Robyn Schwarz-Pimer Understanding Olympism Through Trauma: 9/11 and the 2002 Salt Lake City Opening Ceremony Robyn Schwarz-Pimer Western University, Canada

This paper seeks to address the IOC decision to allow for the inclusion of the American flag from the World Trade Center in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Opening Ceremony. A New York Times article published on February 5th stated that the United States Olympic Committee request to have its athletes carry in the tattered flag was rejected by the IOC as “it would seem too political.” Yet, the IOC still allowed the flag, a symbol of America’s post-9/11 cultural narrative, to fly in place of the host country’s flag on the night of the ceremony. This decision can be used to better understand the way in which Olympic ceremonies allow for the advancement of a country’s national narrative in the international community. Utilizing trauma theory, it is evident that the World Trade Center flag embodies the War on Terror’s dominance in America’s post-9/11 cultural narrative. September 11th, 2001 seemingly took place in a cultural vacuum, and can therefore be defined as “trauma” for the United States because it was an event that could not be fully experienced at the time. As Mitt Romney stated in an interview leading up to the opening of the games, these Olympics took on new meaning for the United States after 9/11. The way in which the flag was slowly carried out to the swelling of the American national anthem during the opening ceremony demonstrates both the resolve of the American people and the integration of the War on Terror narrative into all aspects of American life. The IOC can justify the inclusion of such a political symbol because of Olympism’s fluid definition. Trauma theory ultimately demonstrates that including the 9/11 flag in the ceremony was an accurate depiction of American culture at the time.

❖ Introduction On February 8, 2002, the world watched as eight Americans carrying a flag entered Rice-Eccles Olympic Stadium. An announcer stated, “the American flag that flew at the World Trade Center on September 11 [was] being carried into the stadium,” and the world was invited to mourn the deaths of September 11.1 One minute of silence followed, and then the Utah Symphony Orchestra and the Mormon Tabernacle choir quietly began to perform The Star Spangled Banner. The music swelled as the song entered its conclusion; a moment of triumph for the American people. The Child of Light, carrying a dimly lit lantern across the frozen landscape then emerged on to the ice. The child battled through a winter storm before finding The Fire Within to overcome this adversity.2 This was the image 89

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that the United States presented to the world, a demonstration that it had also found The Fire Within in the wake of 9/11. This was the Opening Ceremony of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games. Taking place five months after the September 11 terrorist attacks, America’s eighth Olympic Games seemed to demonstrate the triumph of the American spirit for the American people and the world. Yet the impact of 9/11 on American culture was an ongoing process, one that can be better understood through the inclusion of the flag from ground zero in this opening ceremony. In this paper, I analyze the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision to allow the World Trade Center flag to be a central part of the Salt Lake City Opening Ceremony. Applying trauma theory to this decision demonstrates that 9/11 was still affecting every facet of the American experience. The paradoxical realities of Olympism, which fuses nationalism with universal understanding, allowed the United States to project this trauma into the international sphere. The World Trade Center flag from the September 11 terrorist attacks came to symbolize the evolving trauma of the American War on Terror narrative and commemorate the tragedy of 9/11, and its inclusion in the Salt Lake City Olympics represents the projection and global acceptance of this narrative.

