It’s a shame to further bust the “global community” myth of the Olympic Games–but bust I must. Ali Al-Ahmed has a piece in the Herald Tribune on how the International Olympic Committee is violating its charter by allowing Muslim nations such as Saudi Arabia and Iran to send to teams to the Games.

How so? The charter states that “any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, sex or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.”

But countries like the two named above, which limit or ban the participation of women on their teams, are slated to compete in Beijing. It’s worth noting that it’s not merely sports participation from which these women are banned. When the Saudi team comes to China, you can be sure that the Kingdom’s frustrated female athletes will be among the least traumatized women in Saudi society. On the basis of gender, other Saudi women will be prohibited from obtaining basic medical treatment.

You can practically hear the cognitive dissonance of the multi-culti crowd. If accepting others is good and rejecting others is bad, what’s accepting those who reject others?

Why, it’s the way of most international bodies, of course. It’s hard to imagine an enterprise that can’t be degraded by sticking the word international before it. Once you are international, you are subject to all the whims of the international community. According to Al Ahmed, various NGO’s have been pressuring the International Olympic Committee about women’s rights for years, and there has been slow progress. But, as he writes,

[i]f the IOC is pressed to live up to its own standards, the London Games in 2012 should witness the celebration of female Olympians from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Iran and other Muslim countries.