Cultural Entry #1: Islam, Security, and the Sochi Olympics

Chris Hourani With the Olympics in Sochi in full swing, the prominence of potential security risks caused by Islamic extremist groups are at an all time high for the Games. By awarding Sochi the opportunity to host the Games, the IOC has signed on to all of the risks that come with one of the most religiously contentious regions in the entire world. Sochi, a small resort city perched at the base of the Caucasus Mountains, is surrounded by areas that are full of political and religious strife, with the two being tied together more often than not. Georgia, with whom Russia has had a history of military conflict and where clashes between different religious groups are daily commonalities, lies less than 20 miles away. Armenia, along with its bloody history of religious conflicts between Muslims and Christians, lies not too much further south. The mostly Islamic Azerbaijan lies just east of Armenia. In addition, the two Russian Republics of Chechnya and Dagestan, hotbeds of Islamic extremist groups, are just across the mountains from Sochi. With the Boston Marathon and Volgograd Bombings, both carried out by Chechen nationalists, fresh in the minds of both Western and Russian minds, the IOC has its work cut out for itself in terms of maintaining security throughout the Olympics. All of this friction, staying consistent with Samuel Huntington’s theory of the Clash of the Civilizations, is taking place at the crosshairs of the Islamic World and Eastern Europe. Culturally, this holds great weight, for it exposes religious intolerance as the most prominent roadblock to an integrated world in today’s society. As the run-up to the Olympics has proven, an immediate amalgamation of cultures often causes an increase in tension between opposing factions. Curbing the tides of these violent tendencies will be the biggest challenge to these highly contested regions. The bottom line is that modernizing nations on the fringes of the Islamic world are going to have to address the problem of intolerance between Christians and Muslims head on in order to continue to make any economic or societal progress. There is no better example of this than the Sochi Olympics. Sources: The Clash of Civilizations, Samuel Huntington CNN.com