The Olympics are banning protests. That makes protests more necessary

Ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Games, the International Olympic Committee released its guidelines on the types of protests that athletes will be allowed to conduct while in Japan. While athletes can express political opinions on their social media accounts or during media sessions, they are banned from doing hand gestures or kneeling when they are on the podium, in the Olympic Village, or participating in the opening and closing ceremonies. The reasoning that the IOC gave for the ban is that it believes that the Olympics, and sports in general, should be apolitical:

“It is a fundamental principle that sport is neutral and must be separate from political, religious or any other type of interference.”

That statement is so obviously false that it’s better to see it as the naked attempt to protect profit that it is, rather than a genuine sentiment. After all, it was just two years ago that IOC president Thomas Bach happily made a political point of his own by declaring that the joint bid for the 2032 Olympics by North and South Korea was “one further step showing how sport can once more make a contribution to peace on the Korean Peninsula and the world.”

Bach’s statement clearly marries the Olympics with politics. His position is that sports should only be political in ways that he and the IOC are comfortable with — i.e., in ways that are beneficial to them, either financially or for the IOC’s reputation. Bach and the IOC seem more than happy, for instance, to use taxpayer money to help put on their games.

It’s important to point out the IOC’s hypocrisy in banning certain protests, though in truth, I don’t have too much of a problem with it. The ban is cowardly, but it also creates the perfect environment for substantive protests to take place.

Protests, by nature, are supposed to be disruptive. An organization like the IOC — which is used to doing business with corrupt entities and individuals, political or not, and which prioritizes profits over sporting excellence — is naturally going to be against anything that endangers its money. Any protest that they would be OK with would likely, in some way, reveal itself to benefit them.

The IOC’s ban shows that the committee is afraid of losing control. That it’s afraid certain protests will jeopardize its position and financial relationships, ripping off the veneer of a blissful and united world that the games try to sell. A world where sports supposedly supersedes the political world outside of it. It is important to challenge that myth in a world that tries to reinforce the status quo and deny its real problems.

By shrinking the space for protests, and trying to create an escapist world, the IOC’s ban actually enables meaningful dissent. Protests exist to wake the world out of its collective daydream and drag it back into reality, where people’s lives are affected by those things that the Olympics studiously ignores unless it suits them. The IOC is trying to put its audience to sleep, and I hope that there are many athletes who understand that this makes their protests more necessary than ever.

After all, a protest that authorities endorse isn’t much of a protest at all.