The poisoned well of Western identity taints the innocence of the Olympic spirit

There is a certain blunt shame that pervades in the wake of the bludgeoning of Imane Khelif.

The media storm heaped on Iname Khelif has been debilitating for the athlete. (Source: Twitter/X)

“The Algerian boxer was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, boxed as a female, has a female passport”, said IOC spokesman Mark Adams as he frustratingly addressed the questions, dismissing the rumours in a desperate attempt to set the record straight over a mounting and engineered frenzy regarding the eligibility and gender of 66kg Algerian welterweight female boxer Imane Khelif at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. But that wasn’t going to be enough to hold back what was to come.

If there ever was an example of the collapse of the identity crisis, the dilemma of collective cohesion of Western society, it was the online meltdown over the presence of the Algerian boxer, and all it took was a strong front-footed right punch on Italian opponent Angela Carini that forced her early retirement in the first round. And within moments, a humble and dedicated Olympian from a poor North African nation, far removed from the incessant devouring of the identity wasps that chew on the sub-dermal tissue of social cohesion throughout the West, was thrown into a livestreamed storm that has had real-time effects on the Olympian.

The wild dogs of the identity-obsessed far-right descended on the young boxer, tearing her to shreds over the course of hours-that-dragged-on-to-seem-like-days on social media. The J.K. Rowling’s and the Kellie Jay-Keen’s, joined the Ian Miles-Cheong’s, and Elon Musk’s, and whipped up unprecedented storms of rage to denigrate Khelif. When the evidence was produced that she was undoubtedly female, which was always there if anyone cared to see, some went back to fanning flames in developing race riots, or trying to overthrow elected Latin American Presidents like nothing had happened, but others just kept on going hammer-and-tong, driven by an ill-defined loathing and an obsession with toxic identity politics. And strewn throughout the ship-wreck driftwood left by the public tsunami of hate generated by self-loathing billionaires and giga-TERF’s alike, humble and determined Imane Khelif had to drag herself out for the remainder of her Olympic campaign.

Elon Musk, jumping at shadows, after his live counselling session with Jordan Peterson where he said his transgender son was “dead”, increasingly self-isolated in his Dunning-Kreuger emotional prism like some shit version of Charles Foster Kane, was one of the main engagement farmers attacking Khelif on “X”. In the same week, Musk had joined Netanyahu as his guest in Congress in Washington, openly tried to tip the scales in a live coup in Venezuela, and prophesised civil war in Europe in the comments sections of miscreant bottom-feeder profiles on “X”, and joining the chorus of hate on Khelif just to round it all off.

Back in Australia, our own low-flying public figures descended into the carrion of the story as it wafted into our hemisphere. In Australia, tepid media darling Paul Bongiorno casually bantered with Sky News Australia’s cupid Rowan Dean, lamenting the travesty that the “decision to allow this trans woman to box in the Olympics was shocking”. Ben Fordham, now without a doubt the culture war king of Australian commercial mainstream media, joined low-profile sports commentator Lucy Zelic, and together invited every trough-feeder they could to come along with them of a journey of ill-informed hate spewing upon a population in desperate need of trickle-down social cohesion from responsible public figures.

Dean & Bongiorno having a chat and airing their opinions about the Algerian boxer. (Source: Twitter/X)

The International Boxing Association (IBA) had provided the official flyblown narrative for the hyperactive mob that scrapes against the grain to this very day (and perhaps throughout the entirety of Imane Khelif’s medal campaign and beyond), providing them with the “legitimacy” they needed to digitally crucify the 25-year-old Algerian boxer. The IBA was stripped of its international recognition by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) last year shortly after the sudden decision to change athlete eligibility that disqualified Khelif and Taiwan double world champion Lin Yu-ting. They claimed the “fighters failed unspecified eligibility tests for women's competition”, citing newly mandated testosterone level limits, and suggested providing Carini with $50,000 as a substitute for her loss to Khelif.

When the clickbait rage subsided somewhat, and anyone (most) who needed to catch up got to understand that Khelif was definitively a woman, footage started appearing of Khelif taking a loss in the 2022 Women’s World Championships (she was not allowed to compete in 2023 due to sudden IBA changes) thanks to some great combos and inside work from Ireland’s Amy Broadhurst. News of her nine career losses came into the public view, and current WBC female featherweight champ Skye Nicolson joined others in hitting out at the Italian boxer for what she called a “publicity stunt”, repudiating the media and engagement farmers who have caused great damage to Khelif and her family.

IOC President Thomas Bach said the “hate speech” directed at boxers Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting at the Paris Olympics was “totally unacceptable”, and in the aftermath Carini herself offered Khelif an apology, admitting she was “angry” at her Olympic campaign being stopped. Khelif would go on to reflect, “I send a message to all the people of the world to uphold the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, to refrain from bullying all athletes, because this has effects, massive effects” and she spoke of the ultimate toll, “It can destroy people, it can kill people’s thoughts, spirit and mind. It can divide people. And because of that, I ask them to refrain from bullying”.

The dilapidated West seems to be eating itself as it fails to come to terms with its own identity in a multi-polar world, lashing out at the identity of other nations, at other ideas, and even at obscure young Olympic boxers that don’t fit into the judgemental and shallow cursory glances of the morally perforated, the ideologically radical, and the intellectually dishonest. Perhaps if Khelif possessed the physical characteristics they required of a female athlete boxing at the elite level, and her name was Teagan Smith from Orange, NSW with an AIS trained media smile, and not an Algerian woman who thanks a different god for her strength, maybe the Kellie Jay-Keen’s and Paul Bongiorno’s wouldn’t have opened their mouths in the first place. But who knows these days.

The attack on Khelif not only put a lens on our own society and exposed the ugly collective nature that has infiltrated an anxious Western world, but it also revealed the pieces lined up on the board for an agenda currently in flux. Musk, Rowling, Jay-Keen, and even adorable old Paul Bongiorno have all played a part in a developing culture war that spills out of its digital cistern and into the finite real world. With real consequences.

There is a certain blunt shame that pervades in the wake of the bludgeoning of Imane Khelif. And its not because she was born in a society that does not allow transgenderism in sports, or because she participates in a code that doesn’t either. It’s not even because she is a fierce female competitor that has boxed on the circuit for years in a respectable career, or because she is a Muslim woman that praises her god for being so – it’s a shame because she was completely innocent, and her innocence was crushed. At one of the most important moments of her life, a humble woman representing the dying fragments of the true Olympic spirit is almost broken by the soulless trolls that turn to the reins of billionaire influencers and the war drums of eternally unhappy gender warriors. That is the true shame.