties and even though White and mainly English speaking there was and still is a racist element. What’s more, the Polish community migrated to one particular part of Aberdeen and because of this it has become semi segregated from the rest of the local community.
I recall thinking, when 21, that my erstwhile American boss was racist. I once took him to task over something he said, I later put this down to youthful idealism on my part, and he told me to go live in Lafayette among the blacks and then come back to my then all white Aberdeen and he’d see if I had my same idealistic, pinky liberal views.
Jon
Exactly right Jon. You cannot change an essential part of human nature by passing laws. All humans are racist. It’s in our nature to dislike/distrust that which is not like us.
When we are not threatened, we try to overcome our innate racism, as is only right. We should not refuse to let our house to someone because of their race, nor should we refuse to let our daughter marry someone from a different race. That would be racism. On the other hand, when we feel threatened by another race, whether it’s housing or jobs, we cannot help but revert to our nature.
As you can see, I’m steering towards the multi-culturalism experiment in the UK.
So, is it better to mitigate these problems by limiting immigration, or should we pass silly laws that do not address the problem.
It’s a moot point whether racial abuse is worth prosecuting when we ignore the other things I just mentioned.
As with most PC laws, they concentrate on superficial easy targets while ignoring the main problem.
Perhaps we should ban "fat git" and "Jock prat". Are these not equally offensive?
Andrew
I was "racially abused" as a kid because I was an English born twelve year old entering a new country school (outside Aberdeen) in 1966 and worse still, I had a slight Canadian twang! We were all white, we all had the same British culture as our background but I was perceived as different and an incomer. I was beaten up on several occasions and it wasn’t until I began to fight back that the bullying stopped.
I’ve lived in Scotland for most of my life i.e. apart from my first three years of life in Yorkshire and two years in Canada when ten. I was educated in Scotland, worked in Scotland, married a Scottish lass, had two Scottish born sons and wonder why even now, at fifty eight, I’m so pro English?
The reason is simple, I’d been racially stereotyped from an early age – but more particularly from the age of twelve having spent two years in Canada – and still despair at the anti English feeling above the border. (I’m equally concerned about the sectarianism that still abounds in certain quarters across in the West of the country but that’s a different subject.)
A number of Scots see baiting the English as a bit of fun but when they call an Englishman an ‘effing Sassenach bastard’ and their tone is threatening –
Origin:
1765–75; < Scots Gaelic Sasunnach, Irish Sasanach English, English person, Protestant, MIr Saxanach, derivative of Saxain, Sagsuin, Sachsain the Saxons, England, Late Latin Saxon[ch275]s; see Saxon
– are they saying anything less insulting or racist than John Terry’s tirade at Anton Ferdinand?
The word ‘sassenach’ is used as an insult by a number of (not all) Scots and to put its true meaning into perspective it’s akin to calling someone from Pakistan a Paki! If that is considered a racial slur then why not sassenach?
Jon
Have to agree, Jon. Kids, and by extension, humans in general, just love to pick on anything different. Some call it racism.
However, if for some reason, you had been befriended on Day 1 by the biggest, most handsome, most popular kid in the school, you would have just cruised through. Kids can also be loving and friendly.
The worst and best of human nature.
Well, as it seems to be just you and me agreeing with each other, I guess everyone else on the forum is much more PC than us……
It would be hugely entertaining, would it not, if an English person entered a complaint with the police, or should that be "polis", for being called an "effing Sassenach bastard"?
Would they prosecute it?
Andrew
Andrew,
Check out this article, it makes grim reading.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/north_east/7826264.stm
As does this one
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/5101184.stm
As for the PC brigade, if no one talks about racism then it will continue to ferment under the cultural surface.
Jon
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