F TORONTO 2008? POINTS FOR DISCUSSION Stefan Kipfer 1. PURPOSE: At the last MNJS Steering Committee Meeting, it was decided that the MNSJ endorse the concerns of Bread not Circuses and that I should act as the connecting link between Bread not Circuses (BNC) and the MNSJ. In the meantime, I have been attending BNC meetings and represented the MNSJ in front of the new Toronto's quasi-executive committee. What has become clear to me in the process is that we should define more clearly our role in Toronto Olympic politics. Hence the need for a discussion at the level of the Steering Committee about analysis, strategy and commitment. The following is a intended as a stimulus to such a discussion. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO READ THE WHOLE THING, JUST READ THE SECTIONS ABOUT THE MNSJ (eg. points 5 and 6). 2. THE OLYMPICS, A TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATE MOVEMENT. The Olympic Games are driven and organized by a web of forces composed of the International Olympic Committee and big transnational corporate sponsors, including the corporate media. While the latter control the bulk of the corporate sponsorships, the former decide on the rules and regulations of the Games and link the big global sponsors to the host cities and the respective national Olympic Committees. Particularly since the Los Angeles games in 1984, the Games have become primarily a global corporate billboard and money-making machine. Corruption is part of this machine. The corporate organization of the Olympic Games has also had significant impacts on the nature of competitive sports. "Amateurs" (i.e. non-professional, part-time athletes) have had little to no chance of success at the Olympic level for quite some time. The admission of professional athletes that are recognized as such (e.g. tennis stars, NHL and NBA stars) and the IOC's lenience towards doping have pushed this professionalization further since the 1980s. While many athletes have little prospect of becoming rich, elite athletes have effectively become posterboys/girls for the corporate Olympians. Despite the global scope of the Olympic 'movement', the Olympic Games are not "external" forces which impose themselves on host cities from the outside, as it were. They function as a linchpin connecting the IOC and transnationals to "local" growth interests that initiate the bidding process. The latter include different branches of the state, newspapers, the tourist and hospitality industry, developers and businesses with real estate interests and headquarter firms located in the particular host city. Many of these "local" business interests are themselves national or transnational in scope. At least in North America, ad-hoc, private or semi-private Olympic organizing or bidding committees connect and fuse these forces and institutions. Finally, the Olympics represent a powerful, if contradictory set of symbols to legitimize what is a transnational capitalist growth project. While the Coldwar connotations of the Olympic Games have disappeared, the capitalist ideology of sports as the quintessential sign of competitive individualism and moral self-discipline has become predominant. In turn, mild or aggressive forms of nationalism continue to permeate Olympic culture despite the formal appeal to ideals of international cooperation, cosmopolitan friendship and peaceful competition. Locally, cultural festivals and invocations of "community spirit", "volunteerism" and "civic pride" are central to stimulate the "excitement" and "enthusiasm" that are necessary to rally the troops behind Olympic boosterism. 3. WHAT ARE POSSIBLE EFFECTS OF STAGING OLYMPIC GAMES? Olympic projects are much more than an issue among others. They are the most visible expression of how the world's major cities develop in the 1990s. Olympic growth strategies have a defining impact on urban and economic development and shape the decision-making processes which organize urban development in the respective host cities. At the same time, the particular ways in which Olympic Games are organized in host cities depend both on the histories of urban politics and development in each city and on the composition and orientation of the political coalitions that promote and support the respective Olympic projects. All this means two things. First, the detailed effects of a particular Olympic Games depend on the political constellations of the particular host city. Second, the capacity to have a substantial effect on how the Olympics are organized locally is constrained by the fact that Olympic Games are subject to the principle of profitability and corporate imagineering. Positive spin-offs, if they materialize, are just that: secondary and subordinate to the imperatives of transnational capitalist urbanization. While particular effects thus cannot be predicted in detail for each host city, recent experiences suggest that THE OLYMPICS POSE A DANGER TO DEMOCRACY, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY in our cities. Others, including Bread not Circuses and Women Plan Toronto have researched past Olympic experiences and compiled more detailed lists of some of these dangers. Let me just highlight a few strategic issues. OLYMPIC