Questioning Salt Lake City After 9/11 Leading up to the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, there were questions within the United States and from the international community around the existence of the Games in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Members of the Utah Olympic Public Safety Command had an executive meeting on September 12, 2001, to discuss changes to their approach to security for the 2002 Winter Games.3 They reassured the public that the Games would continue despite the recent terrorist attacks. Yet within Salt Lake City, residents were nervous that the Olympics could be the target of another terrorist threat.4 Internationally, countries affirmed their desire to attend the Games under the heightened risk of terrorism. Canadian hockey legend and executive director of the Canadian national men’s hockey team, Wayne Gretzky, reported to the Montreal Gazette on October 11 that Team Canada’s management “had a conference call Monday and [they] started to discuss the situation,” but that the possibility of terrorism should not stop Team Canada from participating in the Olympics.5 Fear clearly surrounded the Games, increasing the security budget from $265 million to $300 million, which was almost three times the amount allocated for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.6 It seemed as though the United States and the world were ready for an Olympics dictated by the legacy of 9/11. The IOC and the international community, however, questioned the inclusion of the World Trade Center (WTC) flag from September 11 in the Salt Lake City Opening Ceremony. The controversy around the presence of the flag was expressed in The New York Times in the days leading up to the opening of the Games. The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) wanted the flag to be carried into the Opening Ceremony by the American athletes during the parade of nations, but the IOC rejected the request because of its political symbolism.7 The USOC and the IOC reached a compromise: American athletes, joined by an honour guard of police officers and firefighters, could carry the flag into the ceremony in a “solemn, dignified entrance.”8 Yet press around the world expressed fears that this was going to be “the most jingoistic Olympic opener since the Berlin Games.”9 Why then, did the IOC reverse its initial decision to refuse the USOC request that the flag be included in the Salt Lake City Opening Ceremony? The hesitancy to allow host countries to utilize the Games to commemorate events that might be politically controversial was overturned to allow the WTC flag a place

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in the Winter Olympics. Olympic scholarship first needs to be considered to understand why this IOC decision was reversed.

Olympism and Trauma The Opening Ceremonies of various Olympics express the fluidity of Olympism’s definition and its contradictions. The core values of the Olympic movement promote international understanding through sport.10 Despite this moral stance, the Opening Ceremony has evolved into a stage for the host nation to display its cultural narrative in a way that advances its own national interests rather than the interests of the Olympic movement. Philip D’Agati argues that the Olympics have become a stage for performing nationalism.11 The first Olympics in which this became apparent was the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Nazi Germany fabricated the Opening Ceremony to demonstrate the power of Germany’s reconstructed state and the supremacy of the German people.12 The structure of the ceremony has changed overtime as the Olympics have evolved, but it continues to be a platform for nationalistic displays. The structure of the Olympic Opening Ceremony facilitates displays of blatant nationalism by encouraging host countries to share the best of their culture with the world. Alan Tomlinson observes that the pageantry of the Opening Ceremony at the Calgary, Seoul, Albertville, and Barcelona Olympic Games served to advance the host nation’s interests rather than promote Olympic ideals.13 The Olympic Opening Ceremony is more about self-promotion rather than international understanding. The IOC’s decision to allow the WTC flag to be a part of the Salt Lake City Olympics appears less controversial when it is understood that these ceremonies have always allowed countries to construct national culture in a way that develops their international interests. The WTC flag decision stands out from past political displays at Olympic Opening Ceremonies because of the trauma surrounding the events of September 11, 2001. Trauma theory can be used to better understand the evolution of American culture during this period; 9/11 signifies a schism in the American cultural narrative. There was no gestation period for the War on Terror. Unlike American entrance into the Second World War, in which the United States was also attacked by an external aggressor, narratives of war were not being repeated in the public sphere prior to the events of September 11.14 The intellectual elites discussed the potential threat terrorists posed to the American way of life during the nineties, but it was not until after 9/11 that the War on Terror narrative was created.15 The events of September 11 were traumatic for the United States because they seemingly occurred in a cultural vacuum. Cathy Caruth defines trauma as a “distortion of reality” that cannot be “defined by the event itself.”16 Caruth states that a traumatic event cannot be “experienced fully at the time,” and that it is the repetition of the event that creates the trauma.17 9/11 trauma thereby created its own culture through this repetition, and the United States was coming to terms with these events at the time of the Olympic Games. The trauma of 9/11 was manufactured into the War on Terror through repetition by the President’s administration and the media. Jeffrey Malnick writes that 9/11 became its own language, such that the War on Terror had its “own vocabulary, grammar, and tonalities.”18 This narrative was repeated across the media and other social institutions by the nation’s most powerful symbolic actors. For instance, in addressing the nation on September 11, President George W. Bush stated that America’s “freedom came under attack” through the terrorist’s actions.19 This rhetoric was used to justify America’s response to September 11. War does not have to be the immediate or natural reaction to terrorism, but the rhetoric of the War on Terror manufactured this as the only logical response. Terrorism was structured in a way that elicited support for war from Americans.20 Fear was integrated into everyday life routines and

