2008-04-08

Olympic Torch Protests

I don't get the reaction to the protests: no one saw this coming?

Part of the deal when China was 'awarded' (or bought) the 2008 Summer Olympics was that it would try to do more to clean up the environment and clean up its human rights records. Eight years later and none of that has happened. Tibet has been a source of protest since at least the 1990's, and with the world's attention focused on the issue, the protests have intensified.

If the 2008 Olympics were being held in say Los Angeles, I think the intensity of the protest would be the same as it now, but for different reasons (Iraq, mainly). China should have done more for Tibet, at least cosmetically, in the last eight years and now that it's too late, they have to pay the price.

It won't really matter if heads of state boycott the Olympics or even if some athletes do. Coca-Cola is still going to go, along with the other corporate sponsors, and that's what the Olympics are all about: xenophobia disguised as patriotism disguised as athleticism designed to sell products. Not that anything is wrong with that, really, but we should stop pretending that the Olympics is anything else.

1 comment:

Skinny Dipper said...

Beijing got the 2008 Olympics over Toronto and the other cities because China represents a huge market to sell products. Athletics is just a sideshow. The real show is the sponsors who wish to promote their products to the billion and one Chinese population and play footsie with their régime.

The Olympics are like watching American/Canadian/Pop Idol where the contestants are just a sideshow to the three or four judges.

I will not watch the charade called the Olympic Games. My sponsor boycott with intensify when they advance their Olympic association this summer.

The blood-red Coke can adds death to Tibetans and Chinese.