Olympic Politics
April 22, 2008
The torch relay for the coming Olympics in Beijing and Hong Kong has been the focus of substantial political protests - principally on behalf of Tibet, which was forcibly invaded by China in 1950 and has been under its control ever since. (Some protesters are also hoping to influence China to take action in Sudan to prevent the genocide in Darfur, since China has considerable political influence in this African region).
But are the Olympic games a suitable outlet for political protest? Or should they be seen as a neutral international sporting event, which should not be sullied with political affairs? And is it appropriate for US protesters (for instance) to complain about China's occupation of another country at a time when the US is also an occupying power?
In short, what do you think about the furore over the Chinese Olympic games?
What I'd most like to see from China is a no.27, a no.13, a side of prawn crackers and a coke, please.
Peter Griffin at protest: "Free Tibet?! I'll take it!"
Into pay-phone: "Hello, China? I have something you might want...yes...yes, ALL the tea!"
I haven't slept much recently :D
Posted by: zenBen | April 22, 2008 at 02:36 PM
My main thoughts are I am saddened by the hypocrisy which surrounds China being courted by all the major powers. We at least used to make it look like we were cross with them for the way they run rough shod over humanitarian issues.
Now all we want is to be their friend as they emerge as the potential newest super-power, and maybe the next ruler of earth (once the US has collapsed).
I think others have issues along these lines, and for the Chinese to then go round the world with a torch and lots of publicity opens them up to these sorts of protests.
I think people should be able to protest about whatever they want and, to a degree where ever they want.
And there's precedent... Berlin? Even more so when large amounts of people refused to even take part, let alone try and mug the person with the torch.
So, in conclusion, the Olympic Games seem to be the ideal time for the world to show what they think of China. It's not like it would be any different if the US or UK or whoever did a similar thing.
Posted by: Neil | April 22, 2008 at 02:38 PM
Hahaha, and what zenben said. :-)
Oh, and China? Don't stop making cheap electronics for me. ;-) I can be hypocritical with the best of them.
Posted by: Neil | April 22, 2008 at 02:40 PM
Are the Olympic games a suitable outlet for political protest?
Ooh, a question in the passive. Those encourage wishy-washy generalised answers. Let's pin it down and re-word that in the active: Does some subject person consider the Olympic games a suitable outlet for political protest? Clearly some do, me included. Clearly others do not.
And is it appropriate for US protesters (for instance) to complain about China's occupation of another country at a time when the US is also an occupying power?
Again, re-wording to the active: Does some subject person consider it appropriate to... etc. Clearly some do, me included. I also think it's entirely appropriate for protesters (including US ones) to protest against the US being an occupying power.
Clearly this answer reflects my own beliefs about a lack of any generalised or generalisable morals or ethics, and all opinions being attributable at the individual level :-).
Posted by: Peter Crowther | April 22, 2008 at 03:01 PM
I like the Berlin parallel, which was a very interesting read of history... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_Summer_Olympics
It's as much a platform for political problems to be brought up as many other events are, if not more so, since it is entirely international.
I dislike the fact to compete you have to shut up, so the competitors can't even speak about it. It's obvious why, but still a big shame.
And of course no one will boycott the event, most only have one or two Olympic games and certainly no country feels like they would like to get on the wrong side of China. Funny, it being political reasons why politics isn't brought up. Okay, it's not funny at all.
Posted by: Andrew Armstrong | April 22, 2008 at 07:53 PM
Personally, protesting human rights abuses in China is something I strongly support, but I'm also unsure of whether the olympics are the right time, and DEFINATELY against boycotting them. (Though Andrew has a good point, I expect that no one will)
I don't see that anyone's participation in the Olympics as something that should be leveraged to accomplish anything else. If we talk about it as an event that's truly designed to bypass all political boundries, we have to mean that for ALL cases.
Posted by: William Monroe | April 22, 2008 at 08:19 PM
What about a protest video game about the Olympics? ;)
http://www.addictinggames.com/olympictorchrelay.html
Posted by: Troy Gilbert | April 23, 2008 at 12:02 AM
Hi all,
There seems to be some general agreement here: political protest in the run up to the Olympics is fair game, but the games themselves should be considered apolitical. This makes sense to me.
A few scattered thoughts...
Neil: "My main thoughts are I am saddened by the hypocrisy which surrounds China being courted by all the major powers. We at least used to make it look like we were cross with them for the way they run rough shod over humanitarian issues."
