Columnist Susan Snyder: Our nation’s etiquette is flagging

Friday, Feb. 8, 2002 | 9:59 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Fridays Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

It's hard to do the right thing.

It's even harder when what's right isn't what's popular.

And when the popular view is flapping from 90 percent of the motor vehicles in one of the largest countries on the planet, it's even harder to do the right thing.

It's easier to simply bend.

And so the International Olympic Committee did.

On Wednesday the IOC decided to allow an honor guard to carry into the 2002 Winter Games the American flag recovered from the World Trade Center following the Sept. 11 attacks. The honor guard will be composed of U.S. athletes and New York City firefighters and police officers.

In an earlier decision, the IOC had said American athletes would not be allowed to carry the flag because that violated Olympic rules forbidding political acts during the opening ceremony.

The decision drew immediate criticism, of course, because we've plastered the flag on every conceivable surface from refrigerator doors to belt buckles, however inappropriate or disrespectful. We take every call to see ourselves as an equal part of a larger picture as an affront to our patriotism.

This isn't about us.

"Every country in the IOC has issues," American IOC member Anita DeFrantz said in an Associated Press report this week. "As Americans we have to understand it's a world event and also that we are a guest even though we are the host nation."

The Olympic Games belong to everyone. There are 77 countries to be represented this year, and the IOC has had to find ways to accommodate all of them in an amiable atmosphere without benefit of military might, treaties or trade agreements.

And this year they're doing it in a place where even buying a bottle of wine is controlled by the government. The United Nations could never work as well.

The five rings of the Olympic flag, officially adopted in 1914, are to represent the union of the globe's five continents. At least one of the colors is incorporated in every flag in the world.

It's about celebrating our athletes' strengths and ignoring our governments' weaknesses. Check your politics at the door, or don't come.

I'm thinking athletes from Islamic Republic of Iran, or those from Kazakhstan or those from Bosnia and Herzegovina -- all of which are listed as being among nations participating the 2002 Games -- have "issues."

I wonder what it's like to train in Bosnia.

The IOC said they'd allow the World Trade Center flag to be flown as the official American flag during the Games, but that wasn't enough. We stamped our feet, and like a weary mother in a grocery store the IOC let us have the candy bar.

They ditched protocol that has strived to make things fair since 1924 because we threw a temper tantrum.

Now there's something to be proud of.

There certainly is nothing wrong in remembering those who have died in acts of terror or showing our national pride. We do that better than anyone.

But a host who invites people to a party only to spend it rubbing his beliefs and his grief in his guests' faces when they are not allowed to do the same is an arrogant boor.

We can do better. It's hard to do the right thing, but we can.