The Futile Gesture
or,
How I'm Boycotting The Beijing Olympics
Politics & Ideas
24 March 2008:- I had better write a preface here, or the following essay will seem ignorant: bear in mind it was written near the end of January, and things started happening shortly afterwards. The first set of related events to erupt into the news concerned selection for the Olympics and (in the UK) the BOA's intent that every athlete sign a commitment not to make political statements. At that point it became apparent that there were some athletes, not all involved in Olympic sports, who were not inclined to be quiet about the Olympics going to China. However, rather than Tibet, the principal target for their concern was Darfur - China has a pivotal role in Sudan, and to the rest of us appears to condone the genocidal behaviour of the Sudanese government - hence the creation of 'Team Darfur'. I urge you to go to their website. On a minor note, while encouraged to hear about that, it does happen to be an initiative of US athletes. No complaint, it reaffirms one's faith, but I have a continued disappointment in the lack of political consciousness amongst our own (UK) youth...
Anyway: far more significant is the recent explosion of protest in Tibet and surrounding areas (I assume they were also historically Tibet, but that China like all empire builders drew lines on the map to suit themselves - ?), now brutally suppressed. The reporters have been evicted from Tibet, and as I would have expected all along, we are hearing virtually nothing about it any more. I was particularly depressed by a recent page on the BBC website which featured comments by a selection of ordinary middle class Chinese from various cities. They rejected criticism and supported their government; I would disagree with them, but I accept their right to their views. What depressed me was that none of them acknowledged the reasons for the protests in even the smallest degree. They were genuinely angry with the protesters, and I would characterise their anger as being about what you could describe as 'rocking the boat'. Never mind the fact that for the rest of us, it is China's treatment of the Tibetans which brings shame to China.
It's hard at the moment to envisage any improvement for the Tibetans. It will be fascinating to see a radical development such as the Dalai Lama travelling to China, but I would guess he would end up speaking to no one higher than a minor official, the meeting being presented as a kind of surrender, and his spending the rest of his life rather like Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma. But what about the Olympics? After all the turmoil in Tibet, what prospect are we left with? For all that there will probably be a variety of protests eg. connected with the journey of the Olympic torch, the fact remains that the first statement below is still true: as I write, there is no sign of any boycott of the Olympics by any nation. And I have not heard of any athlete declining selection on political grounds. Perhaps the time isn't ripe yet.
21 January 2008:- I find it strange that I haven't heard a whisper of any meaningful boycott of the Beijing Olympics.
I'm serious; even though I understand it very well,
it's still bewildering to me that there's been no hint anywhere of, maybe, a nation being unhappy about the venue, or about some of the Chinese preparations for the event; and in particular, that no individual has stood up and declared that they were unwilling to be selected. I may be proved wrong, as the year progresses. There must be some politically aware athletes, who find themselves faced with a matter of conscience. But I'm not holding my breath. If this country (the UK) is a fair sample of the general consensus, then there's no wave of feeling anywhere about the political issues which might give someone pause for thought about going. The only serious official disquiet expressed so far, at least publically, is over the possibility of air pollution causing serious problems for athletes in certain events, such as the marathon.
I imagine I've lost many of my readers, after that paragraph. Readers for whom it all smacks of boring politics. Okay. If nothing else, I would hope that anybody, sports lovers and otherwise, has at least recognised that the Olympics don't exist in isolation, and where we hold the Games will inevitably bring up questions as to what that choice says about us all. But if you're still here, let me offer you a few things to think about.
And then I'll explain my utterly futile boycott.
First, have a think about one or two past Olympic Games which have been held in places which were clearly out to use the Games in ways we regret now. The outstanding example must be the 1936 Games in Berlin. For Hitler, they were going to be a statement of 'Aryan' superiority. Thanks to Jesse Owens, it didn't quite turn out that way; but consider that Jesse Owens might not have been around, and that today we might not have been able to tell his story. The point is, people had a good idea beforehand that Hitler wanted to use the Games that way, and yet the Games still went ahead, the flags were waved etc., and as it stood, we all endorsed Hitler's having his showpiece. You may or may not be aware of this, but in 2008 China fully expects, for the first time, to win more medals than anyone else. And most experts think they'll do it.
