[Starting to get back into the groove of life. There may be blog.]
This one I got wrong: “There is a moral dimension to the Olympics, and I expect it to come to the fore in Beijing. It won’t be the first time there’s been a memorable protest under the five rings.”
There was barely a murmur of political protest from the athletes during this Olympiad. I am still surprised, given the massive conflicts that raged over the torch run, and the widespread awareness and popularity of the Tibet cause if nothing else. It was as if everyone who turned up just wanted to do their sporty and enjoy the atmosphere in the Olympic village! (Cue the usual run of media stories about how everyone is shagging everyone else in athlete-town.) Where, I ask, was their political consciousness?
In retrospect it isn’t so surprising. It is absolutely clear that China put on a wonderful Games, and the athletes were entirely caught up in it, with helpful people everywhere and a massive enthusiasm from the locals to show off their country to the world and win many, many medals. It was a brilliant games to watch, as well – any games that gives you both a Michael Phelps and a Usain Bolt is one to be cherished. Like so many other people, I don’t really give a toss about 99% of the Olympic sports at any other time, but the festival nature of the Olympics and the sheer global commitment to excellence gets me every time.
So I can understand any athlete with a political mission letting it slide in the face of this excellent welcome. For an athlete at this level, the politics can only ever be distantly second to the sport, and its easy to see that distant second fading away into obscurity. So it turned out to be a happy games, despite the occasional sour note that reverberated with deeply unpleasant power – the lip-synch little girl for one. Media in the UK didn’t shy away from hinting at China’s political failings, but also never went beyond insinuation. Everyone walked away exhilirated and smiling, and in fact there is something deeply encouraging in the embrace of the Chinese by the world when so often they are vilified or even feared in other countries.
This, then, was China’s coming out party into the 21st century world with a new social prominence to match its economic and political prominence. The Beijing Olympiad shows, unnervingly, just how functional a massive oppressive state can be when it marries itself to global capital. This is a model of the future; unlike Soviet Russia, whose communism was probably destined to collapse in upon itself sooner rather than later, China shows no cracks and I can fully believe it will be standing strong with this exact model of state management in a century’s time, or longer. It has embraced the systems in the rest of the world that don’t care about human rights, and in so doing has immunised itself from those systems that do care. It has had its coming out party, and it won’t be going inside again.
5 thoughts on “Olympics Not Politics”
Comments are closed.
There were a couple of interesting articles about the restrictions on the media that strongly hinted at the seedy underbelly that the Chinese government was not showing. They probably came out while you were away. I’ll see if I can find a link.
To be honest, it didn’t do anything to warm me to China.
I recently watched Leni Riefenstahl’s “Olympia” – shown on the Documentary channel to deliberately coincide with the Beijing Olympics.
And, yes, the parallels are striking. The mass organisation, showmanship and spectacle. The union of the people and leadership to show off to the world. The focus on media spectacle, to make the sports look as perfect as possible. The chorographing of the crowds at the events. The lack of opposing views.
Berlin 1936 to Beijing 2008. How little things changes.
Athletic protest was indeed noticeably absent, but I don’t think it was the propaganda success the Chinese had hoped for. The mainstream media have been quite happy to ask uncomfortable questions and note the signs of the oppressive state – I’ve heard about the singing controversy, the fact all the kids representing other ethnic groups were Han chinese, the coverup of the dancer paralysed in the ceremony practice, the 13-year-old gymnast who is now 16, the censored internet despite assurances to the contrary, the forced evictions, the corrupt allocation of tickets, and the questioning regarding the ridiculous unused “permitted protest areas” (which left even the staunchly apolitical IOC rep dumbfounded at the naive chinese official stonewalling)…and I’m sure I got all this from ESPN etc and international reports in our own press.
More should have been made of it of course, and it needed a medallist to make a stand for it to hit the front page, but I do think this has been an eye-opener for China that their information repression tactics and curt denials cause more harm than good for their international reputation.
Jon/ben: I think coverage over here was probably different to coverage in the UK, which was reliably snarky about China but never *did* anything with that. Jon, did you see how the US were covering things while over there?
ben, I don’t share your confidence that this has been an eye-opener for China. I honestly don’t think they care in the slightest who knows what they did. I think the show of propriety is an end in itself, and if some foreigners don’t buy it, who cares as long as they keep trading with us.
scott A: its official – repressive regimes hold the best parties!
Morgue: I barely pay attention to local news and I saw, read & heard all sorts of coverage of the controversies mentioned by Ben.
Scott: Leni Reifenstahl sure had a thang for black fellas, eh?