Boycotting the Olympics
Why the world has chosen to reward China with the international attention of the Olympics is one of the outrages of the year. This is the first time an authoritarian government has hosted the games. While the Chinese government is guilty of systematic human rights violations including religious oppression, mandatory abortions, economic rape of its most vulnerable citizen in the countryside, and gross disregard for the environment the international media is lavishing upbeat attention. Transnational corporations are seeing the Olympics as another opportunity to sell their products via glitzy ads while ignoring mass silencing of free speech. As this NPR report indicates global companies like Nike and Coca-Cola see human rights as the problem of governments not marketers. Even NBC News is seeing its journalism compromised by a too close relationship with the Olympic committee. Hear this report from NPR. With a heavy investment in the games, NBC is apparently reluctant to embarrass the Chinese. If those who have freedom of speech sell it for profit, who will be left to speak out? I think I will leave the television off.
August 7th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Convicting. I agree with your post. I love the Olympics. How will I reconcile those two things? Hmmm. Tell Alan hello for me.
Mrs. Broyles (Former DA Science teacher)
August 17th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Wow, Lilian, that’s a bold move. The problem is letting the powers that be know that you are boycotting, or else it serves no larger purpose than obeying your conscience. Like write a letter to the IOC (?).
August 17th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
I don’t think it’s bold, in the scheme of things it look like a weak gesture. Let’s not underestimate the power of people obeying their conscience. What if everyone did?
August 20th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I could not agree more Lilian…boycotting is the least we could do. I have not watched one minute of the olympics (for the first time in my life) for this very reason. I thought it was sick to allow China to host the games and now to see everyone falling all over themselves not to say what the Chinese government is: COMMUNISTS. I think we forget that. When people ask me if I’m watching the olympics I just say I will when China released all the Christians it has in jail or allows freedom of speech or quits killing their own people. Don’t even get me started on what they are doing to the planet. Maureen Dowd had an interesting op ed piece in the New York Times on this very subject (among others) which I agree 100% with (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/opinion/17dowd.html.) I’ve actually been very disappointed in how many people I know are watching the olympics. I thought there would be a lot more people like myself who would not watch it because China regularly violates human rights. And I always hear…well the Olympics isn’t suppose to be political…then don’t pick a communist country next time. Who will host 8 to 12 years from now? Iran? Shall we run marathons around their nuclear plants? Or how about Russia? Will they have time to host the Olympics in between invading all their neighbors.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
While the Olympic Games have come and gone … great comments. However, this is not the first time the Olympics have hosted by an authoritarian government: the Soviet Union hosted the games in 1980, Germany hosted the games in 1936.