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became a central part of America’s national narrative.21 The 9/11 narrative functioned to create and maintain a sense of national identity through the construction of the terrorist as the “other.”22 The War on Terror narrative ultimately emphasized the “commonality of the victims rather than the cause or the rationale for the attacks,” which allowed for the inclusion of the WTC flag in the Salt Lake City Opening Ceremony.23 Three days before the Opening Ceremony, Salt Lake City Organizing Committee leader Mitt Romney, in a PBS interview, talked about the challenges of hosting the Games in a post 9/11 world. He explained the Olympics had a more profound meaning after 9/11 and that they now “affirmed civilization, affirmed humanity… and stood for everything that was the opposite of September 11.”24 Romney’s statement adds to the repetition of America’s post-9/11 trauma and demonstrates the way in which the ‘us’ versus ‘them’ dichotomy was applied to the 2002 Winter Games. The Salt Lake City Olympics were framed within the discourse of the War on Terror that was still being constructed in February 2002, as the United States prepared to enter the war in Afghanistan. It is important to acknowledge the role of the Olympic Games as an international competition for the United States in order to fully understand the significant impact this trauma narrative had on the Salt Lake City Olympics. Jackie Hogan and Michael Silk have analyzed the Salt Lake City Olympics from a domestic perspective, demonstrating that the Opening Ceremony was constructed to evoke feelings of nationalism and confidence from an American audience.25 Their analyses focus on what the Salt Lake City Olympics meant for Americans, while ignoring the international dimensions of the Olympics. Mark Dyreson’s analysis of the history of American involvement in the Olympics demonstrates that the United States views the Olympic Games primarily as a significant international sporting event. Dyreson states that American sporting passions such as baseball, football, and basketball are not constructed as international contests. These sports do not allow the United States to demonstrate its international superiority, and, therefore, the Olympics dominate the American media every two years because of their international appeal. Americans have turned the Olympics into “referendums on national prowess,” through which dominance in sport becomes a symbol for a nation’s overall strength.26 For the purposes of this paper, the framing of the Olympics as an international event allows for an exploration of how the United States used the Salt Lake City Opening Ceremony to project its post-9/11 narrative on to the world cultural stage as these Olympics were the first global gathering since the terrorist attacks. Any representation of American culture at the Olympics, even those that take place in the United States, clearly should be examined through an international lens.

The World Trade Center Flag as Traumatic Monument Understanding the IOC’s decision to allow the United States to include the WTC flag in the Salt Lake City Opening Ceremony ultimately rests in what the flag represents within the 9/11 trauma narrative. The American flag was a repeated symbol within this narrative to represent America’s resilience and freedom. An image of three fire fighters raising a flag at ground zero during the recovery effort on September 11 has become a defining image in American cultural memory.27 The flag that was recovered from the rubble of the WTC flew over the World Series, was featured during the national anthem at the 2002 Super Bowl, and was allowed a prominent spot at the Salt Lake City Winter Games. Thus, the WTC flag became a symbol of this traumatic discourse as well as a monument to those who had lost their lives in the 9/11 tragedy. Like the War on Terror narrative, the WTC flag was seemingly repeated within the media after the events of September 11. The way in which the flag was presented at the Opening Ceremony embodies the ‘us’ versus ‘them’ dichotomy. As the flag was carried out and The Star Spangled Banner swelled across the stadium, the symbolic message of the flag communicated to the world that the United States was still a strong

