Separate but equal was the cry of white segregationists which is not surprising considering Fascist roots of Olympics

Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace Wilfried Lemke (right) carries Paralympic torch (Credit: IPC)

The United Nations claims the Paralympics promotes the inclusion of people living with disabilities. Actually the Paralympics is a relic of the past when people with disabilities were segregated from society much as African-Americans were segregated.  This is not surprising coming from the Olympics movement which has been tainted by racism and fascism for most of its history.

“The Paralympics are a powerful example of what can be achieved when everyone is given the opportunity to participate and perform to their full potential,” said Wilfried Lemke, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace. At Paralympics, top UN official highlights rights of people with disabilities

While it may be a step in the right direction, separate games for people with disabilities only reinforces their uniqueness not their inclusion in society. The message is: here are some games where you can compete with people of your own kind, people like yourself.

Are people with disabilities different from other people? Of course not. People with disabilities are the same as anyone else. We have bodies, minds and souls if you are religious. We have the same hopes, dreams and aspirations as anyone else. Some of the paralympic athletes became injured competing in sports.

The attempt to segregate us from so-called “normal” society and sports is an act of segregation and discrimination. We saw that happen during the Vancouver Olympics when Brian McKeever, a long distance skier, qualified but was taken off the team. They told him to compete in the paralympics even though is timing was better than other members of his Canadian team. Legally blind Canadian skier didn’t get his Olympic race

To people who say it’s not possible to include athletes with disabilities at the Olympics, we reply – why not?  If not sports, then why not keep the disabled out of work places, schools like UPEI, movie theatres, grocery stores. Put the disabled back in the institutions where they belong, right?

During the Canada Games on PEI, we saw the same condescending attitudes from officials at Sports Canada. “Go away,” they told me. “We have special games for your kind of people.”

Exclusion of people who are different by race, religion, color, sexual preference and disability is bigotry plain and simple. People with disabilities don’t want to be given charity or “special games.”

Fascism in Olympic history

1936 Olympic torch parade as propaganda for Nazi Fascism

The torch relay that wound its way across Canada was created by Nazi Dr. Carl Diem and beautifully filmed by Nazi film-maker Leni Riefenstahl.  For the pleasure of Adolf Hitler, “3,422 young Aryan runners should carry burning torches along the 3,422km route from the Temple of Hera on Mount Olympus to the stadium in Berlin.” The Olympics were symbols of German Aryan supremacy.  Politics and the Olympics: Fire and Fascism

Avery Brundage, IOC president from 1952 onward, was an avowed Fascist who was still trying to organize American support for Hitler in the 1941. Brundage had been an Olympic organizer from the 1920’s. An American business man, he championed the 1936 Hitler version of the Olympic Games with its Nazi Aryan themes.  After the 1972 Munich massacre, Brundage showed his latent anti-semitism by declaring the Games must go on.

The International Olympic Committee’s President from 1980 to 2001 was Juan Antonio Samaranch. Samaranch had been a staunch supporter of Generalissimo Franco, Spain’s Fascist dictator, and served in Franco’s government.

“Originally formed by Baron Pierre de Coubertin in 1894, the IOC has been a haven for royalty and rich industrialists. Chris Shaw, the lead spokesperson for Games Watch 2010, writes in his recently released book Five Ring Circus, “Of nine actual or acting presidents, the IOC had put three barons, two counts, two businessmen, an overt fascist and a fascist sympathizer in its top position.”” Whistler Watch and Five Ring Circus: Myths and Realities of the Olympic Games.