It's 776 BC. Bronzed and muscled, a Grecian athlete steps up to the altar of Hestia at Olympia. His strong arm extends out and lights a torch of flaxen wick glazed in a mixture of sacrificed ox fat and olive oil. The flame, stolen from the gods for the Greek people by Prometheus, begins its journey around the surrounding ancient regions of Ellis, Achaia, Arcadia and Argolis. Seen as a traveling message stick, it summoned competitors from villages and towns, informing them the time to test one’s limits and honour Zeus has come.

But don’t be fooled. The Olympic Torch relay is a fairly new concept in comparison to the Olympics’ estimated 2,784 year history. It was introduced by Führer Hitler (yes, that’s right) at the German Olympics in 1936 to propel the Nazi regime and its ideology, rather than spread the message of humanity and light as its official website preaches (http://torchrelay.beijing2008.cn/en/). Somehow humanity and Nazi tradition do not go hand in hand.  

Today, the ancient flame landed at the military base of Canberra in ACT, Australia. Although athletes prepare years in advance, the torch still bears its symbolic message; the time has come.

With protesters nabbing some free publicity, one can say that the Olympic Torch relay has finally been put to good use, or at least interesting viewing. Awareness of the situation in Tibet has detonated wherever the Olympic flame puffs its smoke. Although if www.searchenginewatch.com is anything to go by, Tibet hasn’t raised the regular internet user's interest. The IRS and American Idol stand as the top searches for the week ending April 18^th 2008. Concerns about oil surpassed stories of cultural genocide in Tibet incomparably since March 2005. 

Exactly how is a little gas bottle’s $2 million journey across 16 kilometres of the unglamorous Canberra justified? Or the £750,000 poured out for its walk across London? Not to mention the 5,500 tons of C02 gas it will graciously fart out into the air by the time its journey is over.

Given the amount of people who collectively watch and participate in the event (very little), the conclusion is negative. There are too many schools without proper facilities, nursing homes with cracking foundations, hospitals without beds, people for cardboard beds...the social problems of Australia’s communities, let alone of the world roll on and even a portion of the $2 million readily showered on the torch would be hungrily eyed by the many organizations seeking to rectify these situations.

Better still, the combined total cost of the torch relay could have been donated to Amnesty International and their cause for the people of Tibet. What stronger message to the Chinese government than that, besides a political boycott which, let’s face it, will never happen, could there be?

Effectively a mental encasement housing a liquid fuel canister, serving no real benefit to any community it visits, has taken precedence over human wellbeing. Pompous? Yes. Laughable? Ridiculously. Athletes get enough glorification during the Olympics. They don’t need the Torch relay, they know exactly when the Olympics are coming. We don’t watch the relay, unless our brother/sister/neighbour are running it. History should probably forget the relay like it wants to forget Hitler.

So let’s be done with this affair once and for all. For a contraption to be treated like the President of the US (it gets its own custom painted Air China 330 and entourage) catapults us back to the pagan era. The enlightenment has already occurred, so let’s act like an enlightened world. Dump the Olympic Torch relay.

The time has come.

Image courtesy of http://www.lightthetorch.net