Posted on 03/05/2008 9:36:21 AM PST by Mr. Silverback
This summer the Olympics will be held in Beijing, a decision fraught with controversy since it was announced back in 2001. China’s human-rights record is abysmal—from forced abortions, to persecuting Christians and other people of faith, to clamping down on free speech, to supporting a government that has committed genocide in Darfur.
The Olympic committee, back in 2001, said choosing Beijing would be a catalyst for change in China. It “may help to liberalize a country,” said the committee’s vice president, Thomas Bach of Germany. But that will not happen when, as the London Daily Mail puts it, you “kow tow” to the host country, and you tell athletes to keep quiet—which is exactly what is happening.
To comply with the international Olympic Charter, Britain’s Olympic athletes are being forced to sign contracts promising they will not say anything about China’s human-rights abuses. If they violate the contract, athletes will find themselves on a plane headed home. The contract could mean that an athlete “who witnesses someone being mistreated on the way to a stadium” could not talk to colleagues about it. And they would have to “exercise self-censorship” on blogs and e-mails.
And while U.S. athletes may speak freely—they cannot do so at any official Olympic venue or press conference. Come on.
Some have said this year’s gagging of athletes is reminiscent of the Nazi salute British competitors gave at a soccer match in Berlin in 1938. “Imposing compulsory vows of silence is an affront to our athletes, and in China it will be viewed as acquiescence,” said human-rights advocate Lord David Alton. He noted that “each year 8,000 executions take place in China, political and religious opinion is repressed, journalists jailed and the internet and overseas broadcasts heavily censored.” Alton was dead-on when he said, “For our athletes to be told that they may not make any comment makes a mockery of our own country’s belief in free speech.”
Last August, International Olympic Committee Chairman Jacques Rogge said, “We stand for human rights, we stand for strict social values, but we are only a sports organization.” Well, which is it? Are the Olympics a force that will “help liberalize a country” as Bach said earlier, or “only a sports organization”?
To carry on with the Games as if nothing is wrong in China is a serious blow to human rights and those who fight to uphold them.
Steven Spielberg recognized this and withdrew from his role as an artistic adviser to the Games’ opening and closing ceremonies. According to the Wall Street Journal, Spielberg cited “China’s connection to the government in Sudan and the controversy over Darfur.” Good for Spielberg.
“About the only justification for participating in the Beijing Games is that it offers an opportunity to encourage more awareness about human rights,” says Lord Alton.
The Games will go on. But to paraphrase Alton, the only justification for watching them will be for American viewers to raise the human-rights issue in letters-to-the-editor, speaking with lawmakers and Olympic sponsors, and shining a spotlight on Chinese repression.
Even if our athletes can not speak out—and I bet some will—we can. And we must.
There are links to further information at the source document.
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Sure, China has big problems, but leave the Olympics out of this. Everyone airing their pet political peaves with statements from the comfort of their Hollywood offices is making a joke of it. Next time the Olympics will be in London, or Los Angeles - and do we want a bunch of Code Pink or ELA idiots trying to outdo themselves to get in front of the TV cameras?
By this criteria the next Summer Olympics should be held in Saudi Arabia.
New Zealand athletes are under similar instructions. I think it is shameful. New Zealand ought to stay home rather than toady to China’s wishes.
One more reason why not to watch the Olympics, I guess. And anyway, the gold medal winners are just as likely-as-not to be drug-taking fakes, if events play out as they have in the past. Who wants to see a steroid freak cross the finishing line again? Not me.
(What if they held the Olympics and nobody showed up? Wouldn’t *that* be Hell-Funny?! Hee-hee-hee!)
Any Olympian worthy of the name will ignore the order to be silent and force the Commies to evict them from China or even arrest them during the Games.
We still have Olympics> I haven’t seen one since the 70’s.
“The Olympic committee, back in 2001, said choosing Beijing would be a catalyst for change in China. It “may help to liberalize a country,” said the committee’s vice president, Thomas Bach of Germany....”
Funny, but the globalist free traders always said similar about Communist China....that “trade w Commie China would be a catalyst for change in Commie China”
Aint happening....not with the Olympics, free trade, etc.
You can never change someones behavior by rewarding them for their bad behavior
> Any Olympian worthy of the name will ignore the order to be silent and force the Commies to evict them from China or even arrest them during the Games.
That would require athletes with Character and self-sacrificing Ethic — like Eric Liddell for instance.
Sadly the world may never see his kind again.
I agree with you. It’s not the place for political statements. There’s better and more appropiate venues.
Remember the “Black Power” fists? It was classless.
At the Mexico City Olympics, a nut blew his brains over the US Cycling Team before they started the team time trial. The US Olympians were told to shut up and not comment.
A few years later in Germany, the teams were told they were guests and not to comment on the rotten security and incredible stupidity of the West Germans.
So it has happened before.
His crime? He held services at an unregistered house church.
Saying China has their problems is like saying that Britney Spears has some minor personal issues to work out. It is breathtakingly silly for you to use that phrasing. One could also say Nazi Germany had their problems, too, but we shouldn't have sent Jesse Owens to Munich because it might embarass Hitler and there'd be pro-fascist demonstrations at the next Olympics.
Next time the Olympics will be in London, or Los Angeles - and do we want a bunch of Code Pink or ELA idiots trying to outdo themselves to get in front of the TV cameras?
I have no problem with that because I stand for free speech for all people. Why don't you?
