http://www.anti2004.net/english.htm

THE OPPOSITION TO THE OLYMPIC GAMES OF 2004 IS THE DUTY OF ALL OF US

1. THE OLYMPIC GAMES AND THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE

The Olympic Games are, today, a characteristic expression of the neoliberal capitalist globalisation.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), as well as a number of organisations of the financial globalisation (IMF, WB, ITO etc) have the management of a merchandise named “Olympic Games” in favor of the multinational companies, the media networks and the strong imperialist countries, with the USA in the first place.

The IOC is an international organisation without any democratic legalisation, an “elite”, a private club that recycles itself bringing important profits to its members. It promotes the championship against the people’s health, the hard competition, the rule of the strongest and it strengthens nationalism, instead of weakening it.

2. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES OF 2004 IN ATHENS

Athens became the field where are advanced and realized the neoliberal choices of the ruling financial interests in order to create a “competitive mega-city” in the area of East Mediterranean, in the framework of globalisation,.

Even before the undertaking of the Olympic Games of 2004 by our country, many serious and documented objections were expressed by various citizens’ movements, ecological organisations and political parties, focusing mostly to the important environmental and urban consequences for Attica and to the consequences to the country’s economy. There were also critics for the present merchandized character of the Olympic Games, for the transformation of the Games in business etc.

Today, about 5 years after the undertaking of the Games, it is realized by broader circles of people than those who were opposed from the beginning, that the Olympic Games :

- will intensify even more the inequalities between the center and the peripheries, in a country where about 45% of its population are already gathered in its capital.

- will diminish the open places and the green space in a city where there are only 2,5 m2 of green area per inhabitant.

The Olympic Games of 2004 will also contribute to:

- the increase of the public debt for various constructions not in first priority.

- the decrease of the state expenses for social services (education, health, social security etc)

- the increase of the direct and indirect taxes from the people of lower income.

- the deterioration of the labor relationship, especially in the area of constructions.

- the increase of the “luck of democracy” because, by the pretext of the safety of the Olympic Games further limitation of the democratic rights and intensification of the state terrorism is advanced.

3. FOR AN INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT AGAINST 2004

The Olympic Games are undesirable for us. But if they will take place, against our will, we consider that it is of great importance to express publicly our opposition to choices that worsen our lives, put in question our sense and undermine our future. We have also to reject arguments of the type “what is the meaning of demonstrations against a reality …”

We consider that the Olympic Games of 2004 are not only a Greek matter but an international one. So we call every movement against neoliberal globalisation and every militant, to consider Olympic Games of 2004 an important instant of their mobilisation and to make Athens in August 2004 a place of meeting and demonstration of those movements for new internationalism, for another meaning of the Sports, for a real fraternisation of the peoples of all the World.

THE “VISION” OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES IS NOT OURS!