A very topical issue at the moment is that of the protests related to the Beijing Olympics. On Sunday the torch bearing the Olympic flame was involved in various incidents in London involving people attempting to extinguish the flame. The same situation occurred today in Paris where the torch running had to be cut short. Full details can be found here.
The protests and attempts to douse the flame are in protest to the fact that China is hosting the Olympics. The reason people are unhappy is due to the issue of China’s human rights violations in countries such as Tibet and the blind eye they turn in African countries such as Sudan. This brings us to the big issue of whether sports and politics should meet.
Firstly I think the whole protests are despicable. The method of attacking the torch bearer is unacceptable and it is only a matter of time till someone gets hurt? From what I understand the athletes who carry these torch’s have nothing to do with the host country and are celebrities in the country that the torch is currently in. Attacking these people’s work simply makes the protesters look no better than any violations they are protesting against.
Secondly I think that sport and politics are very much intertwined and often quite closely related. The reason I say this is because an event such as the Olympics generally creates unity and breaks down differences between people. Sport brings people together while you might say that politics pushes people apart. What a major sporting event does, whether it is the Olympics or any sort of World Cup, is bring various nations together in a sense of achievement for what humanity can accomplish physically. This “togetherness” is critical in solving these difficult political issues. For some reason the unity concept makes people more willing to compromise and sort things out.
While everyone is unhappy with China having the Olympics due to the country’s issues I think it’s a good thing on many levels. As terrible as it sounds this is a great marketing tool for the people that are being violated. If anything their plight will be more internationally known and this hopefully means a quicker end to the problem. By getting the Olympics, China is being considered a major world player and with some luck will be pressured even further to ease their policies.
The simple truth is that China is a relatively immature country that has only been in its current industrial state for a few decades. While it is never acceptable to say that human rights violations are acceptable, you might consider that no country is perfect in this regard. Should America have not been given the Olympics in 1996 because of their international bully techniques? Should Australia have not been given the 2000 Olympics because of the way the aborigines are treated?
Personally, I’m excited for the Olympics and I have a pretty good feeling that things can only get better after the world sees how China is treating their neighboring countries as well as their citizens. I’m hoping the games promote unity and increase awareness. I also hope the protesters get a reality check, their doing more damage to their cause through their tactics and could have such a large amount more impact if they just did things peacefully.
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True. More holistically, China is using the games as a major PR play. This is the first time that China opens its doors to such a friendly event and was hoping to make a good impression to its visitors.
The problem now is that presidents are planning on snubbing the event, which will have drastic consequences in the political arena. By Hillary Clinton publically calling for the US to boycott the event, she is tarnishing the relationship that China and the US share. Expect China to take offence to this as it is a HUGE embarrassment and will likely withdraw its votes from the sides of the US in future negotiations. China plays a key role in Asia politically, and with it being the largest economy in the east, snubbing them is a rookie political mistake.