Trouble is, no-one has the moral high ground any more, while China is a growing economic power... I'm hopeful this circumstance will actually improve the situation in China - they are being more open with their borders, which in turn opens them up to more influence on their domestic policy (which up until now has not been a subject for discussion). I think the situation, in general, is getting better - but I'm not personally ready to start doing business with China just yet.
And yes, it's certainly not without precedent to focus protest on the Olympics! :)
"It's not like it would be any different if the US or UK or whoever did a similar thing."
Just as well - as London is the next Olympic host! ;)
Andrew: "Funny, it being political reasons why politics isn't brought up. Okay, it's not funny at all."
Well, the reality of the situation might not be funny, but your comment certainly made me laugh! :)
William: I think you are feeling the same conflict I am - I want to make the human rights issue tantamount, but not at the expense of the Olympics themselves. But then, perhaps the torch run is the ideal time for protest...?
Troy: "What about a protest video game about the Olympics? ;)"
Ha ha! Cute. :)
Best wishes!
Posted by: Chris | April 23, 2008 at 04:12 PM
Some good comments, especially Peter Crowther teasing out the 'meta-model' in a rather loosely-worded question.
Some perspectives:
1) China, before the revolution was an empire, borne of brutal conquest and imperialism. It is geographically huge and ethnically diverse. Since the revolution we are especially invited to concern ourselves with and wring our hands about Tibet, but none of the other provinces. A great many other parts of China are also suffering under the heavy yoke of state capitalism, where even slave labour is widespread, but we hear almost nothing about them. What does that say about us?
2) Tibet was an oppressive feudal state before the Chinese invaded, its atrocities ignored or even approved of by spiritual leaders such as the then Dalai Lama. (Compare with Kuwait, another oppressive feudal state which only gave women the vote after the Iraqi invasion was repelled). Now, of course, the pro-Tibet movement tends to gloss over or ignore this detail.
3) Sport has had something to do with politics from the very beginning. The original Olympic games were intended to promote the idea of civilised sophistication (implicit propaganda: the countries outside the Greek/Roman empire are mere barbarians).
4) The original Olympic games were banned in 393 by a Christian Roman Emperor worried about heathen influences on the Roman Catholic mindset. If that's not politics, I don't know what is.
5) 'panem et circensis'. Many political commentators have commented on the way sport is used to dull the minds of the masses, but my favorite comment on the subject is from Umberto Eco: "There will be never be a revolution on the day of a football cup final".
6) The exciting adventures of the torch, ever at risk of being upstaged by pro-Tibet protesters, fill valuable column inches in the newspapers, and occupy hours of news time in the broadcast media. The Daily Show rather hilariously exposed the fact that CNN had spent over an hour covering the progress of the torch live, when the torch itself was not even visible. (The bearer had slipped into a warehouse or some such large building). Quo Bene?
7) Spectator sports foster nationalism and in-group/out-group splitting. Worse, they are an irritating distraction from more serious and pressing human rights issues such as poverty. Did you know, for example, that people in Haiti today are struggling to survive by eating mud mixed with salt and oil? Probably not, because we're supposed to be more worried about the progress of an Olympic torch and its symbolic value.
8) I have still not heard any good reason why almost every mainstream news broadcast or newspaper must *necessarily* include some kind of sports coverage - who won this, and who's going through to the final of that. It's little more than dull, tedious statistics, with a few clips of balls going into nets. Why not dance? ...or music? ...or indeed any other cultural endeavour which pushes human beings to their limits? Why is sport especially 'newsworthy' when other cultural forms are not?
If we can find out what is so special about sports that news editors insist on including it, usually to the exclusion of other cultural forms, we might be on our way to answering the questions that started this thread.
Posted by: Brennan Young | April 23, 2008 at 07:40 PM
@Brennan, re: #8... the same reason anything else is featured in any for-profit news outlet: because it sells.
Sure, at this point, getting sports news as part of a news package is more a tradition/convention than anything else, but that's okay, regular news media thrive off of its consumers habits.
I can't remember who said it, and he definitely said it more eloquently: great events don't happen every day, but every day we have a headline, a front page, a lead story...
Of course, this problem is becoming a bit more diffused (pervasive?) by the web where almost all "articles" are on equal footing, only differentiated by whether or not they hit the tipping points of the various social bookmarking/news sites.
Media analysis always strays dangerously close to shooting the messenger, when in reality media (in particular, for profit media) more closely reflects the audience, the media simply chooses to what degree they pander. In any kind of "free" market, whether it be media or elections or congress, a balance must be struck where we give the majority what it wants while still considering the minority. Its the republic/democracy dichotomy, free market vs. regulation.
