Olympics Controversy

Originally submitted by: bmaloy

The right course of action for the average American is to stop spending money they donít have.

Americans are choosing to spend borrowed Chinese money on the war in Iraq. Saying that China is funding the war is terribly misleading. We are borrowing money from them to continue a lifestyle that is beyond our means. Same goes for the loss of the US manufacturing base. American companies are choosing to close US manufacturing facilities and open new ones in China.

If you donít want to support the games, do so because of Chinaís history of human rights violations, not because the shift of wealth that is currently happening. Thatís our own fault. It might be easier to put the blame on China, but it doesnít make it true.

Originally submitted by: barcode 2x

If we boycott the games, and China's economy suffers, how will this affect the world's economy? Is it ethical to boycott? Is the end result a complete disaster? If atheletes and sponsors withdraw from the games and the games are a flop, what are the end results?

Originally submitted by: jadelay

I do not think a boycott of the upcoming Beijing Olympics will have any positive impact on the human rights situation in China. The main impact it will have is to rally the Chinese around the flag and around the ruling Party elite. We have already witnessed this as the Olympic torch has arrived on the Chinese mainland. Many Chinese nationals living outside China have mobilized very quickly to counter protests they believe are unfair to China and to Chinese views.

While I think the torch protests taking place in countries outside China are important ways to highlight human rights abuses not just in China but everywhere,including human rights abuses in the United States, a boycott of the Olympics is not ethical or effective.

The main reason, in my opinion, is that the Olympics are a staged event: the ceremonies and the games are a spectacle and an entertainment. For the most part, they are easy to tightly control and will be scripted by the Chinese ruling elite, the International Olympic Committee, the corporate sponsors and the global media corporations with rights to show it. All of these powerful groups have every incentive for the event to be flawlessly executed. This is not to say there won't be some surprises. The athletes will deliver them-but this has always been their role in Olympics staging.

Whenever I think about the failure of using the Olympics to highlight abuses of power by governments and regimes, and to bring to light civil liberties violations against a country's own citizens, I only need to get out a photo from a book that I have about the winter Olympics in Garmisch, Germany in early 1936. By that time, Hitler had been convinced by his propaganda ministers that the Olympics would be a rare and incredible opportunity to show unconvinced Germans and the international community that the Nazi Party had every intention of being a good citizen in the world.

The photo gives us a preview of what was to come. It is of a sign in a woods near the winter Olympics site that warned in German, "No Jews in German Woods!"

The Nazi organizers had "forgotten" to take the sign down.

Months later, when the summer Olympics took place in Berlin, there were few such hitches. The 1936 Olympics were regarded at the time, as a triumph...and as the best Olympics...staged so far.

And Hitler is said to have remarked that after 1940, when the Olympics were set to take place in Japan, that the Olympics would be held in Germany "for all time to come."

Originally submitted by: jadelay

I do not think a boycott of the upcoming Beijing Olympics will have any positive impact on the human rights situation in China. The main impact it will have is to rally the Chinese around the flag and around the ruling Party elite. We have already witnessed this as the Olympic torch has arrived on the Chinese mainland. Many Chinese nationals living outside China have mobilized very quickly to counter protests they believe are unfair to China and to Chinese views.

While I think the torch protests taking place in countries outside China are important ways to highlight human rights abuses not just in China but everywhere,including human rights abuses in the United States, a boycott of the Olympics is not ethical or effective.

The main reason, in my opinion, is that the Olympics are a staged event: the ceremonies and the games are a spectacle and an entertainment. For the most part, they are easy to tightly control and will be scripted by the Chinese ruling elite, the International Olympic Committee, the corporate sponsors and the global media corporations with rights to show it. All of these powerful groups have every incentive for the event to be flawlessly executed. This is not to say there won't be some surprises. The athletes will deliver them-but this has always been their role in Olympics staging.

Whenever I think about the failure of using the Olympics to highlight abuses of power by governments and regimes, and to bring to light civil liberties violations against a country's own citizens, I only need to get out a photo from a book that I have about the winter Olympics in Garmisch, Germany in early 1936. By that time, Hitler had been convinced by his propaganda ministers that the Olympics would be a rare and incredible opportunity to show unconvinced Germans and the international community that the Nazi Party had every intention of being a good citizen in the world.

The photo gives us a preview of what was to come. It is of a sign in a woods near the winter Olympics site that warned in German, "No Jews in German Woods!"

The Nazi organizers had "forgotten" to take the sign down.

Months later, when the summer Olympics took place in Berlin, there were few such hitches. The 1936 Olympics were regarded at the time, as a triumph...and as the best Olympics...staged so far.

And Hitler is said to have remarked that after 1940, when the Olympics were set to take place in Japan, that the Olympics would be held in Germany "for all time to come."

