BEIJING OLYMPICS: LAST GAMES, AS WORLD WAR III COMES

Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza

Good afternoon from Manila!

I’m sure that the euphoria of the recently concluded Beijing Olympics is still with most of us. I have no better wish for now than to see that euphoria last for a longer time, and make everyone anticipate the next games. My own country is hungry for a Gold medal, and I already said my piece about the matter (i.e. sports science can make Olympics gold medalists for us).

This note is a sports forecasting briefer. It’s not about the typical forecasting of the outcomes of specific events and the overall medals that countries can make from out of the aggregate medals—especially gold—accruing from those events. It is about the big possibility that the Beijing Olympics could be the planet’s last, that thereafter no more Olympic games will be in the offing for a long while. That London games for 2012 is a chimera, it will be cancelled most likely as London will sustain damages from the coming conflagration.

World War III is about to break out soon, and I am of the opinion that if this war will happen, it will last for at least thirty (30) years. It will be likened to the 30 Years War in Europe (1618-48), a great war that (a) totally devastated the economies of the contending war parties and (b) redefined territories along boundaries that constituted the modern nations of today (via Treaty of Westphalia). In like vein, this World War III will be concluded with a treaty that will see the disappearance of nations and the finalization of the territorial boundaries of regions-states and city-states that will replace nations-states.

As war rages across the globe, the possibility of training athletes for the Olympics will be nil. Bankrupt or near-bankrupt states will be needing funds as logistics for its own war participation pursuits, and cannot prioritize athletics or related cultural-leisure engagements that appear to be trifle in a war situation. However, athletes and entertainers will have a great time performing before war-weary combatants during lull moments of violent confrontations.

The nearest to the Olympics games would be, if ever, regional games. These games will be performed by member-countries of regions that would be least affected by the war, or which will not serve as major warfronts. As to which regions these will be, it is not easy to forecast for the moment. The main warfront will be the Iran-Middle East area, where it will start (it is just months’ away from hereon). Other possible affected areas would be (a) North Africa (spill over area of the battles), and (b) Central Asia (former Soviet states will be polarized in their alignment). Europe would most likely see a flooding of migratory waves of Arabs, Iranians, Berbers, Central Asians, and Africans who will escape the war and move by waters and land to reach the ‘promised land’ of totalitarian Europe.

Possibly conflicts in (a) Northeast Asia and (b) between China &Taiwan will be experienced. The ASEAN and Australia-New Zealand may not turn to battle grounds, and can therefore launch friendship missions via international athletics. If South America won’t be a warfront, then perhaps the countries here can hold their own version of international games.
But most likely there will be no global athletics such as the Olympics. Ditto for specific events of world athletics, for example: WBA-WBF-WBC-IBF boxing fights, world basketball, and world soccer. A dreary, dreadful planet this one will be when the conflagration spreads across the globe, and made dreary many times over by the lack of leisure & sports events that could pep up and lighten up the psyche of crowds.

The return of the Olympics will be contingent upon the cessation of hostilities among war parties. As to when that time will come, no one knows exactly. What is most observable is the trend that no one single world power, since after World War II, was able to win a war outside its boundaries (save for that negligible “war” calisthenics between Argentina & Britain over a non-descript island populated largely by birds and very few homo sapiens). Even today, the USA is losing in Afghanistan and Iraq, so what will make us forecast safely that the USA can win a major war anywhere in the planet…

The war will drag on for many years, taking us across the 2030s till probably 2040. That’s when some sane people, most especially the leaders of that time who will come from today’s generation of infants and school children, will declare an end to hostilities. To instill order at that time, authority will be hyper-centralized in totalitarian state formations representing (a) city-states and (c) region-states that are beholden only to (c) the totalitarian ‘technotronic’ capitalist world-state…That’s when the Olympics can be returned.

Meantime, enjoy your euphoria, and enjoy it to the max. For you will not see an Olympic game again in a very long time.

[28 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]