Posted on 02/15/2008 12:36:06 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Spielberg ‘breached Olympic spirit’
By Mure Dickie in Beijing
Published: February 14 2008 20:33 | Last updated: February 15 2008 01:35
Organisers of the Beijing Olympics denounced any linking of sport and politics as a contravention of the “Olympic spirit” on Thursday following the resignation of Steven Spielberg, the US film director, as an artistic adviser on the games’ opening and closing ceremonies.
In spite of its insistence on keeping politics out of sport, the Olympics organising committee (Bocog) joined the foreign ministry in defending China’s stance on Darfur, which had been cited by Mr Spielberg as the reason for his resignation.
Bocog said it was obvious to any “unprejudiced” observer that the Chinese government had made “unremitting efforts” for peace in the region, and that it “regretted” Mr Spielberg’s statement.
“Linking the Darfur issue to the Olympic Games will not help to resolve this issue and is not in line with the Olympic spirit that separates sports from politics,” the organising committee said in a response issued more than a day after Mr Spielberg’s announcement.
Beijing’s effort to host an Olympic Games untainted by criticism of its foreign and domestic policies has come under unprecedented strain because of growing international outrage over Chinese support for the government of Sudan.
Mr Spielberg, one of a number of unpaid artistic advisers to the games, had announced this week that his conscience would not allow him to spend time on Olympic ceremonies while “unspeakable crimes against humanity” continued in Sudan’s Darfur region.
“Sudan’s government bears the bulk of the responsibility for these ongoing crimes but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more to end the continuing human suffering there,” he said.
Mr Spielberg’s departure offered a powerful boost to campaigners seeking to use Beijing’s role as Olympic host as an opportunity to push it to use its military and commercial ties with Khartoum to force an end to the Darfur killings.
A group of Nobel peace laureates, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have signed a letter to President Hu Jintao of China, calling on him to uphold Olympic ideals by pushing Khartoum to end atrocities in Darfur.
Mia Farrow, the Hollywood actress, former Olympic athletes and other activists have sent a similar message, with protests mounted outside China’s embassy in London and mission to the United Nations in New York.
The success of Darfur activists in making the topic a headline issue less than six months before the games’ August 8 opening is likely to encourage other critics in their efforts to highlight China’s record on human rights, Tibet and the banned Falun Gong sect.
China’s ties with Sudan, which include buying much of its oil exports and supplying it with arms, has made it the primary target of campaigners pushing for an end to a conflict that has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced 2m people since 2003.
The tardiness of Bocog’s reaction reflects both the political sensitivity of Olympic issues in China and the difficulty the Communist government faces in trying to influence the international news agenda surrounding the world’s biggest sporting festival. In China, the censored mainstream media almost totally ignored Mr Spielberg’s resignation.
Among large-circulation newspapers, the setback was mentioned only in the print edition of the Global Times – a populist arm of the Communist party’s People’s Daily newspaper – which cited it as an example of western powers seeking to use the Games to pressure China.
The scale of the threat posed by critics to China's games remains unclear however, with little enthusiasm for a boycott and world leaders including US President George W. Bush planning to attend.
Ping!
I don’t like Spielberg on much, but on this one you have to give him credit. What a sham: Olympic Spirit being hosted in a land full of butchering Maoists.
Spielberg did the right thing for all the wrong reasons.
We should all back the Chinese Olympics Boycott.
including the USA olympic comittee.
The Leftist Hollywood jerk found the true about what he supports.
What has this puke done to help the 40 million Iraqis given liberty & opportunity thanks to the USA?
Spielberg would not know Justice if it hit him in his little Lefty Brain...he is just another HH, hollywood hypocrite.
And then tell China we have 3 or 4 Trident subs within 100 miles of their coast.
Cheers!
I still see more bumper sticker saying “Free Tibet” than I see say “Stop Chinese Genocide Enablers in Sudan”.
100,000 Beijing serfs were forcibly removed from their homes, the homes and neighborhoods destroyed, and the serfs given NO compensation what so ever.
100,000+ peasant and agriculture collective famrers and their families lost their water for irrigation this year so the water can be diverted to Beijing so the tourists can drink, and the farmers received no compensation what so ever, and are looking forward to a year without jobs or food to sustain themselves.
Anti sweatshop coalitions believes upwards of 10,000 factory work slaves are being used to produce officially licensed Beijing Olympics 2008 merchandise.
The construction management companies owned by the children of elite Cadre officials are using slave labor to build the hotels the tourists will stay.
Tibet was part of China’s territory since the Qing Dynasty centuries ago. Perhaps the reason the Tibetan exiles demand region’s independence because they reject communism.
How sad, a game which supposed to be politic-free suddenly become a propaganda which Ameircan did the same thing in the past (1980 Moscow remember?).
Using Olympic as a propaganda is really disrespect to the game’s reputation. Ancient Greeks started this game without any politic agenda in their mind even when they’re compete against their arch-foe.
Then I guess the Ancient Greeks will definately roll in their grave for this. The modern people use Olympic as political propaganda.
Let see now, can we sense Ancient Greeks and Pierre de Coubertin anger and disappointment?
If China wants people to stop comlaining about Tibet, let it go, which I sincerely doubt, given China's nature. They love to say U.S. is the imperialist nation. I would say China has been the imperialist nation for more than 2,000 years.
I have a very low opinion of any athlete who would participate in these games, not to mention the hosts.
Sorry. I don’t buy that for a moment. Jimmy Carter’s boycott was a total screwup fiasco. The athletes of that era still talk about it.
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