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CHINA SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN SELECTED to host the 2008
Olympics. At the time the selection was made, China had one of the worst
human rights records in the world. It had brutally occupied Tibet for half a
century, committed cultural genocide on Tibetan Buddhists, repressed dissent
and freedom of speech among its population, and supported some of
the most repressive leaders around the world. We knew exactly what we
were getting into when we picked China as the site of the Olympics.
We knew that China would reap a propaganda bonanza from hosting
the quadrennial games. But because China is an emerging superpower, the
international committee bit the bullet and allowed one of the world’s most
repressive regimes to host the world’s most important athletic event. As anyone
should have expected, the Tibetans have taken full advantage of the
situation to focus attention on China’s horrendous policy toward Tibet. Also
as expected, China has cracked down on these protests. Now some human
rights activists are calling for the United States either to boycott the Olympics
entirely or, at the very least, to boycott the opening ceremonies.
We should do the latter but we should not do the former. It is incredibly
unfair to young athletes to do what former President Jimmy Carter did in 1980:
deny them the right to participate in an event for which many of them have
been training their entire lives. Athletes should not become the victims of
human rights policies. President Carter’s decision to pull the US out of the
Soviet Olympics backfired; it did not stop Soviet tanks from rolling into
Afghanistan, and it may even have helped the Taliban gain a propaganda victory.
The rise of Al-Qaeda (as well as the success of the ayatollahs in Iran) has
been traced by some pundits to Carter’s misguided foreign policy decisions.
As is typical of Carter, the former president has now disclaimed responsibility
for the 1980 Olympic fiasco, blaming it on the Olympic Committee,
which he claims was “independent of government control.” That is total
nonsense, since Carter threatened to revoke the passport of any American
athlete who defied the boycott and went to the games.
Our athletes should go to Beijing and compete, and hopefully bring home
lots of gold for the US. But our president should not bolster China’s image by
making an appearance at the opening ceremonies. The ceremonies, after all,
have nothing to do with the essence of the games—the prowess of the athletes.
They have everything to do with making the host country look good in the
eyes of the world. That’s why Steven Spielberg was right to pull out of his role
as artistic adviser. And that is why President Bush would be right in pulling
out of his role as propagandist-in-chief for the US in its efforts to bolster
China’s image and make nice to the world’s second superpower. Those who
advocate pulling out of the Olympics entirely point to the Berlin games of
1936, when Hitler reaped a propaganda bonanza from the games. But it is
important to remember that his propaganda victory came primarily from the
games’ ceremonial aspects. When the African American athlete Jesse Owens
beat his Aryan competitors on the track, Nazism suffered a propaganda
defeat. To be sure, the Nazis won another victory when Germany coerced
the American team into dropping some Jewish athletes from its roster.
Nothing of the sort should be tolerated from China, and I’m aware of nothing
of the sort that the Chinese government is demanding.
So let the athletic event go forward. Let the athletes compete. Let them display
signs of criticism toward their hosts if they choose to. But let’s not
become part of China’s propaganda machine by having our president
participate in the opening ceremonies. That compromise is a win-win for
athletics, for human rights, and for the dignity of the participants. ✦
| The complete article appears on page 62 in the Summer 2008 issue of Boston Common. SUBSCRIBE NOW and get Boston Common delivered direct. |
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