GAMES DEEPEN A POLARIZING, UNSUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT MODEL. Obviously, Olympic Games do have major employment effects on a particular city. There is no guarantee that Olympic jobs are good, unionized jobs, however. Olympic Games promote growth primarily through construction mega-projects and low-level service employment in the tourism and hospitality sector. As we know from the Toronto of the last two decades and other cities, modes of urban development driven by finance, real estate, tourism, entertainment, sports and associated personal services leads to a highly polarized employment profile dominated by high-level business services on the one hand and precarious, low-paid and often part-time McJobs on the other. Construction mega-projects do provide major employment boosts, but they are one-time investments and are notoriously inefficient in employment terms because of their high capital intensity. Indeed, megaprojects like the Olympics absorb investments that might otherwise have gone directly into socially useful and ecologically sensible investments. OLYMPIC GAMES ARE A THREAT TO LOCAL DEMOCRACY. Olympics are about big bucks and high stakes. Consequently, investors are likely to insist on a maximum of control and secrecy in matters of decision-making. The Olympics also require organizational capacities that easily outgrow the capacities of public institutions and existing growth coalitions. In the current global context of restructuring and right-wing politics, Olympic projects can easily function as models for a reorganization of urban political processes, up to a FORMAL privatization of decision-making in matters of urban planning. The Atlanta Games, for example, were organized by a literal shadow government that incorporated corporate interests and the state of Georgia but bypassed the city of Atlanta, where most of the sports activities took place. In the context of amalgamation, downloading, and bureaucratic reorganization in the new city of Toronto, the Olympics are a golden opportunity for elites and landed interests to shape the formal and informal processes that govern urban development in their own interest. THE OLYMPICS ARE ABOUT CONTROLLING URBAN SPACE. There are two aspects to this point. First, host cities literally have to "make room" for the Olympic Games. Existing land-uses have to be displaced or transformed. This can be achieved indirectly, through a inflation of land and rent values, or directly, through redevelopment aided by zoning changes or expropriation in the areas where the Olympics take place. In Toronto, the Olympics are planned to be held along theToronto waterfront, where over the last two decades real estate interests have revalorizee land by discouraging industrial uses and affordable housing and by promoting highly profitable land-uses: high-end condos, gentrified shopping areas and spectacular entertainment complexes. The Olympics are a powerful opportunity to extend the high-value land uses towards the East (the Portlands) and the West (the Ex.). Second, the Olympics inevitably come with a massive security apparatus to secure space for tourists and global elites and purify the image of the host city from undesirable elements: poor and homeless people, squeegees, protesters, etc. The Olympics thus reinforce the ongoing trend towards the "militarization of urban space": the systematic deployment of policing, surveillance and security mechanisms to control or fence off whatever remains of public space in our cities. 4. WHAT IS THE SITUATION IN TORONTO? Many people expect the new Olympic bid to be different from the last one. The mere shift from Henderson to Crombie at the helm of the Olympic organizing committee is read as an indication that critical groups and individuals will have input into the bidding process and thus can affect the character of the Games. Crombie's presence, and his capacity to mediate conflict, is thus seen as a spill-over of old Toronto reform politics into the new Mega-Toronto. Following these expectations, many individuals and organizations have opted not to oppose the bid but to ask the local Olympians and Toronto council to commit to a revenue-neutral, socially benign and ecologically sustainable Games. Apparently Crombie is trying to bring politicians and activists into his orbit by wheeling and dealing behind the scenes. At the same time, there is no solid evidence yet that the Toronto Olympics will be substantially different from those in other cities. There has NEVER been a public discussion about whether the Toronto should or should not pursue an Olympic bid. From its first signs in the summer of 1996, Toronto's Olympic bid has proceeded in almost complete secrecy. Crombie has so far refused to say Who is behind BIDCO, the 2008 Toronto Olympic Bid Corporation. Also, the first Olympic document presented to Council by BIDCO is extremely vague and full of assumptions. The few references to public consultation and social/ecological impacts are unsubstantiated and contradictory. And so far both BIDCO and Toronto council have demonstrated little commitment to PUBLIC consultation and no willingness to grant concessions. Toronto council rejected motions to