I have come across with this news today, which reports on the IOC’s consideration of postponing the Tokyo 2020. Such spectacles as Olympic Games entail a sense of ‘state of emergency’, leading to the suspension of normal planing processes and diversion of investment in necessary social and physical infrastructure for the poor and the marginalised. On this particular occasion, the Olympic spectacle is giving in to another ‘state of emergency’, that is, the COVID19 pandemic, which also produces disproportionate impacts on the populations, disadvantaging the poor and the marginalised. Each ‘state of emergency’ seems to reveal the contradictions of our society in a different way.
