8/8/08
As I write, at just past 8am (EDT) on 8/8/08, the Opening Ceremonies of the XXIX Oympiad have begun in Beijing, with fireworks shooting from Tiananmen Square to the stunning new Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium.
I’m hoping that somewhere, the Project Runway designers are being forced to watch and see what actual Opening Ceremonies teamwear looks like.
Moving, though, from fashion crimes to true crimes against humanity, I have profoundly mixed feelings about these Beijing Olympics. My Olympic junkie status dates back to the Sarajevo and Los Angeles Olympics, which I watched religiously. Twelve years ago, I spent a week and a half at the Atlanta Olympics, splurging on tickets ranging from volleyball to basketball, field hockey to team handball, wrestling to water polo, and one medal event: the women’s soccer final in Athens (just a couple hundred yards from my future office, as fate would have it). I still hope to figure out a way to make it to Vancouver in 2010 for the next Winter Olympiad.
But the shadow of human rights abuses hang over these Games as thick as Beijing’s legendary smog. Today is the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the “8888 Uprising,” the pro-democracy protests that the military crushed, massacring over 3000 people. Two decades later, Aung San Suu Kyi and many thousands more Burmese people remain imprisoned, and the military junta remains securely propped up by Beijing’s support. Then there’s China’s support for the Sudanese regime conducting genocide in Darfur; as symbolic statements go, I’m delighted to see that the U.S. flag will be carried by Lopez Lomong, a former “Lost Boy” who escaped the Sudanese militia that had abducted him at age six as a would-be child soldier. Then there’s China’s record at home, from Tiananmen Square to the suppression of the Tibetan autonomy movement; there’s the widespread use of capital punishment, the lack of a transparent judicial system, forced labor camps, and the well-known censorship. I encourage everyone to check out Amnesty International USA’s campaign on the Beijing Olympics.
The evidence strongly suggests that, so far, rather than the Olympics prompting China to improve its human rights record, that record of abuses has deteriorated since the Games were awarded to Beijing seven years ago. I am glad, though, that the Games have brought such close attention to that record, and hope that the attention doesn’t fade away once the Olympic flag has been passed off to London for 2012. Awarding the Games to Beijing recognizes China’s dramatically growing geoeconomic and geopolitical power in the world, and I do believe that engaging China rather than isolating it is a necessary — but not sufficient — prerequisite to bringing the Beijing government into the world system as a more responsible player.
In the meantime, I’ll be watching the gymnasts & the swimmers, the cyclists & the shot putters, the kayakers & the archers, and athletes from dozens of others sports, and I’ll do so enthusiastically. But I’ll also be going to the local Amnesty meeting on Tuesday to discuss its China campaign and where we go from here.
Tags: burma, china, darfur, human rights, olympics
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