International Events – the Olympics, the World Cup, Eurovision – are the biggest media events year in year out. The Olympics and the World Cup perhaps more so, due to their extended time period. It’s prestigious to host them, but the forthcoming group of international hosts, notably Russia, are not exactly receiving glowing press coverage and there have even been calls for a boycott of the 
in February 2014. The trouble is, a boycott is entirely counter-intuitive to the objectives of reformers.
The law banning the promotion of homosexuality in Russia is wrong. There’s no getting away from that. However, the minute the Western countries start pulling out of Russia, any possibility of achieving the change activists are after will evaporate. Putin won’t care if the US, Britain and a few others Western European countries don’t turn up to the Winter Olympics. The boycott wouldn’t be as effectual as the summer Olympics and frankly Russia has previous form with ‘the show must go on’ mentality after the 1980 Games in Moscow.
It’s far better to go on with the international event and challenge the ideals. There’s historical precedent for this ideal. It was mortifying for the Nazi regime when there racial supremacy rhetoric fell apart as Jesse McAdams won 4 golden medals. Swedish High Jumper Emma Green Tregaro’s recently caused a stir, painting her nails in the colours of the rainbow flag while competing at the 2013 World Championships, and while the International Olympics Committee has moved to assert it will uphold Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter prohibiting political protest that’s a fairly broad term. Indeed allowing gay athletes to compete can only serve to challenge the Russian law and to assert the clear breach of civil liberties.
The attendance of Western Countries at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 cast China in an unfavourable light indeed. Instead of being a triumphant propaganda campaign for the resurgent People’s Republic, it was marred in scandal as it emerged that there had been lip-syncing at the Open Ceremony, there was concern over the state-sponsored training campaign for athletes which saw many children torn away from their parents to train. There was also a lot of converge shedding light on ongoing media censorship during the Games.
International events don’t only serve to raise international awareness of ongoing problems and maintain scrutiny of them. They also provide hope for people within the countries and a platform for international commentators to assert that fact. The Eurovision Song Contest in 2012, hosted from Baku, Azerbaijan provided just such an example for hope for people within the country. The German spokeswoman presenting that country’s votes, comedian Ange Engelkhe commented, “Tonight nobody could vote for their own country. But it is good to be able to vote. And it is good to have a choice. Good luck on your journey, Azerbaijan. Europe is watching you.” Engelkhe’s comments have since been attributed to a comment about the dubious human rights conduct of the country while hosting the Contest.
The proposed boycott of not only Russian Vodka but also the Olympic Games would only prove counter-intuitive. It’s far better to actually attend the events and challenge the ideals of the regimes in question. It can prove not only embarrassing for the regime, as in the case of the Berlin or Beijing Games, but it can also offer hope to the people who are struggling against oppression in the host countries. A boycott would actually be politically expedient for leaders. It offers politicians the opportunity to ignore the issue and indeed point out that they’ve protest by not going. It places a lot more pressure on leaders, because the issue is constantly in the press for the duration of the international event and therefore the spotlight is focused intently upon the host nation. Human rights abuses, like those ongoing in Russia can’t be swept under the carpet and the media focus that the Winter Olympics and World Cup will bring can only be to the benefit of those being oppressed by the legislation in Russia.