What Olympics Opposition Looks Like in Germany
Among Boston’s competitors to host the 2024 Olympics is Hamburg, Germany. And as is the case in Boston, some people don’t love the idea. A group there is campaigning against Hamburg’s Olympic dreams, using the tagline “Etwas Besseres als Olympia’’—which translates to “Something Better Than the Olympics.’’
As the slogan suggests, the organization thinks the city’s efforts would be better applied elsewhere. A spokesperson for the group, Ulf Tregger, took questions from Boston.com via email. His responses, which sound similar to some of No Boston Olympics’s talking points, are below. (His responses have been lightly edited for clarity.)
Why do you oppose holding the Olympics in Hamburg?
We think that the Olympics would do more harm than benefit to our city. Olympics since the 1960s have proven to be very expensive enterprises, in contrast to the estimated costs at the beginning of each project.
Comparable games in London or Barcelona prove that the populace is not profiting, but suffering from extended transformations of parts of their city and from the exploding costs.
We are arguing that the Olympic Games are not a question of sports or international understanding, but of money (profit), urban development and housing, and social and environmental issues.
We name it as a huge problem that the pro-Olympic campaign (which started months ago and will be intensified until the decision of the International Olympic Committee in summer 2017) will whitewash and overspread any other political issues in our city, issues that affect our everyday living (and our everyday sports).
Since the IOC, as the “governing body’’ of the games, is not elected nor controlled by the people, but claims full control over the conditions of the games, we have a huge problem with their non-democratic approach.
We understand that referendums about hosting the Olympics—as recently seen in Munich, now in Hamburg and probably also in Boston—are just the very beginning of a overdue process of a full democratization and decommercialization.
Have you studied other anti-Olympic groups in the past? What have you learned about them?
We know that at least in Oslo the arguments against the IOC led to a refusal of getting a candidacy last year.
(Editor’s note: Oslo dropped its bid to host the 2022 Olympics last year. Three other European cities saw voters reject their 2022 bids by referendum, leading the IOC to institute a series of reforms late last year that could help to make bidding for the Olympic cheaper.)
We are happy to know that the latest approach to be a candidate city in Germany also failed: In Munich the people refused to support the candidacy by a referendum in 2013.
We are inspired by their campaign of good arguments and facts and their insisting of transparency and people’s rights. In Munich the campaign lowered the approval rate from 60 percent in early surveys to below 50 percent at the referendum. (Support for the Hamburg bid is currently above 60 percent.) We learned that in Boston the approval rate is also dropping steadily.
Are you familiar with No Boston Olympics? If so, do you see yourselves as similar organizations? It’s funny, but in some ways, you seem to be competing—each would rather the other’s city wins the games.
Yes, that’s a inherent curiosity of our projects. We are receiving a lot of support by the groups of Berlin since Hamburg won the German bid.
We will not refer to Boston as a better “alternative.’’ Instead we will emphasize that the concept of the Olympic Games is a heavy burden for all cities.
Do you have demands about Hamburg’s bid? Is there anything Hamburg organizers could do that would make you say, “OK, if you do that, we are comfortable with bidding on the Olympics’’? And what will you do if the planned referendum in Hamburg passes?
We are just starting our campaign. We are currently discussing such questions. In any case, we will not be satisfied with any vague promises about any future IOC reformation processes or flimsy costs estimates.
Correction: An original version of this article said Oslo, Norway, dropped its bid by referendum. Its government opted to drop its bid.
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