Great idea, but I think that turning in the bikini track suits for burkhas would be pretty unpopular with the female athletes.
Agree 100%.
If any Olympians are reading this, watch “Chariots of Fire” before you head to Beijing.
The travesty of Avery Brundage stating that “the Games must go on”, subsequent to the Munich massacre, destroyed any interest I had in the Olympics.
Really? Is that what conservatism is now?
I think those are very different cases. There’s a big difference between telling people not to make a bad situation worse and saying “You willl be nice to the jackbooted thugs or else.”
Let me put it this way: If athletes in either of the situations you cite had spoken up anyway, would they have been bad representatives of our country?
> Great idea, but I think that turning in the bikini track suits for burkhas would be pretty unpopular with the female athletes.
...to say nothing about the male spectators!
> I agree with you. It’s not the place for political statements. There’s better and more appropiate venues.
I respectfully disagree. Arrant nonsense — The Olympics is probably THE WORLD’S LARGEST platform for political statements. Always has been, and always will be.
Otherwise, why the National Anthems? Why the National Teams? Why the National Flags? Why the various Games boycotts over the years? Why the fierce rivalries between teams of opposing Ideologies?
The Olympics has a rich history of being all about the clash of Nations and Ideologies.
> There’s better and more appropiate venues.
Sadly, the biggest Political Statement has already been made, long ago, when it was decided to sanction China as a suitable venue for the Olympics — thus rewarding Bad Behavior.
Since then, they have not improved: if anything they have gotten worse. China cares little for Human Rights. Or for Property Rights for that matter. Or for the rights of Sovereign Nations to disagree with their internal policies.
The Olympics is an ideal venue to point these failings out. I can’t think of a better one, personally.
The reason they gave, of course, was that “this is what the terrorists wanted” and we won’t give them that” Which is bull - their demands didn’t include suspension of the games.
After the massacre, I believe it was Steve Prefontaine (or this is just another “myth”) who said that all the athletes should compete in plain uniforms with no country affiliation.
I plan not to watch a single moment of the Olympic coverage from China. I love track and field, and I’ll forego it this time. The games should NEVER have been given to China, and the IOCC doing so validated an oppressive government. They’re whole “liberate” argument is ridiculous - after the 1936 Games, Germany didn’t dissolve into a perennial “Oktoberfest.”
I honestly hope there is a Tiennamen-Square-level disaster during the Games, but this time with the good guys doing better.
Equating racism with speaking out against human rights abuses is ridiculous.
The only thing Jimmy Carter did right was not sending our team to Moscow.
Once an athlete’s events are over, a plane ride home is no punishment at all. There will be no shortage of embarrassments for the CCP this summer.
Jesse Owens let his performance do the talking.
Colson's headline is right - why should care any more about an athlete's view on human rights in China than we care what an actor or singer thinks about our President?
Yes, but the home country was profoundly embarassed as they deserved to be, which the current Olympic bureaucritters are desperate to avoid. If they could get away with telling a British or American diver to only give 90% so the PRC would look good, I think they'd do it. World peace and all that. Kum-bai-yah.
And what if Jesse Owens had looked into a newsreel camera and said, "I'm so glad that I come from a free nation instead of being a subject of that racist maniac, Hitler?" Would he have been a bad representative of America at that point?
Colson's headline is right - why should care any more about an athlete's view on human rights in China than we care what an actor or singer thinks about our President?
First, are you actually comparing a bunch of empty-headed liberals pontificating on complex foreign policy and economic issues to someone saying "The PRC should stop killing innocent people?"
Second, when did any organization that had control over those entertainers' careers say "You are not allowed to comment on politics; because you are an entertainer and you might say something inconvenient to us, your right to free speech is now suspended?" Has SAG said that? How about the record company the Dixie Chicks record for? Has CMT or any concert promoters told Toby Keith not to mention the war?
I stand for free speech for all people, even empty-headed trollish country music stars like Natalie Maines and amateur jocks like Amanda Beard. Why don't you?
I see the PRC collapsing from a serious case of Christianity.
Yeah, that boycott really hurt the Russians, and it didn’t screw our athletes at all!
We could have had a Jesse Owens moment in Moscow. Instead we got more of Jimmah’s posturing.
The thing is, when Jesse Owens was in Berlin, the Olympics were not telecast live, you only saw the newsreels weeks after the fact.
Had they had live TV back then, Hitler would have insisted that the networks carrying the games, have puff propaganda pieces showing how great life was in Germany. Which is exactly what the Soviets demanded in 1980, to show Commie propaganda. That’s why it was a good thing we didn’t go.
Yeah, have you noticed how the Black Power salute incident is now portrayed as a moment of personal expression denied? People have forgotten just how radical and mean-spirited that crap was. What is really disgusting is that the vast majority of the “Black Power” types never bothered spewing their crap until other people had done the heavy lifting by facing the Klan, billy clubs and fire hoses in the South.
I hope so. I’d love to see every American medal winner step off the podium, find a camera and get his or herself sent home immediately. :-)
First, are you actually comparing a bunch of empty-headed liberals pontificating on complex foreign policy and economic issues to someone saying "The PRC should stop killing innocent people?"
The content of the speech is not the issue. People using an unrelated platform to spout their political beliefs is.
Even when I agree with those beliefs. It's boorish at best.
Burke was right about the conditions under which evil prospers.
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