Boycotting Beijing?

As the current violence in Tibet worsens, and the Chinese authorities there become more oppressive in their attempts to stifle the residents there, it is becoming clearer to many in the West that awarding China the 2008 Olympics was, indeed, a terrible idea. Moreover, it seems that this realization has also begun inspiring quiet rumors about some European countries potentially boycotting the Olympics.

The Olympic boycott was a tactic that was employed by the U.S and the U.S.S.R in the 1980 and 1984 Summer Games, respectively; and, while it certainly has the effect of casting a certain degree of public humiliation on the boycotted host Nation, the tactic is, by and large, rather ineffective. Obviously, this is true for a number of reasons (chief among them the fact that an Olympic boycott doesn't have any real effect on the internal politics of the boycotted country); however, there is one significant reason that I find worth mentioning. That would be the simple fact that a team or athlete has the opportunity to make a much bigger statement through their actual presence and participation.

For example: while Jimmy Carter may have been awfully proud of his boycott of the 1980 Moscow Summer Games; I think its safe to say that the U.S Men's Hockey team, which played in the Winter Games that same year in Lake Placid, had a much more significant political and cultural impact on the U.S-Soviet Cold War rivalry. I mean, afterall, who doesn't believe in Miracles?



Heck, for an even better example, who do you think ultimately made a bigger political statement at the 1936 Berlin Games: Adolf Hitler, with his 'Aryan Supremacy' propaganda; or Jesse Owens, a black man, and his 4 Gold Medals?

The point is that skipping out on the Olympics is a stupid idea; because, among other things, it pre-empts any opportunities one might have to attain the greatest of feats in amateur athletics - that being those victories which transcend sports, entirely.

Mistake '08?

While traveling through China, one of the things that stands out is the massive relocations that are ongoing. No matter where you go in China, it seems the government is forcing people out of their homes and into high rise apartment buildings; and nowhere is this more prominent that in Beijing. However, in one sense, Beijing is very different from the rest of the country, because there all the re-locating is being done "to prepare for the Olympics" in 2008. Deep down, the relocating of people in Beijing probably has little to do with the Olympics, and would have happened with or without the '08 Games; but still, it begs the question: why are we in the rest of the World providing excuses for the Chinese government?

First off, let me clarify exactly what the Chinese government is doing and why it's wrong. Hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of Beijing residents are being moved out of the homes their families have lived in for years and into new high-rise apartment buildings. The problem, of course, is that there is little or no choice involved for the people being re-located; and, unlike in the United States where we have 'Eminent Domain', those evicted from their homes aren't given adequate monetary compensation.

On the face of it, there seems little the United States or any other Nation could do to directly stop a country like China, which has the largest standing army in the world; but, at the very least, we should refrain from condoning their more malevolent Communist policies. Unfortunately, that's just what the International Olympic Committee did when it awarded the 2008 Olympics to Beijing. Now, anything the Chinese government does in Beijing, whether it be massive relocations or something much worse, can be done under the guise of preparing for the 2008 Summer Games. To make matters worse, there is really nothing the rest of us can say, because we're the ones who decided to put the Chinese in charge of the '08 Games in the first place. Surely, when it comes to trying to fight some of the more terrible elements in the Chinese government, the rest of the World can do better than that.