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You gotta fight for your right to Taipei
August 4th, 2008 at 23:58
Surprisingly, I’m actually quite looking forward to the Olympics. Not for the reasons that the Chinese hosts are hoping though – I’m looking forward to what will hopefully be an unrelenting fortnight of protests.
Everyone knows that the Chinese government could be described as a “nasty piece of work”. They’ve got heaps of human rights issues and the like that could easily compete with the nastiest international villains like Robert Mugabe, or Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. When the International Criminal Court accused the latter of committing genocide rather than deny it or perhaps even laugh it off, as you might expect, really endeared himself by threatening “more violence and blood”. I mention this not because China are key players in propping up these awful regimes, but because it shows how sneaky they are in comparison to these amateurs.
We don’t see politicians moaning about China so much because China use their massive power to deflect criticism: if western politicians slag off China too much, they might cut off our supplies of cheap iPods and Happy Meal toys… and obviously that would be a clear sign we’re only a few steps away from Armageddon.
The Olympics are so important to the Chinese government because it’s a big platform for them to project their “we’re nice guys really” image – though their gamble is that they won’t be able to crush any protests quite so easily if every TV camera in the world is pointing at them. It’s not 1989 anymore so it won’t just be Kate Adie filming it – any “uprising” would be caught by every mobile phone in the area and be on the internet in minutes.
This is obviously problematic for the Chinese government but they’re trying their best to manage the problem. They’ve set up special “protesting zones” in parks a long way from the stadium, but you have to wonder whether this will be enough. They can’t exactly send the tanks rolling into the stadium if any athletes unravel a Tibetan flag on the podium á la the famous Black Power salute. I think there’s only one thing they can really do if they want to crush dissent: Make protesting an Olympic sport.
Making protesting a sport will turn it from a serious form of political participation and into a silly game. It’ll make protesting funny and trivial – on par with say, dressage, or horse dancing, which inexplicably qualifies as an Olympic sport. Protesting would become a farce if after the protestors have made their point a series of strict judges grade them on their performance, docking marks for say, lack of style or being too disorganised. Also, I don’t know about you, but every time I hear celebrities wade in on political issues, be they actors, musicians or athletes, I roll my eyes and switch off assuming they probably don’t know what they’re talking about. Making athletes out of the protestors would render their opinions worthless.
The Chinese themselves could probably rack up a few gold medals in the protesting events – those Tibetan dissidents could play for China – they seem to know a thing or two about smashing windows and stuff.
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