All Eyes on China

First appeared on June 24th, 2008
in The Lebanon Reporter

On August 8th the opening ceremony of the summer Olympics will take place in Beijing. Considering we lead the all time gold medal count with a total stretching well past 2,000, the U.S. has to be considered amongst the favorites across the board heading into the games. While the competition to bring home more gold will no doubt be stiff, it may not be the most fascinating part of the games.
The Olympics have long been a place where political statements have been made. Take for example the 1968 games in Mexico City when Tommie Smith and John Carlos both made a show of black power by bowing their heads and raising gloved fists when the Star Spangled Banner was played during their medal ceremony. At the Munich games of 1972 the world watched in horror as 11 members of Israel’s Olympic team were taken hostage only to later die at the hands of a Muslim extremist group. In 1976 over 20 different African nations withdrew from the Montreal games in protest of New Zealand’s connections with South Africa’s racist government. And who can ever forget 1980 and 84 when the U.S. led a boycott of the Moscow summer games and the Soviet Union organized their own boycott of the Los Angeles summer games respectively.
The goal of the modern Olympics as stated in the IOC charter is to “…contribute to building a peaceful and better world…” While the competition does much to bring nations together, history has shown in the past it has done just as much to stir the world up politically as well. Now the games come to China and “building a peaceful and better world” has been left to the Chinese.
These are the same Chinese who have all but banned organized religion and continue to maintain an illegitimate stranglehold on the people of Tibet. The same Chinese whose communist government insists on smothering accuracy in the national media and is notorious for the harsh sentencing of dissidents. The same Chinese who forced Google and Yahoo to agree to a laundry list of restrictions before their internet services could be offered in China. Restrictions that include aiding the Chinese in monitoring anti-government messaging and sites.
For the summer of 2008 the IOC has left the responsibility of “building a peaceful and better world” in the hands of the Chinese. Asking China to build a peaceful and better world is the equivalent of asking Bobby Knight to run his own day care for toddlers. I see neither as a scenario for success.
With all this in mind, the Chinese government better buckle up because soon the eyes of the world will be upon them. No more will the Great Wall be enough to keep the meddling hands and prying eyes of the world out. It should prove very interesting to see how the games are covered and how China is portrayed in the worldwide spotlight the Olympics will no doubt provide.
What will happen if an athlete wishes to make his or her own personal political statement such as we’ve seen in the past? Will the communist party have a Tiananmen-like response? Will NBC be allowed unfettered access to Chinese athletes or will their interviews be edited by government media goons? If the Olympic torch’s tour of the world is any indication of how rocky things may get, this summer’s games just might be the most interesting in history.