It is not clear whether the Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony is the best in history, but it has become one of the most controversial due to a series of direct and indirect events surrounding the event. First, the representation of “The Last Supper” by Leonardo Da Vinci, with drag artists and dancers, generated a wave of complaints from religious conservatives, and now a journalist has been suspended for describing John Lennon’s song “Imagine” as communist.
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The famous composition by the ex-Beatle who was murdered in New York in 1980, was performed by singer Juliette Armanet surrounded by fire and floating on the Seine River on the night of last Friday, July 26.
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Why was a journalist suspended for his comments about "Imagine"?
The famous Lennon song, one of the most applauded in the history of popular music, invites us to imagine a utopian world where "there are no countries," "no possessions," and "no religion."
Such idea of a more peaceful world fits very well with the values that the Olympic Games try to promote, but Polish journalist Przemyslaw Babiarz felt during the Opening Ceremony that the lyrics of "Imagine" were rather "a vision of communism, unfortunately."
His words generated great controversy in Poland and the state television TVP suspended him from his duties for the duration of the Paris 2024 Games weekend.
"Mutual understanding, tolerance, reconciliation, are not only the basic ideas of the Olympic Games, but also the foundation of the standards that guide the new Polish television. There is no consent to violate them," TVP said in a statement.
The ideological battles of Polish media
According to AP News, "state media have been an ideological battleground in Poland for years. They were used as a mouthpiece by the right-wing populists who governed Poland between 2015 and 2023."
Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a centrist politician whose broad coalition took power in December, acted swiftly to put an end to that control.
For the same reason, conservatives and their allies denounced the suspension of the journalist, including conservative Andrzej Duda and former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.