This post is a response to Farrow's Darfur Olympics & Our Olympic Shame by Christoper J. Finlay
Interesting perspective, although Mr. Finlay got one thing wrong -- I have never called for an Olympic boycott or believed for one second that a boycott of the games would be an effective or viable notion.. I DID call for world leaders to take a pass on the opening propaganda ceremony . President George W. Bush's ill considered decision to attend the opening ceremonies came in the wake of brutal crackdowns in Tibet, and during a week when seven peacekeepers were murdered in the Darfur region of Sudan, where China continues to underwrite the carnage and deal arms to its perpetrators.
A rising tide of US and international politicians have taken a stand by eschew the opening ceremonies-- the lone component of the games geared not at celebrating the athletes, but at burnishing the Beijing regime's political image; British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper were joined yesterday by EU Parliamentary President Hans-Gert Poettering. Both Barack Obama and John McCain have indicated that absent significant improvement in China's human rights record, they would choose not to attend.
The President's squandered potential for influence has seldom been more apparent. Beijing has been notoriously indifferent to traditional diplomatic pressure, but they have leapt into action to protect the Beijing Games. Early efforts to link Darfur to the Games prompted Beijings hasty appointment of an envoy, the softening of veto threats on the UN Security Council and most significantly, the signing of last years UN resolution authorizing a protection force for Darfur. A boycott of the opening ceremonies might have proved to be a powerful, additional point of leverage with an otherwise intractable regime.
A boycott isolated to the opening ceremony avoids targeting the athletes. It would have sent a strong symbolic statement to Beijing at little substantive cost to US-Chinese relations.
Instead, Bush has made a powerful statement of tacit approval. His decision is regrettable. It was a missed opportunity for the United States of America to stand strong for the anguished people of Darfur and Burma as well as for the Tibetans in their long struggle. It was an opportunity to express solidarity with those Chinese citizens whose human rights are being denied, and for the US to demonstrate moral leadership and represent the values and principles our nation was founded on. It was a golden opportunity now lost.
Bird of the feather flock together.
...Will Ms. Farrow be at the games? “I would never get a visa, she says.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/02/china.olympicgames2008
Mia Farrow, one of the Chinese government's most outspoken critics, was allowed to enter Hong Kong after a brief interview with immigration officers yesterday morning -
Dream for Darfur also acknowledges China's role in persuading Khartoum to accept peacekeepers in the region.
As the monks continued on their way, the one was brooding and preoccupied. Unable to hold his silence, he spoke out. "Brother, our spiritual training teaches us to avoid any contact with women, but you picked that one up on your shoulders and carried her!"
"Brother," the second monk replied, "I set her down on the other side, while you are still carrying her."
This sense of shame is most appropo during a presidential election season. What style of leadership do we want to select the next time around? Have we had enough of leaders who are great at rattling sabers and wreaking havoc, but who are totally ineffective when it comes to addressing an ongoing humanitarian crises?
Since when do Americans in their Democracy take it upon themselves to force their politics and desires onto other nations peacefully going about their productive existence. In fact America has been a global bully and master manipulator for decades. A great many nations have been victimized by America's talk of democracy that simply hid the agenda of shoving American products and corporations down the throats of third world countries. Why do we trade with China? Because it is good for our corporations. Wake up people, these moral games are illusions to entertain the public while the elite push agenda's that increase their wealth.
This is no supremely moral nation, it has the appearance of a arrogant uneducated insular propagandized puppet show. During Hitler's Olympics the colored people of America were subject to severe oppression in their own country which they had repeatedly fought for only to return as second class citizens. To compare Hitler's Germany to America would be more appropriate than comparing it to China.
You are correct in pointing out that I did not explicitly write that you have asked world leaders to skip only the opening ceremonies. In my post I suggested that you had asked world leaders to boycott the Games. I apologize for this oversight.
At the same time, I was disappointed that the rest of your response did not address the major arguments I made in my post. As there is a word limit in the comments section, I will have to keep my response short for now but I look forward to engaging with this important issue in greater detail in future posts.
Hosting the Olympics is forcing China to come to terms with its environmental problems and no doubt has stayed its hand in Tibet and will have the same effect in the Uighur region. There will also be positive effects from the large numbers of outsiders who will visit and expose the Chinese to more new influences.
Above all, China's leaders are pragmatic. Trends they can't control will push them forward into more liberalization and the rule of law rather than party control. Considering how far they've travelled since Mao died, we should have some confidence in their ability to adapt and make progressive changes.
Lectures and grandstanding gestures from outsiders will be counterproductive. Even their most odious actions, bolstering the murderous Sudanese government, is likely to backfire when revolutionaries there start to attack the oil facilities they need so desperately to fuel their economy.
Patience and good examples are much more likely to succeed.
The wrong way to protest: to insist that OTHER people, who enjoy watching the world's elites compete against each other, don't.
We have become them.
Would you support a campaign to block American participation?
If not why not?
Besides, the Olympics are about the athletes who have worked so hard to be there, not about making a political statement. Either they support the games in China, or they don't. The "symbolic" boycott of the opening ceremony is grandstanding. If a country doesn't like China's government's behavior, then that country's leaders need to engage the Chinese leaders directly.
We support the Chinese PEOPLE when we support the games. Those people are no different than you or me. We'd feel badly if our games were boycotted because of our government's behavior. I mean we do FEEL badly, that BECAUSE of OUR government's misbehavior we are feared and reviled the world over. We are, now, ourselves, belatedly and desparately, trying to reel in our corrupt and contemptable president and his administration. Perhaps the Chinese people can do the same?
btw, China holds a huge amount of the huge debt Mr. Bush ran up while in office. If China decides to make us pay back their loans to us, I think we'd be in deep poop. Bush has no choice but to attend the opening ceremony. Besides, what could he find wrong with their human rights behavior, it matches ours.
Thank heavens, we've got Barack Obama in the wings. If there is a God in Heaven, he will become the 44th President of the United States, and people in need all over this earth will benefit ! The entire world is cheering Obama on, in this Presidential race! We have been hurt and damaged so severely by these 8 Bush years, I just hope it's still possible to rebuild this country! I hope everyone of us make it a point to demand that the History books are accurate and honest in their recount of the worst and most incompetent, corrupt, irresponsible, hypocritical and vindictive president of all time!
It's time for you people to wake up and smell the Lapsang Souchong..
You talking to me? Who the hell are you?
All I'm saying is that people (Americans) in glass houses (US foreign policy) shouldn't throw stones.
"You People"???