2008 Woodie Awards
China's less than gold-worthy actions
Brad DeFlumeri, Collegian columnist
Issue date: 9/5/08 Section: Editorial / Opinion
China's Olympic showcase has ended. By all accounts, it was a resounding success: the games showed Beijing to be capable of producing spellbinding athletic excellence, photogenic television spectacles, and ruthless, logistic efficiency.
The communist regime went to great lengths to demonstrate that its technological acumen and athletic excellence succeeded where other nations have failed. England, as host of the 2012 Summer Games, will be hard-pressed to follow suit.
After securing an impressive 51 gold medals, state-generated clear skies, and the respect of an enthralled Western television audience and media, it can be argued that China could not have hoped for a better overall Olympic outcome. But at what cost did all of this international acclaim come?
Before the games, many warned about China's repeated violations affecting citizens' humans rights, economic complicity in the ongoing genocide in Sudan's Darfur region, ruthless aggression in censoring Internet sites critical of Beijing's historic brutality, and willingness to forcibly evict its own citizens from their property in order to make room for China's Olympic architecture.
No one denounced China's right to host these games more vociferously or eloquently than Smith College professor Eric Reeves. For years before the games, he warned of the dangerous precedent inherent in allowing a police state like China to host the Olympics. For even longer than that, he served as a prominent researcher on the ongoing wars in Sudan.
He meticulously documented China's support to Sudan's murderous regime that cleared land - and the people inhabiting it - for further oil exploration in resource-rich southern Sudan. In the Boston Globe, he announced, "If China is to be a legitimate host of the 2008 Olympics, the preeminent event in international sports, it cannot be complicit in the ultimate international crime - genocide. The world community must respond more forcefully to this intolerable contradiction."
The communist regime went to great lengths to demonstrate that its technological acumen and athletic excellence succeeded where other nations have failed. England, as host of the 2012 Summer Games, will be hard-pressed to follow suit.
After securing an impressive 51 gold medals, state-generated clear skies, and the respect of an enthralled Western television audience and media, it can be argued that China could not have hoped for a better overall Olympic outcome. But at what cost did all of this international acclaim come?
Before the games, many warned about China's repeated violations affecting citizens' humans rights, economic complicity in the ongoing genocide in Sudan's Darfur region, ruthless aggression in censoring Internet sites critical of Beijing's historic brutality, and willingness to forcibly evict its own citizens from their property in order to make room for China's Olympic architecture.
No one denounced China's right to host these games more vociferously or eloquently than Smith College professor Eric Reeves. For years before the games, he warned of the dangerous precedent inherent in allowing a police state like China to host the Olympics. For even longer than that, he served as a prominent researcher on the ongoing wars in Sudan.
He meticulously documented China's support to Sudan's murderous regime that cleared land - and the people inhabiting it - for further oil exploration in resource-rich southern Sudan. In the Boston Globe, he announced, "If China is to be a legitimate host of the 2008 Olympics, the preeminent event in international sports, it cannot be complicit in the ultimate international crime - genocide. The world community must respond more forcefully to this intolerable contradiction."
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Vincent
posted 9/09/08 @ 11:00 PM EST
Many of the statements made in this commentary just don't ring true. Where is this writer pulling his facts and assumptions from?
Post a Comment