The sporting scramble for Africa: GANEFO, the IOC and the 1965 African Games

Abstract

This article proposes to examine the 1965 African Games in the context of the ideological struggle between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Games of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO). I contend that the rise of GANEFO should be understood in the context of the Third World movement, and that it was a legitimate challenger to the Olympic movement in Africa. The IOC, faced with this threat, negotiated its sponsorship of the African Games according to what has been described as ‘amoral universalism’, ignoring its own rules and regulations in order to co-opt African states into the Olympic movement and maintain its dominant position in world sport.

Notes

¹ The Avery Brundage Collection is a complete microfilm archive of the personal papers of Avery Brundage, the president of the IOC from 1952 to 1972.

² In Alfred Senn's otherwise excellent Power, Politics, and the Olympic Games, GANEFO is discussed only briefly, and never outside the context of IOC–Indonesian or IOC–Chinese relations. Guttmann, in The Olympics, portrays GANEFO as direct result of the IOC's squabble with Indonesia and China with no mention of any external political factors. Other works, such as Hill's Olympic Politics, make no mention of GANEFO at all.

³ Lutan and Hong, ‘The Politicization of Sport’.

⁴ Sauvy, ‘Document’.

⁵ See Said, Orientalism; Pletsch, ‘The Three Worlds’; Bhabha, The Location of Culture; Derlik, ‘Spectres of the Third World’.

⁶ Malley, The Call From Algeria, 3.

⁷ Malley, The Call From Algeria, 3.

⁸ Attendees included Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Ho Chi Minh of North Vietnam, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Zhou Enlai from the People's Republic of China and Kwame Nkrumah, the forceful and eloquent exponent of Pan-Africanism from Britain's Gold Coast colony.

⁹ Berger, After the Third World, 11.

¹⁰ Kahin, The Asian–African Conference, 76–80.

¹¹ Kahin, The Asian–African Conference, 84.

¹² Malley was raised in the culture of Third Worldism; his father, the controversial journalist Simon Malley, is now recognized as an important figure in the heyday of the Third World.

¹³ Berger, ‘After the Third World?’, 34.

¹⁴ ‘Jakarta Prepares’.

¹⁵ Associated Press, ‘Sukarno's Motive Is Seen As Plan for Rival to UN’, 1.

¹⁶ Senn, Power, 131.

¹⁷ Lutan and Hong, GANEFO, 433.

¹⁸ Delegations from outside the Third World included those from France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland and the Soviet Union.

¹⁹ GANEFO did not enforce a similar rule, and indeed former Olympic athletes were among the participants at the first GANEFO Games.

²⁰ The United Arab Republic was a short lived union between Egypt and Syria, its existence a testament to the salience of Third Worldist ideals.

²¹ ‘Sukarno, Maladi Discuss GANEFO’; Avery Brundage Collection, 1908–1975 (hereafter cited as ABC).

²² Auger, ‘The African Games’, 18.

²³ Auger, ‘The African Games’, 20.

²⁴ ‘The Failure of the First African Games, in 1929’. The Olympic movement's apolitical nature is a myth that has been debunked in many sources. For example, see Hoberman, The Olympic Crisis.

²⁵ For example, the NOC of Tanganyika (now Tanzania) was approved a mere two months after it had first made contact with the IOC; six months later, the IOC discovered that no Tanganyikan sport federations were actually affiliated to ISFs. See Otto Mayer to Avery Brundage, December 17, 1958, ABC, Box 116, Reel 63.

²⁶ Keohane and Nye, Transnational Relations and World Politics, xi.

²⁷ Huntington, ‘Transnational Organizations in World Politics’, 198.

²⁸ Huntington, ‘Transnational Organizations in World Politics’, 200.

²⁹ Shaw and Shaw, ‘Sport as Transnational Politics’; Kanin, ‘The Olympic System’; Macintosh and Hawes, ‘The IOC and the World of Interdependence’; Macintosh, Cantelon, and McDermott, ‘The IOC and South Africa’; Cantelon and Letters, ‘The Making of the IOC Environmental Policy’.

³⁰ Macintosh, Cantelon, and McDermott, ‘The IOC and South Africa’, 374.

³¹ Macintosh, Cantelon, and McDermott, ‘The IOC and South Africa’, 375.

³² Ali Omar Scego to International Olympic Committee, April 5, 1960, ABC, Box 116, Reel 63.

