The Olympics have been a source of strife lately for many people. People are upset about how the Olympics are prejudice to poor people, and how they cost so much and not being a good use of money.
So here is an idea off the top of my head. Forgive me for not thinking out the logistics of it all, but I’m allowed to dream so let me be.
What if the summer Olympics had a permanent location, and that location was Haiti. I think we are at about the point where the Western world owes some poorer countries that we’ve oppressed could use some favour coming their way. Hosting the Olympics would mean massive amounts of infrastructure upgrades for their major cities and would be a major source of employment for all kinds of Haitians. The western countries, who are all bidding to bring the Olympics to their countries could all pitch in large sums of money to benefit the Haitian people and have an excellent permanent facility for the games every four years.
Each country would get a certain amount of ticket allocated every four years and that many people from their country could come. It could also be used as an international training facility for the other 3 years and 50 weeks, which would mean you would have to keep employing Haitians all year long. Basically, Haiti’s export market would be the Olympics.
It will never happen. Countries are all too prideful and want to show off their sites and spend billions of dollars on flashy opening ceremonies and HD camera shots of their tourist sites. They wouldn’t want to throw any real money at benefiting and uplifting another country out of debt when they don’t stand to directly benefit from it (ie. we will give them our rice really cheap so we don’t have to buy their rice from their markets).
Find the poorest cold country in the world and do the same for the winter Olympics. Permanent location. I think it has potential. That’s my idea before I go to bed.
Although the idea of a permanent location for both Olympics makes a lot of sense, I’m afraid it better be in two very rich countries.
If you tried it in Haiti, I expect the poor wouldn’t see much of the spinoff, they would probably be shuffled around and have even less coming to them in the way of housing, etc. (kind of like, oh, I don’t know–maybe, umm, Vancouver?)
Continuing to think in a dismal, pessimistic vein, I can just imagine the infrastructure that would be built–fantastic sports venues and high-end tourist accommodations, and that would be about it. The big corporations would still be grabbing more than their share of the pie, and rather than leaving most of the $$ in the country, they would siphon it off back home–kind of like what happened in Haiti in the past.
But I admire your hope for something better for Haiti, and more than that–you are actually doing something there, which is better than I am doing.
Although I may not agree with your premise, I do applaud your hope and faith for better things for Haiti. It is that kind of optimism that will accomplish a lot more than my pessimism.
So I’ll just shut up now.
you’re brilliant Nathan.. you should be speaking at TED.