Posted by: Troy Gilbert | April 23, 2008 at 08:52 PM
Brennan - I think you answered your own questian in #8 when you specified "mainstream". Men buy newspapers / watch news coverage and the associated adverts, and sport is one of the great levellers in male communication. Everyone talks about it. If you can't - to some degree - you are labelled a geek, a nerd, anti-social and/or Not A Real Man by a significant fraction of the (Western) male population. There is significant pressure to conform... and so the cycle goes, with sport being dominant because sport is dominant.
It might be interesting to study how the sports juggernaut came to be - I suggest (with not a shred of evidence to back it up) that it is because participating in sport typically requires few resources, no skill and no money. It is also participatory rather than performance-based. This would tend to give it a broader base than (say) dance, which requires a skilled and expensive resource (musicians) and/or a performance-based approach.
Disclaimer: I loathe almost all sport. I also play in several dance bands!
Posted by: Peter Crowther | April 23, 2008 at 10:38 PM
Brennan: awesome comment... Some further thoughts.
"...rather loosely-worded question."
As I think Peter appreciates, these kinds of posts are written in passive voice to encourage the reader to substantiate themselves into the terms. It seems to drive Peter crazy - but it does provoke more comments! :)
"China, before the revolution was an empire, borne of brutal conquest and imperialism."
I'm afraid I rather object to this characterisation of China's history. I do not deny that there is an aspect of Chinese history that fits the stereotype you are signifying here - but the Chinese Empire is no worse than (say) the British Empire if we are going to compare imperialism.
Yet there is another side to China's long history of Empire which is not the aggressive imperialism of other nations. China has spent considerably long stretches of history at peace, with provinces held together out of allegiance to the central power (the Emperor) but still possessing considerable individual autonomy.
It is difficult, I think, for people in the West (which has fostered the ultimate status of individuality) to appreciate what China has achieved on the other side of this scale - they had their own "United States" (or European Union) far before the West. I feel it is wholly wrong to suggest that the thing that kept the Chinese Empire(s) together was simply a brutal imperial regime - a study of the history of any of the early periods shows that a markedly different ethos is at work.
In the Three Kingdoms quasi-historical novels, for instance, there is the theme "The Empire belongs to no man, but to all in the Empire". Indeed, Cao Cao may be a brutal tyrant in his political actions among the nobles, but he is a good ruler to the peasants, implementing many social changes for their benefit. His faction is ultimately victorious because it favours the good of the people (even though his moral actions among the ruling classes are highly suspect!) We don't value this collectivism in Western societies as much as we perhaps could.
The age of imperialism is, we hope, waning, and it is easy to be hostile to the last remnants of that, but I would still ask that Chinese history be seen as more than simply the domination of a brutal Empire - this is something of an injustice to the people of China.
"Tibet was an oppressive feudal state before the Chinese invaded"
Is the prior state of a nation really a factor in assessing invasion? This seems dangerously consequentialist. Also: Tibet isn't looking to leave China, it is simply looking for some autonomy within it - a situation already possessed by Hong Kong and Taiwan (that is: The Republic of China) within the same framework.
"'There will be never be a revolution on the day of a football cup final'."
Delightful quote!
"Spectator sports foster nationalism and in-group/out-group splitting. Worse, they are an irritating distraction from more serious and pressing human rights issues such as poverty."
Do you have some evidence for your claim that sports *foster* nationalism, rather than (say) provide an outlet for national pride? National and regional identifications naturally produce in-groups and out-groups: sport allows many different groups to compete together in a 'harmless' arena - at its best, this can be and is a positive social trend. Fans of US sporting teams rarely fight (compared to, say, the popular conception of football hooligans) - although they certainly spar!
While there is an element of fanaticism that perhaps cannot be removed from sports, I feel it is grossly unfair to suggest that it makes the wider social situation worse. I believe it actually contributes positively in this regard. For instance, the English have renewed respect for any nation that defeats (say) France or Germany at football. ;)
"I have still not heard any good reason why almost every mainstream news broadcast or newspaper must *necessarily* include some kind of sports coverage"
Troy says to this "because it sells" and Peter says "sport [is] dominant because sport is dominant." I'm not going to dispute either claim, but I feel that something important is lost here.
The drive to compete (agon, in Caillois' work) is a universal human behaviour (actually, it's more than this, as a great many mammals, birds and even reptiles also compete - perhaps I should say it is a universal animal behaviour...)
