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Frankly I reckon giving the Olympics to China is somewhat akin to giving it to Nazi Germany in 1936. You have a similar authoritarian government prepared to kill and incarcerate any who disagree with it. They also have policies of attempting to wipe out minorities. Just as we look back on the '36 Olympics as a great mistake, I'm sure we'll look back on the Beijing games in a similar way.

 

And I wholeheartedly support everyone who gets out there and protests the torch relay and the games themselves. I'm sure China believed that by getting the games it would give them an opportunity to showcase their country and people. Well it's worked and many are appalled by what they see.

 

I guess I should note that I have been involved in human rights organisations that have been attempting to highlight the terrible abuses in China since the early '90's.

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What I dont get is why is Tibet the poster child, the "cool" thing for people to protest about? Sudan/Darfur just isn't romantic enough to protest about like Tibet? hmmmm

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Many of the protests against China are because of their military support to the Sudanese government, so not exactly sure of your point.

 

Why anyone chooses to take time out of their own daily lives and concerns to protest anything can be many reasons. Tibet has been made somewhat cool because of the Dalai Lama and his incredible charisma and extensive travels throughout the world. I've met him in person and although I haven't got a religious bone in my body it was an incredible experience. I know of no such figure inspiring people to take time out of their lives for the Sudanese.

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 Originally Posted By: Go Native
I've met him in person and although I haven't got a religious bone in my body it was an incredible experience. I know of no such figure inspiring people to take time out of their lives for the Sudanese.


Basically, unless you're the human equivalent of a panda, your human rights don't amount to much.
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I thought this opinion from the Aussie today was pretty interesting.

 

 

THE International Olympic Committee's decision to grant China the right to organise the 2008 Summer Games was another unfortunate case of unwarranted faith in the power of good intentions: that treating China as a normal 21st-century political society would speed its becoming one.

 

The vote rested on the assumption that giving China the Games would strengthen what the democratic countries want to see as progressive forces in China, remaking that country on the Western liberal model.

 

This model, composed of respect for human rights, good governance and a prosperous economy, is widely (if erroneously) believed to be what all modern societies are on their way to becoming. Unfortunately - and to China's present discomfiture - this is not true.

 

That it is not true is being demonstrated by the Chinese reaction to large and violent demonstrations by Tibetans and by foreign sympathisers against China's occupation of Tibet since 1959, its annexation of it in 1965 and China's repression of Tibetan culture and accompanying transfer of huge numbers of Han Chinese to submerge and suppress Tibetan society and identity. China's authorities - and more importantly, its people - expected nothing like this.

 

The former are humiliated, their legitimacy undermined. They have hugely miscalculated China's international political reputation. The people are enraged, their assumptions about the West overturned. The world tour of the Olympic flame may be cut short. The effect on the Games is unforeseeable. The eventual effect on the Chinese Government may be considerable.

 

Exactly the same kind of cultural miscalculation could be seen at work at last week's NATO conference in Bucharest, where the Bush administration strove mightily to convince its allies to grant Ukraine and Georgia the promise of eventual NATO membership. The western European allies rejected the US proposal, the first such refusal on a major issue in the 60-year history of NATO, for several reasons - not including the one offensively put forward by the candidates themselves and by the US delegation and its allies, that Russia should be given a veto over NATO decisions.

 

The reasons were economic and mainly political, with respect to European relations with Russia, but included the consideration - rarely expressed in so many words that neither wishful thinking about the country's democratic progress nor NATO membership can make Ukraine a united, politically coherent and stable nation, which it has not been since the 14th century. It has a recent and very fragile democratic structure, and is deeply divided internally, with a large Russian-speaking, Russian Orthodox and culturally Russian minority population that resists integration into the West.

 

China's decision to become a candidate for the Olympic Games demonstrated the equivalent of this magical thinking. The Chinese Government believed that holding the Games would give an image of Western-style modernity and political maturity (as the outside world judges these), which China does not actually possess and quite possibly never will.

 

I make the last statement not out of hostility to China, or in denigration of its immense civilisation and achievements, but because I think that what is called the modernisation and Westernisation of China is an affair of many illusions, including self-deception on the Chinese side, resulting from deep and mutual misunderstanding by both the Chinese and the liberal West.

 

It is scarcely necessary to say that Chinese political conceptions and institutions are not rights-based. A French scholar, Francois Jullien, said recently that while such words as liberty, truth, and rights can be found in the Chinese language, they do not have the same meanings as they do in the West, where they descend from Greek and Christian philosophy. He says that the Chinese will speak of a wise man, a sage, as an authentic man, in touch with reality, but this does not imply that his thinking necessarily expresses truth in the Western sense.

