Impact of Olympics uncertain
Will the Beijing Olympics in 2008 add virulence to the overwhelming nationalism of a rising power, as in Germany in 1936? Or will it merely motivate the Chinese government and its people to feel more legitimate pride and self-confidence, as with the Tokyo Games in 1964 when Japan was recovering from the devastation and humiliation of defeat in war?
Answering such questions, as the Taipei Times set out to do in its Saturday editorial, quickly comes up against the deeply entrenched desire to believe that China is changing for the better, no matter what its past or present may be. Some say the future is mocked and marginalized by mainstream opinion. The Chinese people themselves have no peer in this respect -- in displaying unbounded faith that they will have a wonderful future if they can only turn their backs on past and present experience in order get on with working together for a glorious cause.
Playing host to the Olympics offers a rare opportunity to indulge in such thinking, as China's leaders well know. It may even be unique. For unlike the disastrous political campaigns of chairman Mao and his followers, who orchestrated cataclysms on a national scale as a substitute for political and economic reform, the Olympics has the world's blessing and confers honor on those who preside over them.
The danger remains that the 2008 Olympics will be exploited by the Chinese Communist Party and that its massive doses of good will and international solidarity will become a substitute for change, while ironically strengthening the foundations of a one-party state.
It doesn't help that the world is drowning in an aggressive sea of optimism about the merits of a globalized culture -- notably including sports.
Globalization is seen by its advocates as a panacea for political and economic evils of all sorts. As far as the Olympics is concerned, they seem to assume that the demonstrative effect of camaraderie and fairplay at the games will be a catalyst for political and social reforms which, more often than not, have resisted even more compelling demands for change.
China's leaders are already hijacking the 2008 Games for nationalistic purposes. What looked like most of the State Council and politburo of the Chinese Communist Party were on stage in Tiananmen Square on Saturday night to take credit for the vote in Moscow. But will they be effective? After all, China has changed since the Cultural Revolution when mass hysteria ruled the streets and ultra-leftist leaders easily manipulated public thought.
And won't there be counter-balancing influences in the fairness of the competition and the spectacle of individual athletes demonstrating their skills, regardless of nationality? Let's hope so.
A Beijing Olympics with open access to athletes, news media, spectators and protesters alike could help to wear away some of China's bad habits.
But I doubt it will be that simple.
Julian Baum
Tienmu
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