³³ Chappell and Seifu, ‘Sport, Culture and Politics in Ethiopia’, 40.

³⁴ Hoberman, The Olympic Crisis, 29.

³⁵ Senn, Power, 135–6.

³⁶ Kidane, ‘The IOC and the African Games’, 41.

³⁷ A.D. Touny to Avery Brundage, August 24, 1963, ABC Box 64, Reel 38.

³⁸ Otto Mayer to A.D. Touny, December 13, 1963, ABC Box 64, Reel 38.

³⁹ ‘Un curieux personnage’, Otto Mayer to Avery Brundage, no date specified, ABC, Box 196, Reel 113.

⁴⁰ M. Herzog to Avery Brundage, April 9, 1964, ABC Box 64, Reel 38.

⁴¹ Otto Mayer to A.D. Touny (blind copy to Avery Brundage and Marquis of Exeter), December 13, 1963, ABC Box 64, Reel 38.

⁴² Avery Brundage to Marquis of Exeter, January 28, 1965, ABC, Box 55, Reel 33.

⁴³ Avery Brundage to Marquis of Exeter, November 28, 1964, ABC, Box 55, Reel 33.

⁴⁴ Myriam Meuwly to Avery Brundage, November 23, 1964, ABC, Box 196, Reel 113.

⁴⁵ Myriam Meuwly to Avery Brundage, November 23, 1964, ABC, Box 196, Reel 113.

⁴⁶ Guttmann, The Olympics, 80.

⁴⁷ Senn, Power, 133.

⁴⁸ Otto Mayer to Avery Brundage, September 8, 1965, ABC, Box 196, Reel 113.

⁴⁹ Otto Mayer to Avery Brundage, September 8, 1965, ABC, Box 196, Reel 113

⁵⁰ Otto Mayer to Avery Brundage, September 8, 1965, ABC, Box 196, Reel 113

⁵¹ Otto Mayer to Avery Brundage, September 8, 1965, ABC, Box 196, Reel 113

⁵² ‘Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board’, Lausanne, March 2–3, 1962, 157, ICOSA.

⁵³ ‘Africa is Awakening’, 56.

⁵⁴ ‘Africa is Awakening’, 56

⁵⁵ Otto Mayer to Avery Brundage, September 8, 1965, ABC, Box 196, Reel 113.

⁵⁶ Otto Mayer to Avery Brundage, September 8, 1965, ABC, Box 196, Reel 113

⁵⁷ Marquis of Exeter to Jean-Claude Ganga, July 24, 1964, ABC, Box 196, Reel 113.

⁵⁸ Marquis of Exeter to Avery Brundage, January 21, 1965, ABC, Box 55, Reel 33.

⁵⁹ ‘Extrait du Bulletin “Agence Congolaise d'Information”’, October 23, 1964, ABC, Box 196, Reel 113.

⁶⁰ ‘Extrait du Bulletin “Agence Congolaise d'Information”’, October 23, 1964, ABC, Box 196, Reel 113

⁶¹ ‘The 1^st African Games (as known to and regarding the International Olympic Committee)’, November 22, 1964, ABC, Box 196, Reel 113.

⁶² ‘The 1^st African Games (as known to and regarding the International Olympic Committee)’, November 22, 1964, ABC, Box 196, Reel 113

⁶³ ‘The 1^st African Games (as known to and regarding the International Olympic Committee)’, November 22, 1964, ABC, Box 196, Reel 113

⁶⁴ ‘The 1^st African Games (as known to and regarding the International Olympic Committee)’, November 22, 1964, ABC, Box 196, Reel 113

⁶⁵ Avery Brundage to Marquis of Exeter, November 28, 1964, ABC, Box 55, Reel 33. Brackets mine.

⁶⁶ Avery Brundage to Marquis of Exeter, January 7, 1965, ABC, Box 55, Reel 33.

⁶⁷ Marquis of Exeter to Avery Brundage, December 7, 1964, ABC, Box 196, Reel 113.

⁶⁸ Marquis of Exeter to Avery Brundage, December 7, 1964, ABC, Box 196, Reel 113

⁶⁹ Marquis of Exeter to Avery Brundage, February 12, 1965, ABC, Box 55, Reel 33.

⁷⁰ Killanin's fact-finding mission improbably found no evidence of racial discrimination in African sport. Senn, Power, 135–6.

⁷¹ Avery Brundage to Marquis of Exeter, November 28, 1964, ABC, Box 55, Reel 33.