Corfu Magazine - Let The Games Begin!

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Commentary

Let the Games Begin!

by David A. Ross

It's time for the Olympic Games again.

Indeed, it seems like such a short time

ago that we were all watching the spec-

tacular show staged in Athens during

the 2004 games. Now, it is the turn of

China to show the world not only a

venue for these sporting events,

but a bit of its culture, too.

Of course we've all seen the so-called

Bird's Nest. I heard one reporter quote

its cost at more than one hundred million

dollars. On whole, the Olympics will cost

1.5% of China's GDP - which is, more or

less, all the money the country produces

in one year. We are all also aware that,

these days, China produces a good deal

of what the rest of the world consumes.

Culturally, China is also one of the world's great anomalies, which seems strange considering one in five people living on earth is Chinese. Politically and economically it is a society that is both Communist and Capitalist at the same time. Self-made millionaires and billionaires live it up in Shanghai and Beijing even as some of the poorest people in the world try to scratch a living from a meager patch of wetland or a few starving animals. Industrialists the likes of which neither Europe nor America has ever seen get filthy rich literally overnight employing a never-ending labour force that must work under conditions and circumstances that in the West could only be called slavery (who can forget the images and the stories of the millions of Chinese people stranded last winter during the blizzard that crippled transportation and kept hundreds of thousands from seeing their families during the only 4-day holiday they were granted all year?). The Chinese government tolerates dissidents about as well as Stalin did, and the flow of information over the media is as free as a Chinese traffic jam. It is an abhorrent and all-too-common practice in China for parents to sell their children; on seeing the faces of these auctioned pre-pubescents, it is not hard to imagine that self esteem must be at an all-time low. Yet time and again China is presented in the media as an 'emerging super-power', as if that's supposed to make all the degradation O.K. Or, at least it might be overlooked for the duration of the games...

Of course protests have been staged, both before and during the great event. Some world leaders have even refused to attend the Opening Ceremonies. Most of the protesters are hauled away by police anyway. What becomes of them is never reported by the Western press. Their stories are not told, their message not conveyed. Those who are brave enough (or foolish enough) to call attention to China's egregious Human Rights practices (or lack of same) are not lauded for their courage; rather they are treated as a nuisance, or an interruption, or maybe they just disappear, or maybe they never were at all! But certainly such abuses of power can be overlooked for a couple of weeks while we all have a good time watching the athletes, and while the State (as well as certain individuals) makes even more money that it/they can then lend back to the troubled Western economies so hungry to consume what this 'newly liberated' work force produces.

In general, it seems to me these days that far too many rights and values are overlooked, or trampled upon, or scorned in the name of money. Not only by the Chinese, but by far too many countries - so-called free world governments included. Just because something makes a profit does not necessarily make it acceptable. We could, en mass, turn off the games this year, and thus the advertisers. That might get the message across in a language both powerful and universal. This year, I won't be watching the games for even one minute.