An Olympic Oversight: Politics

Posted on April 10, 2008 by bleport

I cannot speak for what happened to the Olympic torch relays in places like England, France, and Greece. But I can wonder out loud why anyone would choose San Francisco as the North American representative for such an event. Especially since I am a resident.

I am first befuddled by the choice of Beijing. The day before the torch passed through my city I asked this very question on my own blog (ct: “San Francisco Supports Tibet, But Should We?”). A couple people responded by nothing that China is not the only nation in the world that oppresses people and violated human rights agreements (the United States was mentioned). Nor is China the only country with major ecological problems (the United States was mentioned). Never the less, China is a political hotbed. And I am very confused by the idea that the politics of China would not mare the games. What committee really believed this?

Back to San Francisco: I love where I live. I agree often with many of the progressive ideas put forth in this part of the world. But I will confess that this city sometimes has a Messianic complex. We either protest everything or do fundraising marathons for everything. This city really believes she can change the world despite being powerless to change even our worst neighborhoods. But that is what it is.

So why would a committee choose to run the torch through a city that protest for the sake of protesting? Or that has a strong (both in power and number) Asian community? Maybe there is something I am unaware of concerning this whole issue.

Then again, maybe there was something the Olympic planners forgot to foresee, namely athletics are never free from politics. We have proven this to be true in the United States where our Congress and our Federal Bureau of Investigation spend time, money, and manpower cleaning up the MLB, NFL, and so forth. How much time has been spent hunting down Barry Bonds, Roger Clemons, and Marion Jones? One would think Osama bin Laden would have been caught by now if he had used steroids!

Listen up athletic communities and major professional sports leagues: politics matter. People will use your events as a platform. So if you want to keep politics out of the games, try thinking ahead in situations where it could very well have been avoidable.

Filed under: Asia, China, Commentary, Culture, Geopolitics | Tagged: , ,

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2 Responses to “An Olympic Oversight: Politics”

  1. gospelnous, on April 10th, 2008 at 3:07 pm Said:

    I suspect the ‘political’ skirmishing we’re witnessing over ‘human rights’ issues prior to Beijing’s Summer Games, is a well crafted, twofold diversion. Pat Buchanan made the following comments in his recently published, “Day of Reckoning”:

    “To hold the nation together, Beijing is playing the tribal card with appeals to nationalism and racial solidarity–as a people that has suffered at the hands of Japan and the West, but whose time has come to command the world. . . . The Germans said the same in 1933. And as the Olympic Games were held in Berlin in 1936, they will be held in Beijing in 2008. And as the Berlin Games were followed by a clamor for return of the Sudetenland to Germanic rule, so the Beijing games may be followed by a clamor for the return of Taiwan to the ‘embrace of the motherland’.”

    If reclaiming Taiwan is in fact China’s motivating objective, the entire scenario could easily become a ‘liberal’ rallying point to deflect attention away from race (immigration) related issues here in the U.S., in a call for ‘Democratic’ unity. Although it’s challenging to imagine just how this little vignette might play out to Hillary’s benefit, in the effective aftermath 9/11’s ‘street theatre’, the scripting here seems oddly familiar.

  2. peacefrog, on April 13th, 2008 at 6:15 pm Said:

    It really is odd that San Francisco was chosen as a place officially run the torch, given the reasons you noted bleport. Watching all the videos of the torch runs across the world and the wave of violence (mostly from the Chinese track suit thug team and local cops) that follows the torch wherever it goes, seems like there’s alterior motives at work. The idea of China trying to rally its ethnic base to support the “motherland” doesn’t seem too far fetched. After all, anyone that would protest this “symbol of international peace and unity” is just anti-Chinese right?

    Aryan ideals, not ancient Greece, were the inspiration behind flame tradition

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