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Despite the modern Olympics rhetoric about peace through sport, its history is rife with politics and protest. Olympic historian David Wallechinsky explains how the Games became a contest for attention.
Hello,
I believe that the idea that the Munich Massacre is the darkest stain on Olympics, is erred. David Wallechinsky noted that during the lead up to the 1968 Olympics 250 student protesters were killed in Mexico City. The truth is that there is no documented number as to how many people were massacred in Tlatelolco during a peaceful demonstration on October 2 1968. Estimates of the amount of people murdered go into the thousands. What is even more atrocious were the actions taken by the Mexican Government, which hunted down activists throughout the city, sequestering them, killing them and violating them and anyone who got in their way. Most of these people have never been found dead or alive.
In no way has any event related with the Olympics had such a tragic result. And yet in 1968, the international media or Olympic participating countries raised few words of alarm. What would the media say today, if China started shooting on protestors? Would it be the same if a Chinese man were the victim or a white American? I think this is part of the fallacy in referring to the Tlatelolco as merely "Disturbing as in Brooke's segue way as things got worst in Munich.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlatelolco_massacre
Thank you for your time. Great show.
Omar
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