The artist abroad
Brighter than Any Gold
By Luis H. Francia
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 12:27:00 04/17/2008
Filed Under: Human Rights, Protest, Sport
New York—For the Chinese government, April is turning out to be the cruelest month. Its hopes for the global respect and acclamation it anticipated for hosting the Olympic Games have faded, and Beijing has lapsed instead into a defensive and predictably wounded stance against the rage directed at its abominable human rights record. With the passage of the Olympic flame to its final destination in Beijing plagued by protests right from the start, what Chinese officials are seeing is a mockery of what they had hoped would be a coming-out party for China’s status as en emergent superpower.
The world, it seems, has given the thumb’s down for the violent suppression of dissent in Lhasa and other areas with sizable Tibetan communities and, to a lesser extent, the treatment of its Uighur Muslim minority as well as for the continued support of the Sudanese regime engaged in genocide in Darfur.
The Paris demonstrations, in particular, were humiliating, as these forced the flame to be taken and sheltered on an accompanying bus no less than five times. One demonstrator came within arm’s reach of the flame and its bearer, before being tackled to the ground. In San Francisco, alarmed by the fact that protesters were able to unfurl banners from the cables of the Golden Gate Bridge, the authorities changed the course abruptly, much to the dismay of onlookers who had gathered along the planned route and to the satisfaction of activists who saw the rerouting as a victory.
In the meantime, the character of Beijing’s anger manifests itself in the various ways it hammers away at the Dalai Lama, ranging from the vicious “beast” to the tamer “splittist.” Yet the Dalai Lama, revered by Tibetans everywhere, has consistently said he seeks greater autonomy, not independence, for the Himalayan nation. What he fears above all is “cultural genocide”—a realistic prospect, given the overwhelming numerical superiority of the Han population and their steady influx into Tibet’s capital.
With the Chinese and Tibetan views of Tibet’s history at odds—the former look upon Tibet as having been a part of China since the thirteenth century, while the latter assert that Tibet was never under foreign sway—one thing is clear: Tibet was indisputably independent from 1911 until 1951, when the Dalai Lama fled to India due to the Chinese invasion.
But to those who believe that the Games are sacrosanct, all the bickering, shouting, and political brinksmanship need to be set aside, pushed out of the way for a universal, albeit temporary, celebration. Come to the games, is the clarion call. Just us human beings here, gathered around the watering hole of athletic activities, in a communal and joyous expression of the human spirit. What’s not to like about such sentiments? It would, on one hand, be terrific if politics, ideology, and religion never got in the way of life’s more ennobling pursuits, so we could all live in a Woodstockian, Age-of-Aquarius planet, caught up in a perpetual love-fest. Imagine such a world of universal peace and brotherhood and sisterhood. As John Lennon once wrote in his incandescent anthem, “Imagine,” “It’s easy if you try.”
Such a wonderful vision! However, there is a fly (a rather large one) in the ointment. Authoritarian leaders, whether of repressive regimes or not, hate imagination. To them, it is the most subversive weapon they face, both ungovernable and ineradicable--unless they were to eradicate all of their constituents. But then, whom would they lord over? They cannot imagine imagining life where they’d have to share power or listen to and respect dissenting views. The other side of the equation demands that such a utopian vision be the right as well of, in this case, the Tibetans, the Uighurs, the targeted Sudanese, and others whose human rights have been violated by the Chinese government.
In the interest of being polite at the dinner party, should we then shed tears for the discomfort of, poor hosts, the Beijing autocrats? Should we forget 1989 and the brutal crackdown at Tiananmen Square? Shall we not mention Yang Tongyan, Shi Tao, and Zhu Yufu, among scores of political prisoners in China’s prisons, jailed because of nonviolent dissent, even though the right to peaceful protest is guaranteed by the Chinese Constitution?
There are those who believe these protests demonize the Chinese and equate denunciation of the Chinese government as a sad replay of nineteenth-century Western imperialist/
colonialist aggression. Such arguments are simplistic, not to mention tired. The wrongs and injustices committed against China then, while terrible, should in no way be used to excuse its own abuses now. Already, the protests have achieved a measure of success. The IOC chairman has described the Olympics as being in a crisis. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have said they will not attend the opening ceremonies, while President Nicolas Sarkozy of France is contemplating a similar non-appearance. Senators Obama, Clinton, and McCain have urged President Bush to follow the lead of his European counterparts.
Let’s not forget either that the Olympiads in the twentieth century have often been politicized. In 1936, Hitler used the Games to promote the ideology of Aryan supremacy but which African American Jesse Owens, by winning four gold medals, quickly showed to be a racist fantasy. (That same year Max Schmeling defeated the heavyweight champion Joe Louis, only to lose in a lopsided rematch in 1938, when the German pugilist apparently managed to land only two blows.) Most tragic were the Munich Games, when eleven Israeli athletes and a German police officer were murdered by the Palestinian Black September group. There were the tit-for-tat boycotts on the part of the U.S. (the 1980 Moscow Games, for the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan), and the Soviet Union (the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, for the 1980 U.S. boycott).
The fact is, global sporting events present unrivalled opportunities for publicizing worthy causes. In the present instance, to not take advantage of the flame’s global itinerary to shine a light on the Chinese government’s human rights record would be not only a tactical mistake but also a moral failure. If not now, when?
Undoubtedly, the games themselves will take place as scheduled, with the vast majority, if not all, of athletes from all over the world enjoying the exceedingly rare occasion to compete with the world’s best, at the same time shying away from any political controversy. For the few, however, who might wish to express sympathy for those persecuted by the host country, whether outside official venues or not, they might take heart from the raised, black-gloved fists of African American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, on the winners’ stand forty years ago, at the 1968 Mexico Olympics. Using the award ceremonies to spotlight the continuing social inequities black Americans faced daily, the two were subsequently expelled from the games and ostracized by U.S. media, their families bothered by death threats.
Today, however, Smith and Carlos are honored for their courageous actions. Smith said at the time, “We are black and we are proud of being black. Black America will understand what we did today.” Smith’s record may have been broken since, but his and Carlos’s deed still gleams, brighter than any gold.
Copyright Luis H. Francia
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