Left:- Beijing's Olympic Stadium, very impressive lit up like this. It's supposed to suggest a bird's nest. Or a whole people, tightly trussed up?
I hope there's no one now who imagines that sport is nothing to do with politics. You only have to follow the history of the Olympics to see how, more and more, sport has become an arena in which politics is played out. Some would say it's preferable to arguing out differences militarily. Well, it might kill fewer people, but the Olympics can be just as ugly, as ugly as some of its sport is beautiful and inspiring. We can put issues aside and play sport, but doesn't there come a time when an issue still burns so badly that to ignore it and play along to the circus is morally reprehensible?
The second area of concern is that of issues outside the Games. I mean, it's one thing to question how the Games are used for aggrandisement, but you might well argue that China's internal issues are nothing to do with it. I accept that many will say any protest against the Games will have no benefit for the oppressed. Actually, it might have done, just, if we'd said that if the Olympics is a celebration of man at his/her noblest, then it's unnacceptable to stage the Games in China when some are so disadvantaged, and where entire peoples are being obliterated. Instead of celebrating diversity, these Games will in effect, and in essence, validate a massive lessening of diversity. There will be no Tibetan team to these Games, and no Uighur team, and the Mongolian team will only represent a small proportion of that people. And that's before I've brought up Taiwan.
Third is the individual issue which I alluded to above. I do wonder about the lack of any sign of rebellion from the ranks. I may have missed it, but the current generation of athletes does seem depoliticised to the extreme. Compared with a generation ago, of course, they're now career athletes, with agents who would give them a hard time about any damage done to their cash flow. And in the very nature of it they're young, and it does take some time to acquire wider perspectives, which are the diametrical opposite of the narrow focus they have to have to win medals. But do none of them raise their eyes and look beyond that tiny point on the horizon? Have they all persuaded themselves that China isn't all that bad? Or that bringing the world to China will 'open it up'? There's another side to the issue of individual choices which I find quite scary. It's the attitude of our own Olympic authorities, who have made it quite clear they won't tolerate any dissent, protest etc. Their statements in this area have been intimidating, almost bullying. Strange, that if this were an actual war, there'd still be a principle of conscientious objection. Not that you wouldn't be unpopular, but that's what the conscientious objector accepts. It's frightening about our over managed society - which I think George Orwell would understand very well - that a right to have a higher principle and a willingness to suffer for it appears to have been lost.
You're wondering what I'm proposing an athlete should do? It's not for me to propose any particular action. Actions coming out of a wrestling with conscience could be anything, and depend on the individual concerned. For Tommie Smith and John Carlos in 1968 - and don't forget the white Australian Peter Norman who won silver in that 200m and supported their protest - it was a Black Power protest on the podium. For another athlete, it might be simply not to go in the first place. Me, I couldn't say unless I was in that situation at that time. I'd know then. But seriously, one can't tell any athlete what their moral duty is. That's the point about morality; it doesn't mean anything unless it's yours. Maybe there'll be no whiff of dissent within the sporting arena at all. What bothers me is that I haven't heard any sports person of any description saying anything in public at all, raising any questions at all, in even the mildest of ways, about these Olympics.
Maybe I've just missed it, and if so, I apologise to whoever it was.
Here's a small instance of an individual athlete's position which perplexed me. It's to do with Cathy Freeman, who famously won gold in the 400m at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, afterwards celebrating with both the Australian and the Aboriginal flags. She's aboriginal herself and rightly proud of her heritage. After the Games, and I hope I'm not in error saying this, she was asked to help with the Chinese Olympic bid. It seemed to me that though the British and then the Australian governments made grave and often scandalous mistakes in their treatment of the aboriginal population in the past, they pale besides China's treatment of its own minorities. I admire her achievements enormously, and I doubt if Cathy Freeman was knowingly exercising double standards, but it's hard to understand.
