Mixed emotions surround Olympics
Friday, August 8th, 2008
The Olympics are about celebrating human spirit and competition in the name of sportsmanship. At least that’s what most research I’ve done about the games seems to contend. Holding the games in China this year, a country that represents stifling oppression of its people and a stoic ignorance to the world’s major issues, e.g. pollution, human rights, etc., seems wrong.
I really can’t, in good conscience, watch or follow the games this year.
To ignore China’s anti-Democratic culture is wrong. To hold a major global event — one that’s supposed to represent the best of humanity — in a place like China is also wrong.
Here are some brief examples of my point:
According to the Associated Press, two Japanese journalists were briefly detained and beaten by police in western China, their companies and one of the men said Tuesday, triggering a protest by the Japanese government. Chinese officials later apologized.
They were working in Xinjiang at the scene of a deadly attack Monday on Chinese policemen when they were forcibly taken to a border police facility, said Shinji Katsuta, a reporter for Japanese broadcaster Nippon Television Network Corp.
“My face was pushed into the ground, my arm was twisted and I was hit two or three times in the face,” he told the Associated Press in a phone interview broadcast on his station.
A photographer from the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper, Shinzou Kawakita, was also apprehended and roughed up, said a company spokesman who declined to give his name, citing company policy.
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Click here to access Washington Post reporter Michael Abramowitz’s blog posting today. It details how he, along with all members of the White House Press Corps, were detained and searched for several hours after landing in Beijing.
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Meanwhile, officers of China’s communist government continue to prowl the streets watching for any signs of dissidence. And, according to this article from the Los Angeles Times, the government has also blocked all internet sites relating to human rights and is closely monitoring all transmissions to and from China.
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Many are gushing that China has “taken a stand” against pollution by clearing the air around Beijing for the Olympics. Hardly anyone is talking about what they did to accomplish it, though. For one, they simply moved dozens of factories from the Beijing area to other cities in China, relocating the misery but not ending it.
The Washington Post reports that the village where fisherwoman Zhang Xiuping lives is now surrounded by factories, and that there are few fish left in the village’s once-pristine sea.
And, according to the Post, it’s a rare day when Zhang, 53, can see the sun through the smoke. She can tell the direction of the winds from the color of the soot blowing by her home. The gray iron deposits come from the southern steel mills, while the white powder comes from chemical factories, and black dust from coal and coking plants.
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Canadian Member of Parliament Irwin Cotler has been outspoken against the games for months. On Thursday, he blasted the Chinese government’s stance on human rights and called the awarding of the Games to Beijing a betrayal of the Olympic Charter, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
“What we are witnessing today … is a persistent and pervasive assault on human rights in China,” Cotler said.
“A betrayal of the Olympic Charter, the Olympic Games and China’s pledge to respect both.”
According to the CBC, among the concerns outlined in the Cotler report are the treatment of Tibetans, limits on freedom of expression and inaction in dealing with the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, where 200,000 people have died since 2003.
Still feel that Olympic spirit?
