Mixed Feelings on the Olympics

The Beijing Olympics present a huge dilemma for me. On the one hand, the games offer an unmatched array of sporting events—from badminton and field hockey to table tennis and fencing—that will be otherwise all-but-invisible for the next four years. On the other hand, the political backdrop to these Olympics will always be in my mind while I am watching the games.

Now, certain things need to be made clear.

The hosts of the current Olympics are not exceptionally brutal by past standards, and one doesn’t even have to go back to the 1936 Berlin event. Ten days before the start of the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, the Mexican government massacred in the heart of the capital hundreds of students who had gathered to demand political reform. And the 1980 Moscow Olympics (boycotted by 50-odd countries to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) were hosted by the decrepit Stalinistic regime of Leonid Brezhnev.

The games have often brought out the worst tendencies in countries and athletes, ranging from intense nationalism (of which 1936 Berlin was just the worst manifestation) and Cold War rivalry to doping and commercialism.

"The focus has unfairly been upon China rather than the true Evil Empire, the Olympic Nation-State, which from the beginning (the all-male, naked Greek games) has been political and commercial, and since the 1896 revival has traded in on the worst kind of nationalism, from fascism to communism to global corporatism, to keep its monopoly alive,"states Robert Lipsyte, a sports commentator.

Also, as Naomi Klein astutely observes, all the China-bashing misses the point that a huge problem with these Olympics is the commercialization that has hijacked the games since Peter Ueberroth married commerce and sports in Los Angeles in 1984.

"The goal of all this central planning and spying is not to celebrate the glories of communism, regardless of what China's governing party calls itself," Klein writes. "It is to create the ultimate consumer cocoon for Visa cards, Adidas sneakers, China Mobile cell phones, McDonald's happy meals, Tsingtao beer, and UPS delivery—to name just a few of the official Olympic sponsors."

But the Olympics have made matters worse in China.

"The 2008 Beijing Olympics will open tainted by a sharp increase in human rights abuses directly linked to China's preparations for the games," states Human Rights Watch in a new report. "Those abuses reflect both the Chinese government's wholesale failure to honor its Olympics-related human rights promises, as well as the negligence of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in ensuring that China fulfills its commitments."

The report highlights the multiple ways that the games have led to increased human rights abuses:

The Chinese government has cracked down on activists to suppress dissident voices during the games.

It has evicted hundreds of thousands of residents to make way for Olympics facilities, and has stifled those who have protested.

And it has ejected from Beijing tens of thousands of migrant workers, beggars and other such people who may "spoil" the image of the city.

The harassment of foreign journalists has also sharply increased to prevent them from reporting anything that the regime considers unsavory.

In a similar report, Amnesty International details how "the Chinese authorities have broken their promise to improve the country’s human rights situation and betrayed the core values of the Olympics."

From the Muslims of Xinjiang and the Buddhists of Tibet to Chinese Christians and the followers of Falun Gong, the victims of the current Chinese government have been manifold. Now, the games only add to the regime’s repression.

Watch the Olympics if you must, but with a heavy heart, as I will. And ignore the ads of all those official corporate sponsors that are so willing to do anything to make a buck that they don’t hesitate to cozy up to the largest Stalinist entity on the planet.