If it were any other less advanced country, I'd agree that the world's attention might change things. But China is one of the most controlled places on Earth. Witness what happened with Tiananmen Square: the whole world knew about it, but few Chinese today would know what you were talking about if you asked them. The Chinese government really do have the ability to contain all the 'openness' that the Olympic Games is bringing to Bejing for a few weeks. The Games will be sold to the world and, especially, its own people, as a validation of the path they have taken to success. You'll hear nothing about the dissidents, no matter how prominent they are. Few if any protests will be seen, and any adventurous Western reporters will be swiftly expelled. These Games will not change the bad things about China.
So. It's not as if this page is going to influence anybody. There's no demonstration as far as I know, which I can express my support for. The only thing this essay might possibly achieve is to get my web site banned in China. What a sacrifice that will be :) In the end, what this comes down to for me is what will put me in a better moral and mental place. And I think it's a question of resistance to what's being pushed at me:- the event itself, the hype and advertising, and it's all through the media. So here's what I'm going to do. This is my futile protest.
I'm turning it all off. Television and radio. And buying no newspapers. As far as possible, I'll avoid any engagement with it during the two weeks it takes place. I'll deny myself any following of British hopes etc. Any knowledge of gold medals and other successes. Or heroic failures. There can't be any half measure, because it's too easy to pick up some accidental titbits. So, I'll avoid the BBC news website entirely (from where by the way I pilfered these illustrations, please let me off?), and the newspapers. Yes, this even means careful aversion of the eyes when walking into the supermarket, because they're displayed right inside the entrance. Television's going to be a real problem; even if one avoided sports programmes, and the news, it's going to be impossible to avoid all the idents and trailers and casual references on other tv shows. So it looks like I'm going to have to treat it like a foreign holiday, and not watch any television at all. ...Which brings up another thought; why not go on a foreign holiday? It might be good way to avoid sports mania... but where would that be? I can forget Finland, they're sports mad there. No point in even starting to consider eg. the US or Australia. So, stay at home? I guess, except that there's still the matter of friends talking about it ...uh.
Yes, there's a risk of it getting silly. And yes, on one level I am being pompous and self righteous. But I'm resolved. Whatever else happens, I'm turning off the telly while the Olympics is on, ignoring any print media, and limiting internet activity to music and so on. And before you say it, I might ironically miss it if, against all expectation, some brave athlete does take a stand at the Games, or some even braver Chinese dissidents decide to protest. Those things are possible. But if I watched, read or followed the events in the hope of that, I'd be kidding myself. To join in and watch is to endorse the thing. And I don't. This won't affect you, it won't help any of those within China's borders who have suffered for China's growth and power, and it certainly won't punish those who in the past sat back and said nothing while China invaded Tibet, massacred protesters in Tiananmen Square, or villagers angry against land grabs... so many many people. I wish the Games weren't there, I wish British athletes weren't going, I wish we weren't so passive in the face of China's greed and bullying demands. I can't help any of that.
But I can do this.
21 January 2008
Links
Actually, you should do a search on Google or Yahoo or wherever. You may end up with the impression that there's a huge amount of protest around the world, and a multitude of calls for a boycott. I was going to link to a variety of activist websites; along with the striking logos and poster images, there's evidence of real world activity, like the Great Wall protest here (right). But just bear in mind that the handful of Western students involved were speedily arrested, and although this picture exists, it won't have been seen in China. I found it on the BBC website which is of course blocked in China. If you want, you could start with Students For A Free Tibet. I don't want to knock any of this activism. Except for the fact that they tend to concentrate on the one issue and you might end up thinking that the Tibetans are China's only oppressed ethnic minority. But I'm not aware of any government campaigning publicly, much less threatening not to go to the Games. Nothing is denting the positive public image, and the way the Games are being sold, as an expression of China's importance in the world.
This left isn't primarily a site devoted to protesting against the Games, in fact h2g2 Friends of Tibet is as you might suspect concerned with Tibetan Buddhism. But it does in part bring up the notion of a boycott, hence my linking to it. I humbly urge you to wonder how much this gargantuan celebration of sport means to you. You might not end up following their lead, or being a little absurd like me, but please, process it. Think about it. Be aware.