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The greatest part of the Olympics is that it brings the world together, which was a goal of the modern day Olympics brain trust. Of course, it’s hard to keep politics from coming to the party and infusing it with all that it is not supposed to be about. This year with China hosting the event everybody had to know that politics was going to jump right in and take center stage. And now with Olympic Torch is being toted around the world and everyone and their brother siding with the Tibetans and their cause and both Athens and London feeling the heat of carrying the torch so far, the question is raised, isn’t it time for the Olympics to have a home instead of this traveling road show that does nothing more than envelope the “bring the world together” message with let’s protest against anything the host country is guilty of for the sake of our outsiders views? It’s interesting that the Winter Olympics don’t have the level of worldly judgments that the summer Olympics do, maybe it’s too cold to have divergent thoughts. It’s pretty obvious that a permanent home would be the perfect solution for this worldwide malady of Olympic Politics and what is stopping that from happening? Politics!
The politics of a lot of people making a lot of money on the backside of every Olympic Committees decision of where the next Games will be playing to the Political Quagmire Actions of the host country that can be exposed, protested against, boycotted or just bitch-slapped.
The Olympics should only be held in perfect states with no religious, political, gender or pollution problems. I think that exists on Pluto now that it is not a planet anymore. Reasonably, the summer Olympics should be held in Athens, the birthplace of the Olympics, and the Winter Olympics should be held in Switzerland the most neutral country in the world and home of the greatest wintertime arena, the Alps. But it’s not going to happen because too much money won’t be made by the wrong type of people. So living with the politics of the Olympics is our bane. Of course, if the Olympics were set in Politics-Free-Zone then we would all become nostalgic for all the politics and protests that were in the past. The wonderful backfiring of the Berlin Games in 1936 where Hitler trying to trumpet his Aryan perfection was embarrassed by Jesse Owens, the far from Aryan and the opposite of all that is Nazi perfection, who won four gold medals. Then again back in Germany the tragedy and the eye-opening world of Middle East terrorism at the Munich games that was a horrible tragedy of mind-boggling proportions. Then there was the tit for tat Olympics held in Moscow and Los Angeles with the USSR and the USA proving how grown up they were. There was the bomb in Atlanta and of course the Iraq soccer team in the Athens’s Olympics that President Bush said was his favorite Olympic moment. He had invaded that country and felt vilified that they could still make a soccer team and make it to the semi-finals.
This year Nancy Pelosi wants Bush not to attend the opening ceremonies as a protest against the Tibetan violence. In reality I think she wants to spare America from the embarrassment of the world seeing him there. I mean if we are going to protest China’s human rights abuses in Tibet how should the rest of the world protest our invasion and occupation of Iraq for the last five years. But beyond all these things my favorite protest of all the Olympics came from two African-American athletes in Mexico City that raised their black gloves in protest of racism in their own country. Maybe, just maybe, there are a couple of Chinese athletes who can express themselves in a similar way because athletes hold a lot more sway and have a lot more power when seen standing up and protesting real atrocities in their own lands on the world stage than politicians ever will…
For those who do not know, China itself has boycotted the Games after the IOC recognized Taiwan. The Taiwanese team carried the 'China' banner in 1956. China only returned to Olympic competition in the 1980 Winter Games.
China on the other had annexed Tibet that had been historically a free nation and systematically tortured, murdered and displaced indigenous Tibetans. It has destroyed Tibetan culture and reduced the local Tibetans to a minority by allowing Chinese from other parts of the country to settle there and do business. China is a dictatorial communist government that has no respect for human life, rights or culture. The authoritarian Chinese fail to understand that the free world has a right to express dissent and oppose things overtly. It hardly comes as any surprise that China is bullying countries traditionally sympathetic to the Tibetan cause like India.
China has gone back on its own words on the agreements that it reached with the Dalai Lama and his Tibetan Government in Exile. It extracted an acceptance from the Dalai Lama that it is willing to consider Tibet to be a part of China in exchange for a full autonomy where the Tibetan government headed by the Dalai Lama will have a say in all Tibetan affairs except foreign policy and defense. But it never honored the Chinese part of the concessions.
Therefore, China has no locus standi before the world to argue its case because it has no case at all. It will be devastating to allow China hold the games without any kind of protest from the world commune.
George Bush often prides in calling himself as the Commander in Chief of the world's greatest military ever, the President of the world's greatest nation. Where does all this bombast disappear when his legendary diplomatic bluntness (as seen many times on Middle Eastern, European and African issues) becomes the purr of a wet cat? The President doesn't meet the Dalai Lama formally, he just happens to 'drop by'.
I sympathise with the Tibetans and support their cause, but I also realise that China is the real problem, not the Olympics. Putting out the torch as we saw in Paris has nothing to with Tibet or other issues like China's human rights record or support to the Sudanese government that is carrying out the atrocities in Darfur etc.
The Olympics are not a major tea-party event where you invite all the nations in the world keeping politics behind just like major political parties in India hold parties once in a while inviting all other parties cutting across political lines.
The Chinese are the same. It has occupied Tibet, a country of unarmed peaceful Buddhist monks as it was a soft target. It claims many parts of Asian countries like parts of India as its own. It took back Macao and Hong Kong and now eying on Taiwan. It is a totalitarian regime with voices of opposition silenced through systematic murder, torture and relentless persecution.
The world couldn't act in 1936. Perhaps because information was not as fast and widespread as it is now. We have a chance now to show that the world just cannot be taken for a ride by barbarians in business suits.
Give me a break!
