Let Freedom Ring – Boycott Beijing

Once every four years, the nations of the world gather together in one place in a showcase of sportmanship and fair play (not to mention a competition for commercial endorsements and the coveted Wheaties Box) in the seminal international sporting event, The Olympic Games.  In the ideal world, indeed in the mind of the founder modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the Olympics are a gathering of the world’s people to showcase their talent and epitomizes human unity as countries set aside our differences to compete in sports.  Of course, we all know this is a crock of shit since the games have been taken over by the corporations who have turned them into one big marketing event, the modern day equivalent of the Roman bread and circuses. While supposedly an International event, the games always take on the flavor of the host country. If you don’t believe me, just watch some re-runs of the Salt Lake City Winter Games, when post-911 fever ran high and it was all about the USA, complete with the 911 battle flag and the famous singing cop. What was once a sporting event has been politicized and has increasingly become so. in 1972, members of the Palestinian Black September group took Israeli athletes hostages in the Olympic Village in Munich, and that ended in a fiasco when the hostages and some of their captors were killed in a botched attempt to rescue them at the airport.  Several nations boycotted the Montreal games because a Rugby Team toured South Africa, then under the heavy thumb of Apartheid.  A political incident on a smaller scale occurred at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. Two American track-and-field athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, performed the Black Power salute on the victory stand of the 200-meter track and field race. Then there were the Berlin Games of 1936 which were used as a propaganda tool for Nazi Germany.

And now the games are being hosted this year by the People’s Republic of China. While my country does not have a human rights record to write home about these days, China has consistently neglected the values of the Olympics and it would be an insult to host the games in a place that subjugates people to harsh marginalization and supports ethnic cleansing in other countries. The decades of marginalized oppression of  ethnic Tibetans at the hands or  ethnic Chinese, the refusal to grant Tibet sovereignty and end the occupation of a land that does not belong to them disqualifies China from being the host to anything that is symbolic of worldwide peace and unity.  The Olympic Flame that will burn brightly this summer in Beijing will represent to many the hegemonic rule of China over the Tibetan people. Proponents of a free Tibet are calling for a full-scale boycott of the 2008 Olympics. They believe this will send a strong message to China and push them into legitimizing the in-exile Tibetan government and its leader, the Dalai Lama. After so many years of political subservience, the Tibetan people deserve global support in ensuring freedom from tyranny. These people suffer from severe restrictions, mass censorship and the exile of their beloved leader. China has basically imposed martial law in Lhase, Tibet’s capital, and has imprisoned or detained more than 2,300 peaceful protesters with the excuse that they are protecting normalcy and stability. There’s also the major concern of China’s role in the Sudanese economy. China has strong ties to the Sudan government and for that it should also be recognized that it’s helping to fund genocide in Darfur.
China is only looking out for its economic interests – not human rights.
China has consistently blocked efforts from the United Nations to class Sudan’s actions as genocide and has even blocked sending peacekeeping forces. Sudan’s only major export is oil, and China imports 80 percent of that oil, stimulating the Sudanese government with $2 billion each year.
There is also all the infrastructural investment China is making in Sudan in terms of pipelines, roads and airfields. China also supplies Sudan with military arms and technology. So China is not a blind supporter, but an accomplice in the Bashir regime’s genocide in Darfur. Boycotting this sporting event is a way pressure China to release its vice grip on Tibet and stop its direct funding of a genocide of people in Darfur.
The Olympics are not only a series of sporting events but a symbol of multiculturalism and global unity. How can these things exist in a  nation that is oppressing an entire people while it funds ethnic cleansing in another country? It can’t and it shouldn’t but it is. So there is only one option left. Boycott the Olympics. Senator Hillary Clinton has spoken out and urged President Bush to Boycott the opening ceremonies. I think we should go a step further and this will surely not be a popular opinion – Boycott the Olympic Games. Do not send our contigient over there. Keep the atheletes home. There is a historic precedent for this. When the Soviet military forces entered into Afghanistan in 1979, President Jimmy Carter called for a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. We did not send a team to the 1980 Moscow games.  The Soviet Union repaid the favor and did not attend the Los Angeles games of 1984.  I doubt that George Bush will have the stones to do this, so the next best thing is to tune out.  Don’t watch NBC’s coverage of the games. During those weeks, boycott McDonalds, Johnson & Johnson, GE, Coca Cola , major sponsors of those games.  I’m sure you can stand a few weeks away from Bob Costas anyway. It’s time to send a message that human rights trumps gold medals and the thrill of victory and agony of defeat. Any victories at the games will ring hollow when they are won on the soil of a nation that participates in human rights violations and directly funds genocide in Darfur. Perhaps this should also serve as a wake-up call to the International Olympic Committee that the time has come for a permanent, neutral host such as Switzerland be selected to host the games. It would take the politics away, the Olympics might actually become a sporting event again and the threats of boycotts would diminish. Until then, this writer along with many others is tuning out. And not buying products from companies who advertise during the Olympics. I’m not alone in this.
Many athletes would lose their opportunity to compete, but think of the people who don’t even have the freedom to leave their homes or articulate their political views. Also, look at the Darfur conflict and tell me if anyone would think that was worth a gold medal in an event.