End of an Era - On the Death of Queen Elizabeth - by Thomas Seidel

German version

To many people today, monarchies appear as something antiquated, fairytale-like, at best constantly entertaining. What an important unifying and symbolic function monarchs can have, and sometimes even must have, for a nation is generally gladly overlooked. This is less true of the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. But it is certainly true of Spain, it is true of Belgium and, above all, it is true of Britain. No one in our lifetime has embodied this better than the Queen of England, Scotland and Wales Elizabeth the Second.

However the crown fell on her head at a young age, Elizabeth II wore it from then on and until her death in full awareness of her duties and always with dignity. Her special charm may have been that, at least in public, she never allowed herself to be bent by any adversity, by any misfortune, or by any impropriety. She was the queen par excellence, the standard, the model and the symbol for a whole nation and for several generations.

One hardly thinks about the high price she personally had to pay for this task in her long life. Without the chance of a longer young life at the side of her omnipresent husband Philip, to whom she was married for over 73 years until his death in April 2021, she ascended the throne at the age of only 26 after the sudden death of her father King George VI and from then on had to be Queen first and foremost. Fulfilling this difficult task with dignity every day anew must have cost her an unimaginable amount of self-control and iron discipline. 

The timing did not make it easy for her. Of the children, the boys in particular have repeatedly been bitter disappointments for her. Only her daughter Anne behaves according to her status. The more than one hundred years of life of her mother (Queen Mum) Elizabeth Angela Bowes-Lyon certainly contributed to the preservation of a long-gone 19th century notion of monarchical rule until her death. So, in the end, Queen Elizabeth could not really modernise the royal house of the Windsors, or Mountbatten-Windsors. 

Queen Elizabeth II has seen a total of 15 prime ministers come and go. Among them were pretentious ones such as Winston Churchill, who delayed her coronation by a year; failed ones such as Clement Attlee (1945-1951), John Major (1990-1997), Gordon Brown (2007-2010), Theresa May (2016-2019) and most recently, until two days before her death, Boris Johnson (2019-2022); and successful ones such as Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990) and Tony Blair (1997-2007). Whoever ruled the country politically Queen Elizabeth stayed and held fast to her core beliefs. This achievement should not be underestimated, for Britain is anything but a united motherland.

It is already a historical oddity. Two queens Elizabeth  respectively mark the rise and fall of English and later British rule. Few know that Elizabeth I, always politically pressed to the utmost, after the successful piracies of her minions Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake raised enough capital, it was she who conceded and legitimised the beginnings of the East Indies business. This once gave rise to the British Empire, a nostalgia of which Brexiteers still dream so fondly today. For Elizabeth II, all that remained was to accompany, bit by bit and piece by piece, the demise of what was once British world domination. In her era, Britain shrank back to what it once was, a barren country on the extreme western edge of Europe. Not even a few nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers help. It was Queen Elizabeth II's special work to make this truth a little more comfortable for her countrymen. She was the very staple of the United Kingdom, the bearer of the crowns of England and Scotland. As such she will be remembered forever.

Picture credits: Queen Elizabeth II

Source: google, merkur.de

The Olympic idea has finally ruined its course -by Thomas Seidel-

German version

Entzündung des Olympischen Feuer im Hera Tempel Griechenland
Source: Deutschlandfunknova

The idealistically splendid idea of the Olympic Games of the modern era by its founder Pierre de Coubertin was: "the youth of the world should compete in sporting contests and not fight each other on the battlefields". So far so good. Nevertheless, wars have been fought since 1896, and the worst the world has ever seen. So using sport as a means of international understanding has never worked. But once again, commercial greed has finally killed the Olympic idea. After Beijing 2021/2022, the Olympic idea and honour will be gone forever.

If one were to consistently translate the results of Olympic sporting competitions into concrete policy today, e.g. according to the eternal medal table of the Summer Games, the spheres of power in the world would essentially have to be divided among the following five nations: USA, 37%; Russia, 23%; Germany, 19%; United Kingdom, 13%; and China, 9%. In terms of population, Germany would even be in first place, but that's just by the way. China's arithmetically small share is certainly due to special political circumstances, such as the long absence of China from Olympic participation in the first place. In relation to the population's share of the Olympic medal haul, however, China's status is pitifully small. China's political leadership is painfully aware of these correlations and will do everything in Beijing to change these circumstances in China's favour in future. However, such mind games already clearly show one of the negative developments with regard to the Olympic idea.

Nevertheless, the Olympic Games were a reasonably honourable affair for a long time, apart from the propaganda events of the Nazis in 1936. The "purity" of the Olympic idea initially depended less on the status of the competing participants as amateurs or professional athletes, nor on the political situations of the host countries, but primarily on the rejection of sponsors by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The American Avery Brundage, IOC President from 1952 to 1972, was still authoritarian in his opposition to any kind of commercialisation of the Olympic Games. But with Juan Antonio Samaranch y Torello, IOC President from 1980 to 2001, all the dams broke. Amateur status was abolished and by allowing sponsors, the Olympic Games were finally commercialised and thus also immediately corrupted. The athletes became cannon fodder for officials, sponsors, unscrupulous doctors, media and politicians. Their physical well-being, damaged and desecrated above all by doping, has since been sacrificed at all events on the altar of supposed records, fame and honour but above all lucrative profits. 

The IOC President in office since 2013 is the German Thomas Bach. A former fencer and thus an athlete in a sport that has always been about honour. He has not been able to put an end to these goings-on. Under his leadership, the IOC has repeatedly bowed to obscure political pressure with regard to venues, the type of event, the time of the event and changes to the rules. That a German, of all people, is responsible for this development is a bitter pill to swallow for what is actually the most successful Olympic team in the world in the long term.

The Olympic idea has finally ruined its course. The Olympics have become nothing but dubious. Doubtful in how decisions are made, doubtful in how the Games are conducted, doubtful in how the athletes' performances are fairly evaluated. Participating in the Olympic Games in the future may bring in some fame for a while, but the glory of participation is long gone.