modify the bid after the public face of BIDCO, Mr. Halstead, said that asking BIDCO for commitments now would undermine the bid itself. This means that Council has already traded away much of the leverage it had vis-a-vis BIDCO by refusing to make its support for the bid dependent on concrete conditions. Olympic politics thus continues to gravitate around BIDCO, a private, almost "invisible" organization. While BIDCO's commitment to a different Olympics appears purely rhetorical so far, the Toronto Olympic project will have a major impact on the future of politics in this city. Given that Toronto politics is in flux thanks to amalgamation and downloding, the Olympic bid might function as a "model" for how urban development is organized. Unfortunately, the deck is even more stacked now against reform-minded forces than it was in the late 1980s, the time of the last Olympic bid. Amalgamation, downloading, and the recent municipal elections have strengthened right-wing forces in the city to the point of endangering what is left of urban reform in Toronto. In this context, the Olympics are a powerful opportunity for the elites of this city to tilt the decision-making processes even more in their favour. Indeed Olympic spectacles represent the perfect opening for the populists and Lastmans' of this city to solidify their right-wing boosterism. The general nature of Olympic Games, the current state of Toronto politics, and evidence from the early stages of the bid process suggest that there is very limited room for "reform" in the Toronto Olympic bid. 5. WHY SHOULD THE MNSJ BE INVOLVED IN "OLYMPIC POLITICS"? In effect, the MNSJ has already become involved in Olympic politics. Nonetheless, it does make sense to discuss possible reasons behind our involvement. The MNSJ is an URBAN movement committed to economic and social justice. This commitment implies a critique of NEOLIBERALISM and the CORPORATE AGENDA. In Toronto, nothing will come closer to a neoliberal and corporate project than the Olympics. The scope and importance of the Olympics requires an equally comprehensive critique that takes into account considerations close to the MNSJ: democracy, justice, equity and sustainability. To sit on the sidelines of the Olympic politics would mean the MNSJ has nothing to say about a project that will strongly shape dominant urban and economic development strategies in the next decade. There are of couse risks in getting involved in Olympic politics. Corporate control and a lot of money are at stake. Yet the without the involvement of organizations such as the MNSJ, groups such as Bread not Circuses will have to face the flak and smear campaigns alone. Moreover, the Olympics also represents an opportunity for the MNSJ to branch out into "new" dimensions of urban politics: land-use, planning and economic development. In this sense, Olympics are a strategic opportunity for us to develop our urban work. 6. WHAT SHOULD THE ROLE OF THE MNSJ BE? While there are many reasons for us to keep being involved in Olympic politics, it is less clear what the nature of our involvement should be. First, what should be our level of involvement?. Given that the bid is for 2008, staying in the Olympic game requires a degree of long-term organizational commitment. This is particularly the case between now and November 1999, when Toronto will have to hand in its final bid. Who has the time, resources and commitment to be involved in the Olympics? What parts of the MNSJ could and should be engaged? Individuals, the urban movement group, EPL? Second, what should our relationship be with other groups such as Bread Not Circuses, OCAP and C4LD? So far we have played a supportive role within BNC. This kind of engagement requires relatively limited resources. Do we want to continue working through Bread Not Circuses and take a more active role there? Do we want to have a more independent voice on the issues? Or do we want to make use of our networking capacities to bring different organizations together? Third, what will the strategy be behind our involvement? So far, we have not opposed the Games but asked that the Toronto bid be open, accessible, socially benign and ecologically sustainable. The credibility of this strategy will depend on either of two things. Firstly, we would have to demonstrate our capacity to "play the game", gather expertise and provide "positive" suggestions to BIDCO or council, if that opportunity should arise. This would also mean clarifying our priorities. Secondly, we would have to be willing to change strategy (i.e. oppose the bid) if input is impossible and conditions are not met. This implies a capacity to monitor and assess developments as the bid progresses. 7. SOURCES Various Newspaper articles. Bread Not Circuses, Bread Alert 2.1-5, 1998. Roger Keil, "Weltstadt-Stadt der Welt: Internationalisierung und lokale Politik in Los Angeles." Muenster: Westfaelisches Dampfboot, 1993. Charles Rutheiser, "Imagineering Atlanta: the politics of place in the city of dreams". London: Verso, 1996. Brenda Sanford and Brenda Farge, "How Women lose at the Games: An Olympic Intervenor Report for Women Plan Toronto". 1990. City of Toronto, "Toronto 2008 - The Olympic Bid", February 1998.