The Flame of Discontent (Commentary)
The journey of the Olympic Flame has gone from the divine to the pathetic. Instead of a symbol of world peace and fraternal love among the world’s best athletes, it has become a shameful symbol that ignites outrage and indignation and needs police protection from thousands of human rights protesters.
For hundreds of athletes participating in the torch relay, carrying the flame has become a liability and a show of tacit support for the Chinese government, whose human rights violations, including crimes against freedom of expression and freedom of the press, have dragged more than a century of modern Olympism through the mud.
Today, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the only Latin American country participating in the torch relay, authorities deployed a massive security force of 5,700 policemen to guard the torch relay through the city’s streets. The day before, the flame was kept at a secret location under the watchful eye of both Argentine and Chinese officials.
A couple of days before in San Francisco, riot police kept thousands of demonstrators away from the torch and organizers were forced to change the relay rout to avoid the protesters. Mayor Matt Renner finally decided to cancel the downtown closing ceremony and instead held the it at the airport.
Fortunately, there were no violent incidents during the San Francisco demonstrations. In Paris, on the other hand, protests turned violent and forced the embarrassed organizers to cancel the last third of the torch relay that was to pass by some of the City of Lights’ most famous monuments.
The Paris protests were a continuation of the violent demonstrations in London by thousands of people demanding the cancellation of the Beijing Games and an end to the Tibet repression. Thirty-six people were arrested after several incidents, including a man trying to put out the flame with an extinguisher, compromised the relay through London’s streets.
The lighting of the flame in Greece was another chaotic ceremony that started this relay of protests the torch run has become.
You could call it the 2008 Run for Embarrassment. The carefully orchestrated ceremonies and relays were supposed to yield PR coup after PR coup in some of the world’s most emblematic cities. Instead, Chinese Olympic officials have realized they can run but they cannot hide from international condemnation and outrage and have been forced to hide the flame from international ridicule.
Meantime, Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge pulled a history-making too-little-too-late stunt yesterday by declaring the Games are in crisis and urging the Chinese government to improve its human rights record before the event begins in August.
Predictably, Beijing, witnessing how China’s international image melts away, hit back hard by telling Rogge that he should keep politics out of the Olympics.
Rogge, who seems to have a knack for understatement, confessed during a visit to the host country that the run-up to the Games has not turned out to be “the joyous party that we had wished it to be.”
Later, Rogge, in a sad exercise in futility urged the Chinese government to enforce a new law that would grant foreign journalists full access in China. Defending freedom of expression as “an absolute human right,” Rogge also said that athletes will have complete freedom to speak out during the Games.
Mr. Rogge have you ever heard that one that says, fool me one, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me?
For hundreds of athletes participating in the torch relay, carrying the flame has become a liability and a show of tacit support for the Chinese government, whose human rights violations, including crimes against freedom of expression and freedom of the press, have dragged more than a century of modern Olympism through the mud.
Today, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the only Latin American country participating in the torch relay, authorities deployed a massive security force of 5,700 policemen to guard the torch relay through the city’s streets. The day before, the flame was kept at a secret location under the watchful eye of both Argentine and Chinese officials.
A couple of days before in San Francisco, riot police kept thousands of demonstrators away from the torch and organizers were forced to change the relay rout to avoid the protesters. Mayor Matt Renner finally decided to cancel the downtown closing ceremony and instead held the it at the airport.
Fortunately, there were no violent incidents during the San Francisco demonstrations. In Paris, on the other hand, protests turned violent and forced the embarrassed organizers to cancel the last third of the torch relay that was to pass by some of the City of Lights’ most famous monuments.
The Paris protests were a continuation of the violent demonstrations in London by thousands of people demanding the cancellation of the Beijing Games and an end to the Tibet repression. Thirty-six people were arrested after several incidents, including a man trying to put out the flame with an extinguisher, compromised the relay through London’s streets.
The lighting of the flame in Greece was another chaotic ceremony that started this relay of protests the torch run has become.
You could call it the 2008 Run for Embarrassment. The carefully orchestrated ceremonies and relays were supposed to yield PR coup after PR coup in some of the world’s most emblematic cities. Instead, Chinese Olympic officials have realized they can run but they cannot hide from international condemnation and outrage and have been forced to hide the flame from international ridicule.
Meantime, Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge pulled a history-making too-little-too-late stunt yesterday by declaring the Games are in crisis and urging the Chinese government to improve its human rights record before the event begins in August.
Predictably, Beijing, witnessing how China’s international image melts away, hit back hard by telling Rogge that he should keep politics out of the Olympics.
Rogge, who seems to have a knack for understatement, confessed during a visit to the host country that the run-up to the Games has not turned out to be “the joyous party that we had wished it to be.”
Later, Rogge, in a sad exercise in futility urged the Chinese government to enforce a new law that would grant foreign journalists full access in China. Defending freedom of expression as “an absolute human right,” Rogge also said that athletes will have complete freedom to speak out during the Games.
Mr. Rogge have you ever heard that one that says, fool me one, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me?
posted by Marco Polo at
Friday, April 11, 2008
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