L0cal Bloggers and the Beijing Olympics
China exercises tight control of any information its citizens might read. The great Firewall of China effectively blocks any stories, websites, or news that does not line up with the Chinese governments communist agenda. The average Chinese citizen has no idea that the world is rooting for Tibet, the the world criticizes the government for abusing its people, that the world cares about them. Instead, the Chinese government is telling their people that they have found dynamite and plastic explosives in the Buddhist monasteries, and whispers about suicide bombers.
And no one was surprised: Companies that have invested millions in sponsorship deals and Olympic bureaucrats who have invested years trying to justify their controversial decision to award the 2008 Olympics to Beijing are naturally inclined to use those sorts of arguments. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to believe them.
Look a bit closer, in fact, and none of those statements holds up.
A boycott doesn’t solve anything. Well, doesn’t it? Some boycotts do help solve some things. The boycott of South African athletes from international competitions was probably the single most effective weapon the international community ever deployed against the apartheid state.
I’m disappointed that the Right will support democracy movements around the world but not in the world’s most populace country and potentially the next superpower China. Standing up for the liberty of Tibetans is the morale thing to do and could likely start a movement within the Peoples Republic to reverse the lost opportunity of Tienanmen Square in 1988. Then, the first President Bush failed to speak out boldly to condemn the communist crackdown on the infant student democracy movement, thus seeing yet another wall behind the Iron Curtain collapse.
I’ve a vague notion that our massive trade dependency with China (or are they more dependent on us?) is staying the necessary reproof, which we seldom fail to withhold from chronic rights’ abusers such as Cuba, Russia, Iran North Korea, Venezuela, ect…
Heather @ April 9, 2008