OLYMPICS_OPENING_CEREMONYBILLIONS of people worldwide were glued to their television sets to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London. And what a show we got. Not even London’s harshest critics can deny the quality of entertainment it presented to the world.

But what was the show about anyway?

While the Olympics is meant to celebrate the spirit of humanity through sports, this year’s opening ceremony showed very little of that.

It was by and large a fantastical self-congratulatory cultural showcase. One might describe it as a mammoth 360-degree-view West End musical production to remind the world of the greatness of British theater and one richer in tradition than its popular Broadway cousin.

The show started off with scenes of peasant life followed by the events of the industrial revolution, women’s suffrage movement and foreign immigration. There was a scene of African immigrants marching in to join British society, without any hint at all of the reason behind this or the discrimination they faced afterwards.

The British monarchy was completely and suspiciously absent throughout this first segment of the musical narrative, what more their global imperial project.

Britain was great because the working class knew their place and simply did the honourable thing—work hard.

There was a long tribute to the National Health Service even though it is not the oldest nor best universal healthcare system on earth. According to the World Health Organisation, France has the best universal healthcare system, but they lost the final bid to host this year’s Olympics. After all, having the best healthcare system (or Victor Hugo) is not a prerequisite for hosting the world event.

There were other tributes to British workers including the hundreds who helped build the event venue (who were tucked away along the inside of the stadium tunnel).

This was director Danny Boyle’s way of celebrating the blood and sweat of Great Britain. In that regard he had done the working class great justice and for the first time in Olympic history this kind of recognition was put center stage. Well done.

But is the Olympics about celebrating the host country or is it about celebrating the world?

The ever-disgruntled Chinese artist Ai Weiwei unsurprisingly had wonderful things to say about the London ceremony and compared it to Beijing’s, naturally.

“A nation that has no music and no fairytales is a tragedy,” he said in his Guardian review, and he is right. But so is a nation with no sense of timing for unsubtle self-congratulation.

Who among the athletes from Afghanistan to Zaire could relate positively to London’s self-absorbed narrative besides the contingent from Great Britain itself? Many in fact come from countries that are still struggling to rise from the plunder that was British colonization.

(Imagine if Boyle’s narrative was adapted in an Olympic opening ceremony in Tel Aviv).

Thank goodness for the good music and humor (God save the Queen, indeed!).

And perhaps at this juncture one should also say thank goodness that a final segment was allocated for the athletes’ parade, for one could have easily forgotten all about them.

Nevertheless, there was redemption for Great Britain when aspiring youth athletes were given the honor of lighting the superbly designed London cauldron. If anything, it was the formation of the cauldron – the coming together of more than 200 country petals – that truly symbolized the spirit of the Olympics in the London 2012 opening ceremony.

The rest seemed like a much needed ego trip for a nation in the gloom of economic recession. Great Britain boleh!

*The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the writer.