DAY 267 - VICENNES TO THE SORBONNE, PARIS: 5.3 MILES (10,600 STEPS)

Saturday 14 January, 2012

5.3 miles (Total: 2566.7 miles)– 10,600 steps (Total: 5,801,601 steps)

This was a very special day. Thanks to the good offices of James Barr at the British Embassy, I had been extended the great honour of being allowed a private visit to the room in The Sorbonne University where, on 23 June 1894, Baron Pierre de Coubertain founded the International Olympic Committee. As the birthplace of the Modern Olympic Games, the sense of awe was every bit as profound as when I had stood in Olympia as the birthplace of the Ancient Games some nine months and 2366 miles earlier.

Two great themes in Coubertain’s life crossed to generate the idea of resurrecting the ancient games: the first was as a student of Ancient Greek culture, especially the idea of the Athenian gymnasiums as a place for the physical and intellectual development of young men. The second was an interest, almost an obsession, in the use of sport in the English public school system, most notably under Thomas Arnold at Rugby, and the ideal of amateurism. Coubertain linked embracing competitive sports to the expansion of the British Empire through the development of high quality leaders and the use of competitive sports in strengthening military tactics and performance.

The later point of the military advantages of competitive sports should not be underestimated. Coubertain grew up in a period following the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, a defeat that was viewed as a national humiliation for France as it led to the fall of Paris. At the settlement of the First World War at Versailles, the French were keen to repay in full the price extracted by the Prussians for their earlier defeat. Finally, the defeat gave birth to the modern state of Germany and the rest they say is history…

So Coubertain looked to Classical Greece and Victorian England to provide a recipe for the development of a new generation of French leaders, who could rediscover national pride. This is an important point because the genesis of the Modern Games differed from the Ancient Games. The former was formed specifically to overcome division and tensions between the rival City-States of Ancient Greece by bringing together athletes onto the neutral and sacred ground of Olympia where athletes competed as Olympians and competed naked so as to remove any identity of which city state they represented. The whole raison d’être for the Ancient Games was peace, represented through the sacred ‘Olympic Truce’. In contrast, the Modern Games were hard wired as a competition between nations and even systems, which was taken to its extreme both in Berlin in 1936 and in Moscow in 1980. Even today, nations will set their ambitions on ranking above other nations in the medal league table; for Britain this is expressly to finish fourth or better and to beat the Aussies. Some sporting facilities are even designed to favour the athletes of the host nation – not quite the ideal of ‘it’s not the winning but the taking part’.

The tradition of amateurism in sport bit the dust in Baden-Baden Olympic Congress in 1981 and immediately strengthened the commercial appeal of the Games to sponsors and broadcasters, which in all fairness is why the games are such a runaway success today. The ancient ideal is more visibly seen today in the spirit and conduct of the Paralympic Games. But for this reason, from the outset the Modern Olympics have seen the Olympic Truce regarded as largely symbolic rather than sacred, represented by the Olympic Torch Relay, the Olympic Village where all the athletes live, and the Closing Ceremony where all athletes come into the stadium together, rather than in national teams. Even in London 2012, we have seen the international leg of the Olympic Torch relay dropped because of the experience of the protests during the Beijing Relay. Moreover, in the Olympic Village some of the major national teams will also now insist on their own national buildings, furnished in their own national style and serving national food.

As I stood in that room, I wondered what it would take for someone to bring the Olympic movement back to its roots to re-discover the ancient purpose of the Olympics and the modern potential of the Games for promoting peace and reconciliation through sport. It would require someone with the vision and credibility of Baron Coubertain to carry it. Just two days later, I was to have the enormous privilege of meeting the ideal candidate in the French Minister of Sport and double Olympic gold medallist David Douillet. If anyone has the charisma, credibility, and humanity to pull of such a meeting, then it is Douillet. If there was any place that such a meeting should take place, then it would be The Sorbonne, Paris.

DAY 266 - SAINT-THIBAULT-DES-VIGNES TO VINCENNES (OUTSKIRTS OF PARIS): 14.6 MILES (29,200 STEPS)

Friday 13 January, 2012

14.6 miles (Total: 2561.4 miles)– 29,200 steps (Total: 5,791,001 steps)

Today was a very good day:

For about five of the fifteen miles of walking I was making my way along beautiful forest footpaths (see pic) alongside the River Marne through places like Torcy, Vaires, and Chelles. The Sun was shining, it was about 9 degrees and, probably for the first time since my assent up the Simplon Pass in the Alps in October, I can say that I found my walk today pleasurable, borderline enjoyable. In addition, I knew I was staying with friends that night in Vincennes and therefore had no worries about accommodation. Moreover, as I walked I knew that my sister, her husband, and her son were on their way to Paris with my new Blackberry phone, with which and with whom I would be re-united tomorrow.

As I walked, my mind couldn’t help but wander off occasionally to the tough days which were behind me, and the other tough days which were ahead of me. However, I gave thanks that this was not one of them. This was a good day and I should celebrate that by staying ‘in the moment’, although that is easier said than done.

I recalled the fable, Persian or Jewish in origin, in which a King sets a challenge for one of his subjects to bring an object which when looked upon will make a happy man sad, and a sad man happy. The challenge remained unmet for many years until one day a traveller presented a ring to the King which he believed would meet his challenge. The King looked upon the ring and initially dismissed it until his eye caught the inscription on the inside of the ring. His face fell sad for it read simply, ‘And this too shall pass away’.

The broken arm has passed, well almost, and the storms of Suippes and Verdun have passed, whilst the loss of my Blackberry for nearly a month will pass tomorrow. Storms pass, but so does the sunshine. That’s life. It may sound a bit depressing but it shouldn’t be. It should simply remind us to savour the good times to the last drop and not think that they will be there forever. Conversely, we should not despair during the darkest times for the night will pass and there will be better days ahead.

