The Olympic Games are just a season away and within the next couple of weeks athletes from around the world will be competing for places on their national teams. For years, many of these young people will have been preparing themselves to physically and mentally peak during this summer. They will have lofty ambitions and seek to gain international reputations by the winning coveted medals for their countries.They will represent the best of humanity’s strongest, fastest and most competitive people. They are the elite athletes of the world. Throughout the summer, the hype, publicity, and commercial exploitation of the Games will take place in practically every nation on earth. Theoretically, it will be a time to lay down our arms and pick up our running shoes. It is a quadrennial event when we aspire as a species to live at peace with one another and joyfully compete. The Games symbolize the greatness, grandeur, and godliness of humankind.
But there is a shadow over this year’s Games. The host nation, China, is an unworthy venue for the Olympics. China’s human rights abuses, religious persecutions, and contempt for democracy and liberty makes it the 21st century’s equivalent of Nazi Germany. Despite giving assurances that they would do something about these internal problems eight years ago, the Chinese authorities have instead increased their inhumane practices of political executions, religious intolerance, and tyrannical policing of their nation.
In a civilized world, the evil excesses of China should not be condoned by presenting the Games in the heart of an oppressive regime. The dictatorship of Communist China dishonors the heart, spirit, and majesty of the Olympics. They are abusing the privilege of hosting the World. They should be held accountable for their human rights atrocities and boycotted for their abuse of religious minorities.
I will not watch the Olympics, nor will I esteem any new sporting records or applaud any athletes who accomplish their goals. I will not buy into the “let’s keep politics out of sports’ mentality that passes for civilized sophistry amongst sports commentators, newspapers, and television channels. China, under its present totalitarian leadership, is a bloody stain upon human rights and freedom. I will not make myself a hypocrite by watching an oppressive nation use the Olympics as propaganda to deceive its own people.
In the 20th century, the whole world made terrible mistakes by allowing Nazi Germany to host the Olympics. It seems that in the dawn of this new century, we are about to embark on a course that will see us make the same mistakes. If there is no boycott of the Games by our leaders, then we had better prepare ourselves for war in the next decade, because the Beijing will treat our acquiescence as decadent weakness, just as Hitler did in the 1930s.
Remember this: after the boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games, the tyrannical Soviet Union collapsed within a decade; but three years after the participation of all nations at the 1936 Berlin Games, the World was involved in total war.
If we do not learn from the past, we are doomed to repeat history.
1 comment:
"after the boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games, the tyrannical Soviet Union collapsed within a decade; but three years after the participation of all nations at the 1936 Berlin Games, the World was involved in total war."
Correlation does not imply causation, do you agree?
Could it be that ten years of rising economic power in the west due to a superior social/economic system was the cause of the collapse of the soviet system, not the rather insignificant effect of boycotting the olympics?
If correlation does not imply causation than why should we worry so much about the Olympics. I hope that most political leaders boycott the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the games. This is because political leaders have the power to influence the Chinese actions by making a statement.
Being unwilling to show pride in the accomplishments of atheletes who are really just pawns in a larger game is petty. It does nothing to change the Chinese minds (unless you have a direct line to the the Premiers office) and just inserts petty differences into sports that show how alike we really are as people despite our religious differences.
I repectfully hope you chnge your approach to the Games for the sake of the fact that we are all people of the world. Our governments may be flawed but that does not diminish the accomplishments of the peoople. We should celebrate our similarities at every chance we get while at the same time making sure that our government (the people with the power to promote political change in China) are doing their job to pressure China to reform.
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