SPORT 1913 - 2013

part one_CHAPTER 3

shared love of football on both sides of the trenches prompted the spontaneous ‘Christ- mas truce’. Many of the soldiers involved had learned to play in amateur or socialist clubs, public playgrounds or organizations like the Young Men’s Christian Association that pro- moted sport as a means of enhancing youth education and reducing social conflict (Brown and Seaton, 1994). Perhaps the most ambi- tious effort ever made to unpack the links be- tween sport and aggression and to democra- tize the skills and joys involved was the Workers’ Olympics organized during the in- terwar years by the Socialist Workers Sports International, whose centenary is being com- memorated in this volume. The Workers’ Olympics were organized under a banner of ‘No More War’. Whereas the International Olympic Committee (IOC) barred athletes from the ‘aggressor’ countries in World War One from its Games of 1920 and 1924, the Workers’ Olympics made a special effort to in- clude them. They also extended opportunity widely; the Workers’ Olympics of Vienna in 1931 were arguably the largest multi-sport games ever held, with 80,000 estimated par- ticipants; 25,000 of whom were women. By comparison, the IOC’s Games a year later in Los Angeles saw only 1,408 compete, only 107 of whom were female (Riordan 1984). Today, two ambitious international at- tempts to reduce conflict and build peaceful societies through sport are underway. The first is the promulgation of a modern Olympic Truce at the level of diplomacy and inter-state

scenes efforts to minimize a boycott of the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. The Soviet Union and 15 other socialist states did not recognize the host nation, the Republic of Korea, and many feared that they would stay away. But Sama- ranch persuaded them to participate and take advantage of the Olympic spirit to pursue in- formal trade and diplomacy with other coun- tries. Some say the Seoul Games prefigured the end of the Cold War (Pound 1994). Then in the midst of the radically changed conditions brought about by the end of the Cold War and the bitter break-up of several of the former so- cialist countries, the IOC took the idea further. As the civil war in Yugoslavia erupted, the United Nations Security Council identified sport as one of the potential sanctions it might use to bring the conflict to an end. Concerned about a loss of independence and a return to the bans and boycotts that had complicated earlier Games, Samaranch pressured the UN to exempt the Olympics from any such sanctions and proposed that wherever the Games were held, the international community formally recognize the host city as a neutral site pro- tected by a modern truce. The UN agreed, on condition that the IOC would permit athletes from the former Yugoslavia to compete as in- dividuals in the 1992 Games in Barcelona and recognize a National Olympic Committee from Bosnia Herzegovina. To honour its pledge, in 1993 the UN General Assembly ad- opted a resolution committing signatory countries to respect an ‘Olympic Truce’ begin- ning seven days before and extending to seven

politics. The second is the cluster of interven- tions known as Sport for Development and Peace. Both stem from the confidence that the power of sport can significantly enhance the possibilities for peace. This paper will outline these recent ef- forts, assess their logic and effectiveness and discuss the questions they raise about the pos- sibilities for intervention. I will argue that sport can contribute to more inclusive and beneficial social development, which in turn can reduce social tensions and the trigger points for intergroup violence and war. But I will also argue that these results do not hap- pen automatically, nor can sport make such a contribution by itself. To be effective, sport for development and peace must be intentionally focused on developmental outcomes, with ap- propriate methodologies, must be closely linked to other strategies of development, es- pecially in education and health, and must explicitly address the causes of inequality and conflict. In particular, sport for development and peace must address the gender inequality and violence that continues to be pervasive in mainstream sport. I will conclude with recom- mendations for the amateur sport movement, of which the workers’ sports movement plays such an important part. The Modern Olympic Truce While the idea of a truce has been implicit in the idea of modern Olympic Games, the actual institution grew out of IOC president Juan An- tonio Samaranch’s successful behind-the-

41