Remembering the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre

During the summer of 1972, I was among the youngest athletes chosen by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to run the Olympic Torch relays throughout Turkey. Originating in Greece and bound for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany, it was one of the most anticipated events of the year.

I vividly remember the Munich Massacre during that same summer, just a few short weeks after I had carried the Olympic torch with my fellow runners, first from the Greek border to Istanbul, then on to the Bulgarian border. On the gloomy days of Sept. 5 and 6, 1972, stunned and silent, the entire world learned that 11 members of the Israeli Olympic Team were taken hostage at the Olympic Village in Munich. The world soon learned how, due to inadequate actions taken by the authorities, all of them were brutally murdered by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September. Indeed, it was the most publicly painful and tragically premeditated mass murder associated with the world of sport. It was also the initiation of a new barbaric objective — an appalling event that assassinated our trust in civilized society and accelerated the enterprise of international terrorism we all currently face.

Today, more so than ever, I find myself emotionally and historically connected to that tragedy. I feel the peaceful sanctuary of the Olympic Games was forever altered in 1972.  Forty years later at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, the level of security was extreme. Yet, once again, the IOC refused to commemorate the Munich tragedy by not allowing just one minute of silence. It is not a matter of what Baron Pierre De Coubertin, the founder of the IOC and considered the father of the modern Olympics, would have thought about it or that it would have made any significant difference in the lives of the widows and orphans of the murdered Olympians. Rather, it is how the IOC, claiming to be an apolitical organization, is actually making political calculations instead of reiterating the core values of the Olympic Games. It is the IOC not having the courage to stand up for what is right, fearing the possibility of alienating a small block of nations and tyrannical regimes. In 2012, as the IOC did not voice the “united we stand against international terrorism” mantra and declined to face the human condition in the world, there was extraordinary hypocrisy in the air and we all smelled it.

For those of us who believe in the goodness of humanity, we say Peace/Shalom/Salaam and start anew. Yet how can we learn and grow if we ignore the horrific tragedy of the 1972 Summer Olympic Games and negate the human suffering that international terrorism has brought to our daily lives now, here in 2016?

Yes, four years ago London hosted a splendid Olympic Games.  However, in the quest for universal friendship and harmony, the IOC has continued to betray the true guardianship responsibilities with which it was entrusted by previous generations. Exhibiting inconsistencies, the IOC has failed to show a sense of responsibility vis-à-vis historical facts as well as a genuine capacity to make courageous and necessary decisions. Now, 44 years after the 1972 Munich Massacre, we are all looking forward to the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio and to seeing if this time around the IOC will do the right thing. 

Elie Franco is a former film reviewer based in Los Angeles. He currently has numerous TV and film projects in various stages of development.