Well, who would have thunk it! But the organiser's, apparently, racist! First, we had Massoud Sharjareh from the Islamic Human Rights Commission spout off that because Ramadan follows the Lunar calendar, and this time round, clashes with the London Olympics, the scheduling of the Olympics was deliberately placed there in an attack on Islam. (Blog post here.) Like I say in that post, to say that they would never schedule it on Christmas is a dumb comparison, given Christmas is 1 day, and in the depths of winter...
Still, before I wind myself up over that story, there is a new one that really proves the organiser's of the London games have it in for Islam.
According to the Iranian Olympic Association, the logo is racist. It spells out the word "Zion" which is an old term for Jerusalem, and now synonymous with hardline Judaism, and regularly used as an attack by Iran on Israel.
According to the letter from the Iranian OA, this proves that London is racist, and that the Olympics are complicit by association and their lack of action. Mohammed Aliabadi goes on to threaten the London Olympics with a boycott, and urges other Islamic nations to follow Irans lead. Do I need to point out how dumb this is!
Now, with regards logos, the London one really is not great. Past logo's have all had some kind of significance. The Manchester Commonwealth Games logo took 3 people standing on a podium linking arms to form an "M".
Glasgow have come up with a series of rings, each one standing for something. the outer ring stands for the fact that it will be the 20th games, the next ring stands for the 17 events, and the final ring for the 11 days. And a great big "G."
Athens was a great logo. Using a historic style of art in Greece, and a laurel wreath. A symbol of the old Olympics, of triumph, and symbolic of Greece's place as the birth of the Olympics so long ago.
London? Well, that has been heavily criticized for just being a naff jumble of jagged numbers spelling out 2012. I am not a fan. London could have done so much more.
Still, when it is overlaid with the Union Jack, it looks OK...
But to say it spells out "Zion" is quite a stretch. To do so needs you to make a few jumps of logic. If you follow standard English patterns, and read left to right, it is a 20, and underneath, a 12. Making 2012. If you read vertically right to left (which you dont really do in English, given how few books are printed this way!) then it still reads 2102.
To get to "Zion" what we need to do is to read it vertically from left to right (left to right being the standard format for reading in English) and need to twist the final character (a "2") 90 degrees anti-clockwise, like this...
Or, if we where to follow standard English layout, we need to switch the "0" and "1" around as well, kind of like this...
Which as can you see, really takes a naff mess of a logo, and butchers it!
By using the logic displayed here, then we can say that the Iranian flag is obviously sexual. The sword in the centre of the logo is clearly phallic, and the outer shapes clearly represent female genitalia! Though, of course, it does not. The 5 shapes representing the 5 pillars of Islam, the 4 crescents representing a highly stylised form of the word "Allah" in Arabic. I had a whole blog thing on the Iranian flag here.
Lets face it, if you squint hard enough, you can say everything has a hidden meaning. For example, in China, they refer to the Union Jack as the "Rice Flag" due to its similarity to the Chinese character for rice. Was this deliberate? No. It just happened.
And to further point out the absurdity of this allegation. The logo was unveiled after market testing, analysis, being studied by a number of focus groups, in 2007! Apart from the absurdity of the allegation, the timing of this is just silly. The logo was unveiled in 2007. This allegation has been sent to the IOC 4 YEARS after the logo was revealed. They have had time to look at it and voice concern. But 1 year before the Olympics, 4 years AFTER the logo came out!?
Also, do they not realise that this logo would have been studied by focus groups, some of whom would have been Islamic? Surely they would have spotted this, too, and voiced their concern!
Ah well, it is all insane. I do believe that this is just some rabble rousing by Iran, against the "Little Satan." All I can say is, please, boycott London. You will be the only ones who do. Talk about MASSIVE quantities of eggs on faces!
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