Where the hell are our priorities?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the summer Olympics in Beijing and I have to say I’m shocked and disappointed at the lack of athletes speaking out against China’s human rights abuses.  Maybe I’m just naive (or maybe I missed it), but I can’t believe more athletes have not made any statements regarding this.

Personally, I always watch the Olympics, both winter and summer.  I don’t only watch the sports I know and love, but I watch the sports I don’t know anything about and, frankly, just don’t get or think are weird (curling, anyone?).  However, this summer I’m boycotting the telecasts because of China’s continued support of the genocide being waged in Darfur, as well as their continued occupation of Tibet.  A lot of people in the US like to call our country “the leader of the free world”.  Well, I’ve always thought of that as bullshit  (for one, shouldn’t the “leader of the free world” be elected?), but our participation in this summer’s Beijing Olympics will just prove it.  We’re willing to turn a blind eye to China’s human rights abuses so we can go be kissy-kissy with them and pretend everything is just fine.  We’re talking about GENOCIDE, for crissakes!!!

Now, I’ve heard people say the Olympics are about sports and politics shouldn’t be mixed with sports.  To that, I say not so fast.  The Olympics are about a lot more than sports.  In fact, I would say sports are actually secondary.  The main attraction and and idea behind the Olympics, as I’ve always understood and been led to believe, is to celebrate the international community.  Why else would we have these big-production opening and closing ceremonies which focus not on the sports, but the many countries and cultures that are being represented by the athletes?

I understand that many, if not most, athletes who compete in the Olympics have dreamt about it and trained for it almost their whole lives and many get only one shot.  It only stands to reason that they would be heartbroken if they lost their one and only chance at fulfilling their dream and I would truly feel sympathetic.  But let’s weigh that heartbreak with the heartbreak of a child in Darfur starving to death because aid workers can’t get to them due to armed militias waging genocide against whole villages of people, or Tibetans who have no country anymore because China decided that Tibet is part of China and enforced its will through violent means while the rest of the world at most released tepid rebukes of China and, otherwise, looked the other way.  It’s no contest.

If the purpose of the Olympics is to foster a sense of international community through the spirit of friendly competition, which it is, we cannot, as human beings, go to Beijing with clear consciences.  How do you celebrate the international community coming together when the host country is working so hard at destroying any sense of safety, security and even humanity for so many human beings?

You can’t.

I really wish the United States, as well as all other countries which consider themselves free, would boycott the 2008 Summer Olympics.  Short of that, I wish (more than) a few athletes would at least stand up and make principled, if difficult, decisions to stand against genocide and human rights abuse and choose for themselves not to participate.  To do anything else is to enable China and, by doing so, we are all guilty.

With all that said, if anyone knows of any athletes I may have overlooked who have come out and made a real stand against China’s human rights abuses, please let me know.  Maybe I can write something about that later.