Wednesday 11 July 2001
In August 1936, Olympic flags snapped in the wind alongside the swastikas on the monuments and buildings of Berlin as Germany prepared to host the Summer Games. The arriving athletes and tourists encountered a spotless city and the finest in German hospitality. But it was a facade. Behind the glossy venues was a morally corrupt and brutal regime. The Nazis had removed anti-Jewish signs from the buildings and rid the streets of Gypsies and other "undesirables." In the end, the Olympic Games provided the Nazis with a great propaganda coup and helped legitimize their regime in the eyes of many.
Sixty-five years later, something similar is in the works as the International Olympic Committee decides on Friday whether to name China as host of the 2008 Summer Olympics. The odds-makers say the IOC will repeat history and reward the tyrants of Beijing. It should not. To pass the Olympic torch to China's dictators would not only be a tacit legitimization of their rule. It would also reveal the moral corruption of the IOC itself.
For years, the IOC, under its president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, has been plagued by bribery, doping scandals, financial skulduggery, personnel purges and general venality. Since the Salt Lake City scandal, it has supposedly been attempting to clean itself up. If it now grants the Games to a regime as repressive as China's, the IOC will be saying that it is, in fact, incapable of reforming itself because it lacks a moral conscience.
And what about the athletes themselves? Is it fair of the IOC to place the athletes in the morally untenable position of having to chose between taking part in a once-in-a-lifetime competition and associating themselves, even if only indirectly, with those who ordered the deaths of peaceful demonstrators in Tiananmen Square?
There are those who argue that China's abysmal human rights record has nothing to do with its ability to stage the Olympics. They say awarding China the games will encourage democratic reforms there. That is not only naive and sentimental thinking, it is an indulgence in moral nihilism and a denial of any connection between words and deeds.
China's aging autocrats, desperate for the world's recognition, talk of democracy and respect for human rights. But their deeds condemn them. [...] They persecute religious organizations such as the Christian church and Falun Gong. [...]
The IOC has four perfectly acceptable alternatives to Beijing to host the 2008 Summer Games. Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether Toronto, Paris, Istanbul or Osaka gets the nod. But until China's leaders no longer rely on repression and the executioner's bullet to keep themselves in power, Beijing must not be given the honour of playing host to any Olympics.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/editorials/010711/5092038.html
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Category: Falun Dafa in the Media