It can be expressed in many ways - but it will be expressed. Sport is one of the great discoveries of mankind because it provides a means to express agon outside of war. As war has become more and more deadly with each passing century, sport becomes more and more important as a surrogate for war. I believe the original Olympics expressly had this role - to bring peace to the Greek region by providing the capacity to compete in a peaceful context, so war would not be necessary for different city states to "prove themselves".
It's true what Troy says - sport sells - but one need not cast the news services in their "evil" role of profit centre here. The news covers sports *because people want to know what happened in the sporting contests*.
It would in a certain sense be wrong for the news service *not* to report sports - this is information that people want, and there really is no (moral) reason they shouldn't have it. If the purpose of the news media is to provide information people want and need, they are delivering this service most admirable in the context of sport.
I do not make this claim about any other aspect of the news services, however - Brennon's Haiti example is far from the only hellish situation on the planet that is being ignored. Even in the context of this story - that of the Chinese Olympics - the situation in Darfur is more important to me than the situation in Tibet, simply because the latter situation is far more dire, and yet more easily ignored. In this sense, the news services have failed miserably to live up to their (earlier) obligations to act in the public good, especially in the United States.
"Why not dance? ...or music? ...or indeed any other cultural endeavour which pushes human beings to their limits?"
Alas, without the direct inclusion of competition to add drama (and thus interest) these fields are essentially specialist concerns, and as such rarely warrant inclusion in the main news which by its nature is generalist. But I think that if people wanted to hear the "dance news", it would be covered. :)
However, as already hinted at, people are attached to certain identities ("in-groups") and it is meaningful for them to know if the embodiment of these identities (their teams) were victorious in their (mock) battles. It is naturally more important to such people to resolve this uncertainty, than to know what is going on in the Opera house. :)
Now personally, I share your wider interest in other cultural practices, and am rather tepid about sports. (I don't follow any of the sports in the UK where I grew up, although I have a fondness for American Football and the Indian sport of Kabbadi, but it is not quite the staunch allegiance of the typical sports fan). But we are (if I may be so bold) abstract thinkers, and the majority of people are concrete thinkers. I suppose I might claim it would be wrong in some sense for us to force our (minority) concerns on the majority. ;)
*phew* I'm out of time, but this has been a fascinating discussion!
Best wishes everyone!
Posted by: Chris | April 24, 2008 at 02:17 PM
Well, it's also important to draw the line. Competition, friendly or not, is a distinctly male phenomenon. This is not to say that women don't compete, but men compete, both in mental and physical challenges. (Can anyone say doubledare?)
Posted by: William Monroe | April 25, 2008 at 01:15 AM
William: I suspect you are mistaken that competition is a distinctly male phenomenon - rather, I think the ways in which women compete tend to be social rather than physical. Is this a cultural or a biological distinction? Very hard to say.
But then I am forever trying to blur the gender lines, and there are elements that cannot be blurred as successfully as I would attempt. ;)
Best wishes!
Posted by: Chris | April 25, 2008 at 12:39 PM
The belief that sporting events should be focused on national pride, and that this is somehow separate from politics, is itself a political belief (and one I do not share).
Posted by: Kyle Maxwell | May 06, 2008 at 07:26 PM
Kyle: I don't know that I would say that sporting events *should* be focused on national pride, just that I observe that they generally appear to be focussed on national or local pride. But I agree that this is a political belief whichever way you cut it! :)
Posted by: Chris | May 09, 2008 at 04:19 PM
"But we are (if I may be so bold) abstract thinkers, and the majority of people are concrete thinkers. I suppose I might claim it would be wrong in some sense for us to force our (minority) concerns on the majority."
But, what if you are an abstract thinker, and still enjoy sports? (a twist!) After all, sports can be abstracted if one gets into the arena of tactics and aesthetic movements. Of course, these are abstractions that ultimately find physical equivalents in practice, but I am not prepared to surrender the 'intellectual' qualities of a well conceived tactic.
Of course, I am biased, being a football (soccer) fan since birth...
Posted by: Beau | May 11, 2008 at 02:22 AM
Beau: I overstepped my mark here! Many abstract thinkers are sports fans, and to suggest otherwise was rude. The point I was making is that the majority of people who are not sport fans tend towards abstract thinking, not that abstract thinkers hate sports. :)
Best wishes!
Posted by: Chris | June 11, 2008 at 12:27 PM