SPORT AND PATRIOTISM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 100, 1 May 1933, Page 6

SPORT AND PATRIOTISM.

THE EXCLUSION OF PRENN. e 5 (From Our Sydney Correspondent.) ;, The trouble that has recently come to a head n in Germany, and more especially the exclusion of I Prenn from the Davis Cup team because he is - a Jew, is likely to make considerable difference to the prospects of athleticism in that country and throughout the world. It seems doubtful whether Australian or British teams will, under P existing circumstances, agree to meet the German e players, and it seems certain that if the Hitler b autocracy maintains its present attitude towards 3 everybody whom the Germans do not recognise ] as of "Nordic" descent, there will be no Olympic a Games at Berlin in 1936. Intimations to that . effect are already forthcoming from Britain and f America. This is all very unfortunate, but it r draws attention to the fact that with the Germans, whatever we may. think of their views or the way in which they are expressed, national and patriotic claims outweigh every other con- . sideration. j The English-speaking nations are so well I accustomed to regarding athletic sport as of para- . mount public importance that any. form of national policy that might interfere seriously ,' with cricket and football in Britain and Australia

—or baseball and golf in America—would soon '■ find itself extremely unpopular. Yet there are nations which, though they take an active interest in athletics, do not look at them in quite the same way as ourselves. It is significant that just at tlie moment when the Germans have to consider the possibility of resigning their celebration of the Olympic Games for the sake of public policy, thousands of Japanese University students have petitioned the German athletic organisations to withdraw from the Olympic celebrations to which Berlin is entitled in 193G—on the ground that in these stirring times young men are better occupied in national service and patriotic duty than in athletic training. It is a striking fact that this admonition should come from the people who in their aggressive and patriotic imperialism most closely resemble the Germans themselves; and we may regard it if we please cither as a rebuke or a warning. There is another illustration of the same spirit to be found of an even more disquieting and ominous kind. In July this year at Moscow will be held a "Sportakiade"—an "anti-Olympic" meeting—organised to show the Russian nation and the world how athletics can be made to serve the cause of national policy. The primary purpose of this meeting is to counteract the effect of the Olympic Games, which the Bolsheviks, with their unerring instinct for "capitalist" intrigue, have denounced most bitterly. Not long ago Antinov, the president of the "Sporturteon," or national athletic organisation, declared that the Olympic gathering at Los Angeles last year represented "36,000,000 bourgeois under the influence of French imperialism." The Sportakiade at Moscow is to be something quite different. It is to be a rallying point for Bolshevism within the country and for foreign Communists as well. All revolutionary organisations throughout the world are to co-operate in preparing at least 300,000 foreign sportsmen to pass an examination entitling them to a certificate known as "Ready for Class War" in time for the great meeting at Moscow in July. At the same time, 2,000,000 Russian athletes are to be trained to win a similar certificate—"Ready for Labour and Defence." For this qualification the Russians must train their minds as well as their bodies — for the tests include not only sprinting 100 metres and throwing hand grenades, but reciting portions of the "Red Catechism" as well! It is easy to laugh at such extravagances, but it would be a mistake to ignore or misunderstand them. For it is clear that there are to-day three powerful States which understand the value of athletics but which are fully determined that athletics shall bo subordinate in all ways to the interests and the policy of the nation.