CERS Centre for Ethnicity Racism Studies

CERS Centre for Ethnicity & Racism Studies School of Sociology and Social Policy University of Leeds Mediating Cosmopolitanism: Strategic Pluralizations of Culture in Beijing 2008 Rodanthi Tzanelli University of Leeds, UK r. tzanelli@leeds. ac. uk

On not delivering on promised subtitle: Crafting an Allegorical Imperative through Beijing 2008 Current analysis places emphasis on: 1. 2. 3. 4. Olympic ceremonies as spectacle and manifestations of globalization and modernity Modes of ‘staging’ nationalist narratives in Olympic mega-events Communication of tensions between cosmopolitanism and nationalism Prioritisation of racialised and gendered conceptions of national uniqueness (history, traditions)

Crafting an Allegorical Imperative - 1 Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism as interlocked spheres • • 1. 2. Nationalist expressions in contrast to: Principles of Olympism, especially De Coubertin’s liberal internationalist vision Joint IOC and UN human rights agenda in sportsrelated development programmes. Cosmopolitan clashes on two levels: Global sphere of responsibility: nationalist rivalries and terrorist threat National sphere of responsibility: human rights violations (displacement of populations, housing issues, press censorship)

Crafting an Allegorical Imperative - 2 Nationalism and cosmopolitanism as interlocked spheres • National hierarchies of value: • Symbolic impact of hegemonic narratives of national pageantry on national self ‘culture’ strategically pluralized to -narration: pedagogy and produce a ‘public face’ for the performativity (catharsis) ‘nation’(multiculturalism, ethnic tolerance) • But universalist premise for art’s didactic potential • Global hierarchies of value: dismisses the seculardebating colonial legacies of contextual nature of Europe and nation’s place in nationalism world history (as racialized and gendered agent)

Crafting an Allegorical Imperative - 3 What ‘allegorical imperative’? Kantian categorical imperative (Moralität) guides the IOC’s discursive mantra of universal morality (togetherness, peace, fair play and athletic excellence – Olympic Charter) Host nation’s allegorical imperative (excellent delivery, efficiency, impeccable public image built at the expense of internal difference) as situational ethics Post-Enlightenment anthropopoesis (Smith 2007): the making (poìesis) of ànthropos (àno=up and thrõskõ=speculate, stare)

Crafting an Allegorical Imperative - 3 What ‘allegorical imperative’? • Allegories as community orations (agorévõ from agorà as the ancient market) that take place elsewhere (alloú) • Public speech (universal morality) with private meaning (national realities) formed through intercultural encounters • ‘Allegory’ section of Athens 2004 opening ceremony: mourning the burden of Hellenic heritage for modern Greece • How does Beijing fit into this model? Deconstructing Hellenic heritage (ancient statue, symbol of white European origins)

Beijing 2008’s allegorical imperative • Constructed through technological innovations: spectacular ceremonies and architectural makeup of Beijing and other Chinese cities-venues (allegory as aim, technology as medium) • Outcome: a ‘social poetics’ of identity, a response to geopolitical constraints imposed on Chinese ‘nation’ by a powerful ‘Occident’ in the past • Style: techno-cultural venture communicating a form of ressentiment against imagined or real enemies that obstruct national growth and global recognition

Beijing 2008’s allegorical imperative From symmetry to complemetarity to constitutition National public sphere Global public sphere • Representing Chinese • Gendered and racialized nationalism as subrepresentations of China systemic violence: by West (Orientalism) as ‘mastering’ of ethnic systemic violence: difference through urban Olympic project as plan of planning, ‘mastering’ of national growth femininity through role allocations STYLE-PRODUCT Semi-religious narrative of redemption from Orientalist hell

Beijing’s allegorical imperative Architecture and ritual • Tied to the Chinese culinary tradition: ‘thin’ cosmopolitanism of ‘travelling cultures’ • Tied to ‘nature’: ‘nest’ alludes as non-Western ‘domestic hearth’ of Europe • Tied to the Eurocentric tradition of Olympism: myth of civilisational origins • China’s brand of ‘high culture’ enacting ‘clash of civilisations’ (akin to Munich 1972 style)

Beijing’s allegorical imperative Architecture and ritual • Yi Mou Zang’s House of Flying Daggers (2004) casting the communist China as a global martyr • Designed by the Swiss Herzg & De Meuron, but ideas belong to Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei • Bird’s Nest (New China) spatially juxtaposed to Tianan’men Square (Old China) • Shape of the stadium: ‘a yearning for the rule of reason, but not without passion and dynamism – wanting to show that the head and the heart coexist’

Beijing’s allegorical imperative Gendered and ethnocultural hierarchies • National anthem sang by • Children in ethnic young schoolgirl dressed costumes as China’s 56 in bright red : ‘New minority groups carried China’ was thus the flag to the ‘New represented as femine, China’ but handed it over puerile and in need of to the soldiers, not to her: instruction by spatial distance as masculinised Confucian ethnicised social distance (past) wisdom PERIPHERY CENTRE POWER SUBORDINATION Arrival of national flag (allegorical imperative)

Beijing’s allegorical imperative Gendered and ethnocultural hierarchies • Handover of Olympic • Flag handed over to representatives of the flag by veteran athletes People’s Liberation Army of 1950 s generation (age-gender axis of social erasing discrimination hierarchy) against women & • Ceremony granted with ethnic groups narrative symmetry: beginning reflects end Arrival of Olympic flag (categorical imperative)

Beijing’s allegorical imperative Gendered and ethnocultural hierarchies • Olympic Flame by first Olympic gold medallist Xu Haifeng (Los Angeles, 1984): self-trained athlete of working class background (b. Fujian) Relocation of working class to centre of ‘nation’ SOLDIER (MASCULINITY) • Li Ning (Los Angeles, 1984) b. in Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang, one of the 5 autonomous regions of China (southern border of China-Vietnam) Relocation of border to centre of ‘nation’ ARTIST (FEMINITY)

Beijing’s allegorical imperative RESSENTIMENT • Invention of gunpower • Giant scroll and calligraphy • Seven Journeys of Admiral Zheng He (1371 -1433) across the Indian Ocean - but his Muslim identity was erased • Invention of compass • Invention of kite Seven Journeys

Beijing’s allegorical imperative COSMOPOLITAN TOGETHERNESS • • • ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS‘Martial Arts’ section (Tai Chi) reference to nature (8 anagrams of thunder, water, fire and so forth) and culture (combination of the masculine with the feminine) HUMANITARIAN CRISIS Professional section of ceremony opening with 9 -year old female survivor from the Sichuan earthquake presenting the new Chinese ‘face’ both as feminine and ethnically diverse. COSMOPOLITAN SCROLL Created by world athletes (carpet of opening ceremony)

Beijing’s allegorical imperative COSMOPOLITAN TOGETHERNESS • OLYMPIC TORCH: ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’ • TERRORIST THREAT Chinese men forming a cordon around the London 2012 performers - reminder of necessity for global cooperation against the risk of terrorist threat