Gay Rights and Putin’s Olympics - A Growing Boycott of World Leaders?

1936 Berlin Summer Games - Hitler is top left of center

I've noted before that what Vladimir Putin's regime in Russia is doing to gays bears some parallel's to Hitler's campaign against the Jews.   It is important to remember that Hitler did not start out with the death camps and the outright extermination of the Jews.  No, it started on a smaller level that gradually built, in part because of the tepid response the rest of the world gave in reaction to what was being done in Germany.  Because of a meaningful international response, Hitler and the Nazis felt they could go forward with even more heinous policies.  Among those who failed to offer adequate condemnation of Hitler's Germany were, of course, the members of the International Olympic Committee which allowed Hitler to use the 1936 Summer Games to show off a supposed superior Germany.  Fast forward 78 years and we see the International Olympic Committee acting in precisely the same way with Vladimir Putin and Russia's anti-gay laws, proving the maxim that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  Thankfully, some world leaders have not forgotten the mistakes of the 1936 Olympic Games.  As The Guardian is reporting, French leaders have not forgotten 1936 and will not be attending the Sochi 2014 Winter Games.  Here are highlights:

Neither France's president, François Hollande, nor any top French official will attend the next year's Winter Olympics in Sochi, the country's foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, has said.

The decision to hold the Games in Russia has been criticised in France due to concerns over human rights abuses and a law passed in June that bans "gay propaganda", which critics say discriminates against homosexuals.

Fabius offered no explanation for the move. "There are no plans to attend," he told Europe 1 radio, referring to Hollande and himself. "Top French officials have no plans to be there."

Last week the office of the German president, Joachim Gauck, announced that he would not be attending the Sochi Games. The German government's human rights commissioner praised Gauck's decision as a "wonderful gesture".

Kudos to France!  Vanity Fair has a story that looks further at Putin's effort to reprise the dis-honor of the 1936 Games in February at Sochi.   It also reminds us of Putin's unsavory past as a KGB official.  Here are excerpts:

In Vladimir Putin’s Russia—official Russia—there is no controversy about the rights of gays and lesbians. Controversy suggests a serious clash of ideas and opinions; controversy suggests points of view that are in opposition and, potentially, subject to change. This is not the case when it comes to the human rights of homosexuals in Russia. In the Kremlin, in the parliament, in the courts, in the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, and on television there reigns a disdainful and intimidating unanimity: homosexuals are a threat to morality, to the family, and to the state.

Putin claims that the [anti-gay] law does nothing to infringe on the lives and rights of homosexuals (“They’re people, just like everyone else”); he insisted that the Russian people supported the legislation and, thus, must have it; he also says he is concerned that homosexuality is contributing to the country’s low birth rate.

Activists find this disingenuous at best. The law insures discrimination and provides a xenophobic regime with an Other to rally against. The activists also contend that the legislation is part of a larger ideological and legislative effort in Russia that seeks to stigmatize nongovernmental organizations as “foreign agents” and the West, in general, as a threat. The leadership invokes an anti-gay rhetoric reminiscent of the way Soviet leaders used to denounce Jews as “internal enemies,” the agents of foreign capital and spy services. Human-rights groups and L.G.B.T. organizations in Russia say that the law has opened the door to real misery: this year alone, they have documented hundreds of acts of violence, including murders, against gay men and women; workplace discrimination; and hateful (and sanctioned) rhetoric in the official media.

The Russian officials I meet always seem surprised that so many Westerners care at all about the rights of gay men and women. A few days ago, a senior official told me that such concerns were the inventions of the Western press. The reaction to questions about gay rights is usually either dismissive laughter or anger at what they view as self-righteous foreigners determined to embarrass Russia.  

[T]he general picture presented to the vast majority of the public through state television is miserable and threatening. Last month, on Rossiya 1, a well-known host named Arkady Mamontov devoted an episode of his show “Special Correspondent” to the topic of homosexuality. He and his reporters portrayed gay activists as Western-funded agents out to corrupt the moral foundation of the country.

Lest anyone think that Putin is not controlling the expressions of homophobia in the official Russian media, he just appointed Dmitri Kiselyov, a former television anchor, head of the new state news agency. In April, 2012, Kiselyov went on Rossiya 1 and said to a rapt studio audience:

I think that to fine gays for propagandizing homosexuality among teen-agers is not enough. They should be prohibited from donating blood or sperm. And their hearts, in the case of a car accident, should be buried, or burned, as unfit for extending anyone’s life.

All of this recent activity—the unpunished cases of harassment and violence, the ominous tone of the official press, the statements from the government and the Church—comes in the months and weeks leading up to the Winter Olympics in Sochi. (I’m planning to cover the games for The New Yorker and NBC.) 

[H]omophobic groups, some of them with nationalistic or Fascist ideas, feel free to harass gay men and lesbians, the activists said. In some cities, organized groups with names like Homophobic Wolf have posted pictures of gay men and lesbians online, the better for them to be identified and pursued on the street. Some have found placards plastered on the doorways of their buildings saying that a gay person lives within. Humiliation has become the stuff of everyday life.

There is much more that should be read.  The take away message?  Putin is doing to gays precisely what the Nazis did to Jews in the early 1930's.  And frighteningly, just as in the 1930's most of the world's governments are doing noting meaningful to condemn or punish Russia.  And the International Olympic Committee?  Just as in 1936 it is in bed with those guilty of bigotry and discrimination and encouraging hate and violence. 

I for one will NOT be watching the 2014 Games.  Moreover, I will be making a concerted effort to boycott products and services of advertisers who are in bed with Putin.  Again, I applaud France's leadership.  Where are the leaders of other advanced Democracies?  Will America refuse to send leaders like France?  Or will we prove that we learned nothing from the 1930's and the horrors that spinelessness allowed to take root?

Russian police abusing a gay rights protester