flickering pictures

When I decided to start this site, I told myself that I wouldn’t be yelling out chest-thumping opinions on subjects I know nothing about. I’ll really work to avoid the tired old “injustice this” and “fascist that,” and instead I’ll try to just put some interesting ideas out there, perhaps letting you know what I think of them, and then letting you form your own views, if you haven’t already.

In that spirit, the Observer’s Nick Cohen wrote today that the world should boycott Beijing’s Olympics, to shame China for it’s (admittedly awful) dealings with some of the world’s most brutal, oppressive and kleptocratic governments. At the opening ceremonies, he says:

[…] the flag of Sudan will flutter. China supplied the weapons that massacred so many in Darfur. As further sweeteners, it added interest-free loans for a new presidential palace and vetoes of mild condemnations of genocide from the United Nations. In return, China got most of Sudan’s oil.

The Burmese athletes will wave to the crowd and look as if they are representing an independent country. In truth, Burma is little more than a Chinese satellite. In return for the weapons to suppress democrats and vetoes at the UN Security Council, the junta sells it gas at discounted rates far below what its wretched citizens have to pay.

There will be no Tibetan contingent, of course. Chinese immigrants are obliterating the identity of the occupied country, which will soon be nothing more than a memory. Athletes from half-starved Zimbabwe, whose senile despot props himself up with the Zimmer frame of Chinese aid, will be there, however. As will teams from the Iranian mullahocracy, grateful recipients of Chinese missiles and the prison state of North Korea, for whom China is the sole reliable ally.

Cohen and other irate Westerners are right to point out the gaping moral holes in Chinese foreign policy - they are deep, and they are many. But China is hardly the only power that cozies up to unsavoury characters when the occasion suits. France supported Mobutu, the UK supported Idi Amin, and at one time or another, Washington backed and/or armed everyone from Pinochet to Pol Pot, from the Taliban to Saddam Hussein. Stones and glass houses and all that.

Cohen and others are advocating a boycott in the spirit of the 1976 Games, when 28 African countries skipped the Montreal Games in proud protest against the participation of New Zealand, which refused to cut its rugby ties with Apartheid South Africa. But that boycott didn’t have much of an effect; New Zealand continued to play South Africa throughout its Apartheid years, and still does today. The US-led boycott of the Moscow Games, a response to the Soviets’ Afghan invasion, didn’t have much positive impact either - certainly the USSR wasn’t about to pack up and leave, though the region might be a far more pleasant place today if they had. Neither did the Soviet boycott of the L.A. Olympics, on grounds of anti-USSR fearmongering and “evil empire” name-calling. That’s the history, but here comes the opinion bit: the real reason for full international participation isn’t that boycotts don’t work - it’s that they miss the point.

The Olympic Charter says the Games exist to help build “a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practiced without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.” I’m not quite so naive as to believe that this is always the case, and the Olympics also play host to a good lot of strutting, boasting and national posturing. But the original purpose of the Games, the whole idea behind this venture that tends to lose money and leave billion-dollar fusterclucks in its wake, is to bring together the people of the world and build an understanding that at the end of the day, we’re all in this together. As borders dissolve, the UN loses whatever teeth it once had, and challenges become more global in scope, it’s more important than ever to maintain whatever meager community-building exercises we still have.

Sport has an undeniable power to build bridges - something that Shia, Sunni and Kurdish members of Iraq’s fractious soccer team learned first hand last year. Shocking the world, they played as a team and gave their tattered nation its first ever Asia Cup championship, beating (developed world) powerhouses like Australia and South Korea on the way. This spirit of nationhood didn’t last, and it’s a shame that no benevolent leader emerged to ride this wave, but for a brief time, the country was united behind its national team.

I could say that engagement is a far better tool for making friends out of enemies than isolation could ever be, or that a cold shoulder and a slap in the face can only deepen the divide between China and the West. But for me at least, the best argument for worldwide participation is that the Games exist for just this sort of thing - not to sway government policymakers necessarily, but to build understanding between athletes and fans alike, both in the bleachers and in the locker room. A boycott would rob them of that opportunity.

That’s my take, anyway. What do you think?

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