One of the reasons I love living in Britain is because of our seasonal climate. I visited Colombia a few years ago; situated close to the Equator, all of the seasons are the same and I began to think how depressing it was. I love seeing the snow melt and watch the green buds re-appear on the branches and the green shoots in the fields, and then for the sun to shine and the blossom to burst and make way for the fruit to ripen, then for the leaves to turn and eventually fall. It is a circle of life. Each season has something to offer and something to take away. So too with the seasons of the soul and we should wish neither away, but take from each what it offers and give to each what it demands.

DAY 265 - LA FERTE SOUS JOUARRE TO SAINT-THIBAULT-DES-VIGNES: 25.5 MILES (51,000 STEPS)

Thursday 12 January, 2012

25.5 miles (Total: 2546.8 miles)– 51,000 steps (Total: 5,761,801 steps)

This was a good day. Let me tell you about it and finish with a topical reflection:

I felt in good shape as I set off on account of having had a day off to recover from my 35 miles trek the day before. I slept well.  I was fully up to date with blogs, flikr and most of my emails thanks to a productive day spent in MacDonald’s.

The weather was perfect for walking—around 9 degrees C and the route was interesting, in the sense that it was varied and required careful navigation, rather than just walking along the edge of a main road for eight hours.

Plan A had been to head for a Hotel Ibis at Montevrain, just on the other side of Disneyland Paris. Plan B was just to enjoy the luxury of having a wide choice of hotels to choose from and negotiate the best deal I could.

I was doing very well managing to hit every junction, which in the absence of a map, I had carefully written down from Google Maps the day before. Coming down from Condi Saint Libaire, I took a wrong turn at Montry and stopped at a bar to have a drink (coffee) and seek directions. The other customers and the bar tender spoke about as much English as I spoke French. When I explained that I had walked from La Ferte that morning, they erupted in ‘impossible’ pointing out that it was 40km (in fact it was just over 30). I then tried my full story and brought out my map of Europe to explain that I had walked from Olympia, Greece but this just seemed to heighten their sense of incredulity and confirm my ‘fruitcake’ status. The bar tender gave me directions to Montevrain whilst the other patrons talked and laughed occasionally looking in my direction to confirm their suspicions.

I arrived in Montevrain, but there was no Hotel Ibis and nowhere with an Internet connection. I decided to walk on to Lagny, where I found simply the best restaurant I have ever been in: here are the judging criteria—it had fast wi-fi and no fiddly access codes, just open up and you are connected; they were very friendly; they were into haute cuisine, but had enough of a sense of fun to put a Cheeseburger and chips on the menu for the occasional unsophisticated Brit who might walk by; they were happy for me to respond to emails at the table;  they had live music; the food was served with a level of artistic quality that I have never seen before; and Cheeseburger and profiteroles with lashings of chocolate and cream, came out at 23 euros. The name of the restaurant was Le B 28, 14 Pl. De La Fontain, 77400, Lagny. Using the Internet I was able to locate a hotel room at the Comfort Inn not far out of the centre.

Finally, a reflection on a topical issue: I had downloaded ‘War of the World’ by Niall Ferguson with an Apple iTunes voucher I had received for Christmas. I have listed to three of his books on my trip and they are hard going as they assume so much knowledge of history on the part of the reader, but they contain so many gems which make the effort worthwhile.

One of those gems caught my attention as I approached Paris, for it was about the negotiations in the Paris Peace Conference which followed the end of WWI and gave birth to the League of Nations—the gem, was the proposal by the Japanese that the constitution of the League of Nations should include a clause to the effect that ‘all races are equal’. This may seem odd given the later barbaric treatment of especially the Korean peoples, but it is a matter of historic record that the clause was proposed. As is the fact that it was opposed by the architect of the Paris Peace Conference, US president, Woodrow Wilson and by the Australians. The former being worried about what this may mean for policy of segregation and discrimination of African Americans and Native Americans and the latter, that it might challenge their ‘white’s only’ immigration policy and the segregation and discrimination of  the Aborigines. The move by Japan was defeated and so the League of Nations was born enshrining the belief that there were indeed higher and lower races.

One wonders where the vision of the authors of the American Declaration of Independence was when they wrote in 1776, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.’

I later saw the reports of US Marines urinating on dead bodies of Taliban fighters, and allowing themselves to be recorded doing so, and I realised that such inhumanity is not limited to time and place. When we cease to have empathy, we cease to see someone as of equal worth. When we lose sight of a person’s humanity, then all manner of unspeakable evil becomes permissible, even justifiable, whether you are a Red Army Guard in a Gulag, a member of the SS in a Concentration Camp, an al Qaeda terrorist, a US Marine, or for that matter a British politician. For as Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, who knew a thing or two about such things observed in Gulag Archipelago:

““Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains an unuprooted small corner of evil.”

That is why human rights legislation may be frustrating to some, but it is utterly essential to preserve the dignity and equal worth of all human beings. Moreover that these rights should be assigned to an individual, not a nation, and be irrespective of nationality, race, creed, gender, sexuality or social background is fundamental to building an international society by underscoring the moral permeability of borders. How these rights are upheld in countries like North Korea, Syria, Burma or Iran is a challenge, but it starts with us ensuring we uphold them ourselves. Not because, as in this case, they have besmirched the good name of the US Marines and embarrassed the White House, but because they have denied a fellow human being their divinely ordained status as an equal and valued part of the human race, guilty or innocent, dead or alive, which in turn applies to them too.