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country capable of recovery and vengeance against its enemies. The Salt Lake City Olympics created a stage through which America could translate their post 9/11 national narrative to the international community and garner support from their allies. The United States has long been accused of being overly nationalistic, but producer Don Mischer was conscious that the Opening Ceremony should be fabricated in a way that communicated with and included the rest of the world .28 The tribute was nationalistic, but it was constructed to internationalize remembrance. David Simpson argues that “memory and commemoration evolved from the start alongside revenge” in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy.29 This is particularly important to note within the context of the Olympic Games, especially in considering the IOC’s decision to allow the WTC flag to be a part of the Salt Lake City Opening Ceremony. The strength that the United States exhibited through its 9/11 tribute was an appeal to the international community. After the Opening Ceremony, news reports around the world expressed relief that the WTC flag was treated with dignity.30 The fear of the flag being jingoistic, as had been expressed in reports analyzing the IOC’s decision, was alleviated and the American interpretation of these events was accepted. The flag was accepted because it can also be viewed as a monument to the victims of the terrorist attack. The WTC flag, unlike the American cultural narrative after 9/11, is unchanging in its physical form. It is this physicality that allows it to project commemorative and symbolic meaning within the 9/11 trauma discourse. It can be overtly political, but it can also stand as a reminder of those who lost their lives in the 9/11 tragedy. Commemoration is an activity that looks backwards, yet trauma shows us that the events of 9/11 were still occurring when the Salt Lake City Games took place.

Conclusion The IOC decision to include the WTC flag in this Opening Ceremony can be rationalized as the flag is the perfect representation of American culture in this period. The WTC flag symbolized the changing American cultural narrative at the time of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games and acted as a monument to those who lost their lives in the 9/11 tragedy. Olympism’s contradictory definition allowed for the United States to use the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics to project its post-9/11 cultural narrative into the international sphere. It was ultimately the IOC that endorsed the WTC flag to be a part of the 2002 Opening Ceremony as a form of commemoration and a way of helping the international community better understand post-9/11 American culture. This paper has explored the way in which 9/11 impacted American culture and its links to the War on Terror narrative. This narrative was integrated into the Salt Lake City Opening Ceremony through the WTC flag, a symbol of the American struggle to comprehend the events of September 11, 2001. Despite the controversy around the IOC’s decision, Olympic Opening Ceremonies allow countries to present their culture in a way that advances international interests. The WTC flag, regardless of the jingoism associated with its origins, was a fitting tribute to the period in which these Olympics took place. The United States will continue to use the Olympics to advance its interests internationally. The United States needed to represent its culture to evoke empathy from the international community because 9/11 was still affecting every facet of the American experience.

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Endnotes 1

“The Star-Spangled Banner – Mormon Tabernacle Choir – Utah Symphony – 2002 Winter Olympics,” YouTube video, 3:42, posted by “PatrioticMusic,” 20 July 2010; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NgA-tPk_hU&feature=BFa&list=PLF6EB6159CA838706.

2

Light The Fire Within was the theme of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games. It was expressed through the Opening Ceremony by the Olympic Flame, a song sung by Leanne Rimes, and various performance pieces. For more information see: Lisa Riley Roche, “Opening Ceremony,” Olympic Review (April/May 2002), 23.

3

Derek Jensen, “Olympics Security Likely to Advance,” Deseret News, 12 September 2001; http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/hottopics/lnacademic/?verb=sr&csi=164282&sr=HEADLINE%28Olympics+security+likely+to+advance%29%2BAND%2BDATE%2BIS%2B2001.

4

Michael Janofsky, “In Home of Next Olympics, Some Residents Have Jitters,” The New York Times, 5 October 2001.

5

“Team Canada Will Be in Salt Lake: Gretzky,” Montreal Gazette, 11 October 2001.

6

Nicholas Wapshott, “Bush Pledges an Extra $27 Million to Ensure Safety at Winter Olympics,” The Times, 6 October 2001; https://global-factiva-com.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/ha/default.aspx#./!?&_suid=141187472112705365048652312174.

