Shout it Out and Bring Forth Change!

     To the Sochi Olympics, America has sent a delegation including openly gay athletes where any expression of gay rights is illegal. In the past the Olympics has been the vehicle in which brave athletes have expressed unjust treatment of human rights issues to the world. People debate whether the Olympics is an appropriate forum. Even though nations have different social standards, is it not enough that we gather together in our differences, without “shouting it out?” It’s possible that the Olympics are the exact place to facilitate change for a better world, since ancient Olympic games began in Greece, the beginning of civilization.

      Only a few hundred years after the first Olympic games were played, Sophocles, the Greek playwright, wrote Antigone. He created a character who gives the ultimate sacrifice, her life, to right the unjust treatment of a human rights issue, her brother, Polyneices’ burial. Antigone could secretly preform the religious burial of her brother’s body, but she argues with Ismene, her sister “Oh, oh, no! shout it out. I will hate you still worse for silence-should you not proclaim it, to everyone,” (Antigone, 99-101). By “shouting it out,” Antigone draws attention to the unjust proclamation of Creon, that Polyneices’ body not be buried. She declares “I shall be a criminal-but a religious one,” (Antigone, 84-85). Through her selfless dedication to her moral conscience as opposed to obedience to civil law, she changes the thought of the society she lives in, not an easy feat for a young woman living in a time of gender inequality.

     Sophocles’ character of Antigone is passionate, courageous, and rebellious. It is those qualities that are needed to make significant changes towards human rights in the world. I think that Sophocles would have thought that the Olympics are the perfect venue to “shout it out!”