From humble beginnings based on the moral and spiritual benefit of sports, the first global sports competition, the Olympic Games was born in 1896. Fast forward to this year’s violent protests as the official Olympic torch relay passed through London, Paris and San Francisco.
While the IOC expressed concerns regarding the situation in Tibet, its weak statements urging protesters to “stop politicizing the Beijing Olympics” emphasized that “no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or area.”
This of course calls for a re-examination of the spirit and intention of the Olympic Games, its modern incarnation and the absurdity of how “the games must go on” despite the hypocrisy surrounding the games.
The myth surrounding the Olympics evolves from the idea of humanity and in its Ancient Greek form was meant to allow belligerent Greek city-states to participate in sport to give respite between wars. However, the modern Olympic Games have long been exploited as a stage for political expression, repeatedly exploited by various stakeholders (most often by the host nation) to promote nationalist agendas, fascist ambitions, political propaganda or shameless displays of state power.
Ironically, the only times the games were canceled were because of disruptions caused by World War I and World War II, despite the original intention of using the games as a tool to suspend, if not avert, wars entirely. Let’s not forget when the IOC itself made a very political decision to discontinue Taiwan’s right to participate at the Olympics under its official name “Republic of China,” and downgrade its status to the meaningless title of “Chinese Taipei.”
With less than four months to go before the Beijing Olympics and given the recent violent crackdowns on demonstrations in Tibet, it thus seems par for the course that the Olympic Torch Relay has again run into trouble. Since the first ever Olympic torch relay in Berlin 1936, which embarrassingly displayed Nazi propaganda based on racist ideology, the event has come full circle. While China uses its rising economic power to wield increasing influence within the international community, the Chinese government’s self promotion as a benevolent “peaceful rising nation” belies hard-line oppressive tactics, an appalling human rights record and persecution of minority groups.
By awarding the Olympics to Beijing, the repeated justification that this decision could pave way for social change in China has been met with cold indifference by the Chinese government.
It is time for the international community to demonstrate moral courage and challenge China’s exploitative economic policies in Sudan and Myanmar, instead of hiding behind the “Games” as a non-political event. By choosing to remain blind, the IOC itself becomes complicit in the exploitation of the Beijing Olympics by the Chinese government for political purposes. All stakeholders must stand up to the fact that the Beijing Olympics would make a mockery of the very spirit of humanity which underpins the Games.
ROGER LEE HUANG
Taipei
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