7

Kate Zernike and Selena Roberts, “Olympics: Olympic Balancing Act Over a Symbolic Flag,” The New York Times, 5 February 2002; http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/06/sports/olympics-olympic-balancing-act-over-a-symbolic-flag.html?scp=7&sq=olympics&st=nyt.

8

Larry Siddons, “In Compromise, Ground Zero Flag Will Be in Opening Ceremony,” Associate Press, 6 February 2001; https://global-factiva-com.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/ha/default.aspx#./!?&_suid=1411479745265038897233144726384

9

Chris Zelkovich, “You Had to Be There to Appreciate the Ceremonies,” Toronto Star, 6 February 2002.

10 IOC, Olympic Charter (Lausanne: IOC, 2011), 10; http://www.olympic.org/Documents/olympic_charter_en.pdf. 11 Philip A. D’Agati, Nationalism on the World Stage: Cultural Performance at the Olympic Games (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2011), 36. 12 Ibid, 24. 13 Alan Tomlinson, “Carrying the Torch for Whom? Symbolic Power and Olympic Ceremony,” in: The Olympics at the Millennium: Power, Politics, and the Games, eds. Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000), 172. 14 Melvin J. Dubnick, Dorothy F. Olshfski, and Kathe Callahan, “Aggressive Action: In Search of a Dominant Narrative,” in: The Impact of 9/11 on the Media, Arts, and Entertainment: The Day That Changed Everything?, ed. Mathew J. Morgan (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 9-10. 15 See: Samuel Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?,” Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3 (1992): 22-49; and “Rebuilding America’s Defenses.” Project for the New American Century, September 2000; http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf. 16 Cathy Caruth, “Trauma and Experience: Introduction,” in: Trauma: Explorations in Memory, ed. Cathy Caruth (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1995), 4-5. 17 Ibid. 18 Jeffrey Melnick, 9/11 Culture: American Under Construction (Chichester, West Sussex, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 6. 19 George W. Bush, "Address to the Nation on the Terrorist Attacks," The American Presidency Project, September 11, 2001; http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=58057. 20 Frank Breithaupt, “Rituals of Trauma: How the Media Fabricated September 11,” in: Media Representations of September 11, eds. Steven Chermak, Frankie K. Bailey, and Michelle Brown (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003), 67. 21 David L. Altheide, “Fear, Terrorism, and Popular Culture,” in: Refraiming 9/11: Film, Popular Culture, and the “War on Terror”, eds. Jeff Birkenstein, Anna Froula, and Karen Randell (New York: Continuum, 2010), 15. 22 Dubnick, Olshfski, and Callahan, “Aggressive Action: In Search of a Dominant Narrative,” 33. 23 David Simpson, 9/11: The Culture of Commemoration (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 6. 24 “From the Archives: Mitt Romney on 2002 Olympic Security,” YouTube video, 10:17, posted by “PBSNewsHour,” July 26, 2012; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru9iMQv8KhE&feature=player_embedded. 25 Jackie Hogan, Gender, Race, and National Identity: Nations of Flesh and Blood (New York: Routledge, 2009), 111-110; Michael L. Silk, The Cultural Politics of Post-9/11 American Sport: Pedagogy and the Popular (New York: Routledge, 2012), 41. 26 Mark Dyreson, Crafting Patriotism for Global Dominance: America at the Olympics (London: Routeledge, 2009), 1-2. 27 Phil Gast, “History Mystery: What Became of the Ground Zero Flag?” CNN, 4 September 2013; http://www.cnn.com/ 2013/09/04/us/the-flag-documentary.

Understanding Olympism Through Trauma: 9/11 and the 2002 Salt Lake City Opening 28 Zernike and Roberts, “Olympics: Olympic Balancing Act Over a Symbolic Flag.” 29 Simpson, 9/11: The Culture of Commemoration, 6. 30 Damian Whitworth, “Ground Zero Flag Paraded to Open Games,” The Times, 9 February 2002.

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