Originally submitted by: bmaloy

Although I agree that a boycott would prove to be ineffective (relative to improving the human rights violations to which you object), I donít see how boycotting the Beijing Olympics is in anyway unethical.

Originally submitted by: barcode 2x

The protest is ethical enough, but perhaps it is not the right fight. If people disagree with China's politics, then focusing on a sporting event is a misuse of energy.

Originally submitted by: jadelay

Much has happened in China since the Olympics torch relay disruptions and talk of Olympics boycotts over China's failure to improve its human rights record upon being awarded the Games eight years ago.

Two natural disasters, an earthquake in southern China and a cyclone in nearby Myanmar, have shifted world attention away from human rights to humanitarian rights as well as to discussions about government obligations to their people in a time of acute crisis.

What does this mean for the Olympics boycott talk that dominated discussion about China before the earthquake?

In my opinion, the boycott talk will remain just that, because the Chinese government's response to the earthquake and its victims was in such stark contrast to the government's response to the hurricane victims in Myanmar, that the quick and competent relief efforts of the Chinese will be perceived by the majority of the world as a sign of progress by China's government on human rights.

Having said this, human rights and humanitarian rights are not the same. Humanitarian rights become relevant and "operational" when there is a crisis, whether it is natural, as in an earthquake, or man-made, as when refugees flee a civil war. In such times, people are facing death and disease because of uncontrollable events, and so we call on our national government and citizens as well as the world community to respond to the right we feel that other humans have to get aid, especially when they are not responsible for what has happened to them. The outrage over the American government's response to Hurricane Katrina, and the outpouring of private relief by Americans that accompanied it, is a good example of a humanitarian right in operation.

And while it is true that human rights also encompass economic rights, for example, the rights to food and to shelter, the human rights the Olympics protesters most frequently talk about in the same breath with China are those involving freedom of religion, cultural independence and most prominently, freedom of speech and dissent.

To be sure, there are several among the Olympics protesters who are in it to raise awareness and pressure about the ongoing humanitarian crises in Darfur and in Sudan, where the Chinese government has strong economic ties and/or political influence (I should mention Myanmar and North Korea as well).

But the main thrust of the Olympics controversy is purportedly about the lack of freedom in China to speak out against the government, to form associations, including religious organizations, and to convene with political ends that are not Communist Party sanctioned.

This was reinforced this week when the Beijing Organizing Committee issued a document similar to a FAQs for visitors attending the Games in August. Among the advisories: do not bring any printed materials that criticize China. And further, do not plan any demonstrations in China. (See June 3, 2008 story in the New York Times, "China Lists Dos and Don'ts for Olympics," by Keith Bradsher.)

So, here is a question: should spectators, who wish to reflect personal views about issues of human rights, wear their ideas on their sleeves or on their clothing, through ribbons, armbands or other such symbols?

And here's another question: should athletes exercise their own right to dissent if any of them have strong views about issues of human rights?
If so, how can they most effectively do this, without harming the cause that they support?

Originally submitted by: barcode 2x

I'm coming at this from perhaps an abstract angle, but is this case similar to the idea that "We hate the war in Iraq, yet we support the troops?" Until we see policy changes towards human rights in China, I still plan to protest the games. The controversy over these games has cast a shadow over the whole thing. I believe that things are too hot in China right now, and we should not be there. There is danger of violence and protest, and the games are at risk.

Chinese schools collapsed while luxury hotels next door survived the quake. The buildings were built as shoddily as the levees in New Orleans.

As for our response, we can help in this disaster and help China heal from this enormous tragdey, but soon enough, the human rights violations will come back into focus.

Then again, the games are a separate issue from all of this, right? The international gathering of atheletes ought to be separate from any controversy, right? Just like the Superbowl in Detroit was separate from the corruption within the city's government, right?

Originally submitted by: jadelay

Yes, except that all I trying to figure out is how to make a protest effective and not lead to more unethical actions. The rules that the Beijing Olympics committee has issued, and presumably which are acceptable to the International Olympic Committee, are very clear: no protests and no demonstrations. I believe it is also pretty clear that if Olympics visitors and others plan to demonstrate at the Games, they will be dealt with like other protesters in China. Very harshly. Why should protesters risk their lives? This fear is both new and old. Look at what happened to the Tibetans protesting against economic inequality and religious repression just this last March? Not only that, there is Olympic history to show that protests lead to violent repression. In 1968, just before the Olympics in Mexico City, students and workers gathered to protest the cost of the Games in a country where the poverty was so great. Several students and workers were killed at that protest, which the government was able to cover up for almost 3 decades. The main reason I think a boycott of the Olympics is unethical is that it will only make it more difficult for dissidents, religious and other political groups within China to speak out and successfully reform the system. If you want to really help these individuals and groups, then I think you should financially support their human rights campaigns.