Politics in the Olympics?
Here is one of the biggest questions that always float over Olympic Games and especially so over these games: Should we mix politics with the Olympics?
Well to answer this, we must answer what the Games are. My humble ranking of the significances of the Olympics are:
1a) A inter-cultural and international phenomenon
1b) An athletic event
3) A chance for NBC to wave its giant peacock
1000) Beijing's chance to make a lot of money
I rank the cultural and athletic implications 1a and 1b because to a huge group of people, these are the only point of the Olympics. To many Chinese in this country, the sports competition couldn't mean less. This is merely a chance to broadcast Beijing, and by relation, China, to the entire world. This is a international convention where people from just about every single country in the entire freaking world (except Iraq) will take part. It doesn't matter that some will shoot arrows, some will run exactly 1500 meters, and some will try to judge a ball in the air to see whether they should run or stay near the white square object and try to "tag up."
To many athletes, this event is entirely a sports showcase. This will be a global showcase of their talents, but it doesn't matter whether the games are in Beijing, Athens or Reykjavik. The ultimate goal of any runner, swimmer, gymnast ping pong player or fencer is to make the Olympics. While every sport has their own championship, and usually a world championship, the Olympics is often the highest and most glorious rewarder. I was talking with a Frisbee player here in Beijing who is reporting for ESPN the Magazine, and he was saying that the criteria for Olympic Sports should be whether the Olympics are the greatest level of competition for the sport. This is a great criteria that will eliminate among others, soccer, baseball, tennis and probably basketball from the Games but will represent why, athletically, the Olympic Games are so special. This is the chance for all these otherwise unknown sports to get worldwide coverage. Without the Olympics, we will never hear of great athletes including contemporaries like Paul Hamm, the Lopez Tae-Kwan-Do siblings, Tyson Gay and Alan Webb, and historical figures like Greg Louganis, Tommy Moe, Carl Lewis and Flo-Jo, all of whom have entered our athletic lore because of these great events.
So the Olympic Games are dually cultural and athletic... it's the Jesus Christ of international conventions. But how does this relate to politics? Why have the British Olympic Committee forbidden its athletes from making any sort of political statements?
Well viewing the Olympics as a cultural event, not only do we see this as a chance for the world to see Chinese culture, but inevitably we see a chance to criticize Chinese culture (government). Journalists coming in to recount their experience will be unable to help themselves from talking about the same things I've talked about - massive police presence, internet censorship, biased internal media, strong and unchallengeable government decrees and if they dig deeper, perhaps human rights violations. Cross cultural exposure is directly linked to cross cultural criticism, and while I urge anyone visiting a different culture to be totally open and understanding, eventually understanding combined with evaluation will result in truly detecting flaws. Even a journalist that comes in without bias will be forced to write about the inadequacies he/she sees in this country if he/she is observant enough. This is true about any country but especially China.
However, a journalist is not an athlete. Most newspapers will be sending journalists not only well-versed in Olympic sports, but with a keen eye and incentive to keep an eye out for larger nationalistic and cultural stories. On the other hand, athletes are chosen solely for their abilities to represent their country with pride and bring back medals. If every athlete was pressured to make political statements whenever they had the podium, we'd have Darfur protesters who couldn't find Sudan on the map. Even Steven Spielberg, who was hired as a consultant director for the ceremonies but resigned for China's role in trading with Sudan, has no idea what he was talking about. His resignation was meaningless, uninformed and at best, mildly damaging. Helping China present a worthwhile Opening Ceremonies has absolutely nothing to do with racial genocide in Darfur. There is much more to be gained from investigating and understanding a vastly different culture then there is from reading a newspaper article and stepping away in protest.
I don't have a problem with an athlete who has a truly personal reason to protest to do so. I completely support John Carlos and Tommie Smith raising their now famous Black Power salute on the 200 meter medalstand to show the whole world a symbol of African American pride and demonstrate the injustices suffered by African Americans at the time. If some Olympic athlete wants to send a message because their brother was unjustly imprisoned by the Chinese government for 15 years, let them. If Michael Phelps' cousin starved to death in the Great Leap Forward, maybe he should be allowed to talk about it. However, I am deathly afraid of athletes who know nothing about history, culture or politics, to come in here and, under pressure from whoevernot, to speak ill of things they don't understand and incur the wrath of 1 billion Chinese. Even if their opinions are worthwhile, there's a difference between expressing those opinions and understanding them.
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