 

China thinks in terms of situation and process, not of identity and eternity, which are the basis of our idea of truth. Jullien also says that moral thought in China tends to deal with influence, regulation and accommodation, rather than right and wrong. This in part explains why the Chinese are all but universally outraged about Western protests over their possession of Tibet. Its subordination to China seems to them perfectly justified by China's natural superiority and ancient role as the dominant civilisation of East Asia.

 

The power of Chinese nationalism is such as to allow no accommodation to Tibetan nationalism.

 

That, however, does not mean that Tibetan nationalism will yield, and that is a bad augur for China's international claims.

 

William Pfaff is an American author and opinion columnist for the International Herald Tribune.

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 Originally Posted By: Rag-Doll
 Originally Posted By: Go Native
I've met him in person and although I haven't got a religious bone in my body it was an incredible experience. I know of no such figure inspiring people to take time out of their lives for the Sudanese.


Basically, unless you're the human equivalent of a panda, your human rights don't amount to much.


That's a ridiculous notion Rag Doll. The thing is what gets people to take time away from their own important and busy lives to take interest in an issue that has no direct affect on them personally? Often some sort of inspiration is needed and the Dalai Lama's message of peace and harmony is nothing if not inspiring to many. We don't really have many vivid pictures of the abuses and suffering of the Tibetan people as it's damned hard to smuggle out pictures of anything going on there.
Africa on the other has no shortage of pictures of death, destruction and suffering and I suspect it is these that move many people to action for causes there.
At the end of the day it is very hard to get people to take direct action on issues that don't affect them directly. Most people are pretty occupied with their own lives. And when they do decide to become active on an issue it's usually for some reason that resonates with them personally. Of course all human rights abuses anywhere in the world are abhorrent and should be highlighted but we can't give our time to every single issue out there or we'd never have anytime for anything else. So people decide to give their consideration and time to issues that for whatever reasons mean something to them.
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The thing is what gets people to take time away from their own important and busy lives to take interest in an issue that has no direct affect on them personally? Often some sort of inspiration is needed and the Dalai Lama's message of peace and harmony is nothing if not inspiring to many. .....And when they do decide to become active on an issue it's usually for some reason that resonates with them personally. Of course all human rights abuses anywhere in the world are abhorrent and should be highlighted but we can't give our time to every single issue out there or we'd never have anytime for anything else. So people decide to give their consideration and time to issues that for whatever reasons mean something to them.

 

Go Native, my post was a bit tongue in cheek but your response simply supports the point I was making. The extent to which a cause is supported depends very much on how successfully it grabs attention. This is not limited to human rights causes, environmentalists complain of the same thing - lots of panda breeding programmes, but for the wide mouth frog of the upper Zambezi, not so much. In the crowded infotainment world we live in the media savvy tend to do well - perhaps its really only another form of Darwinism with the survival of the photogenic, the appealing or the worthy. Lots of money for aids but more people, especially kids, die from lack of clean water - a problem far more readily fixed. Unfortunately the push for clean water doesn't have the benefit of the political and social momentum that aids enjoys and which pretty much started with the gay community in the US back in the late '80s and early '90s. Much like the Maddie McCann thing last year - the wealthy, articulate, well connected seem to be more deserving of our attention and sympathy than those who less well equipped to promote their cause. There is something wrong with that. There are other regions/people with equal and even similar problems - West Papua, Dafur, the Karen people of Burma (even the Burmese themselves!) as was East Timor, Kosovo and Eritrea etc. But as Mama so aptly put it - everyone loves the monks. To have a particular interest in Tibet because its leader is more inspiring is a bit shallow. Westerners, and particularly those in the Arts, have long been intrigued (infatuated?) by Eastern Mysticism and the public appeal of the Dalai Lama is simply another manifestation of this, fuelled in no small part by his own superb diplomatic skills I'm sure. He is the Asian Nelson Mandela. That is not complaint or criticism, good luck to him and his people. Every culture/community should be blessed with such a charismatic leader - who do the Aussie's have, Warnie? I'm not really sure where all this gets me, but anyway, there you are. After re-reading oyur post I think we're pretty much saying the same thing.

 

I'm fascinated by what is happening with the relay and I'm really looking forward to seeing how this whole thing plays out. The PRC government has set themselves up here for quite an embarrassing episode if the protests gather momentum and we have athletes protesting or making political statements during the games and a whole raft of leaders boycotting the opening. Talk about a loss of face. I can just imagine the control freaks in Beijing going nuts about it but not really being able to do much. That said, it something like that happened it wouldn't bode well for the future willingness of Beijing to take a more responsible role in world affairs consistent with its global stature. All we need now is for Taiwan to call a spade a spade and declare independence....

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The problem for the PRC government is that they are so used to their own populace accepting their lies and propaganda (they take care of those that don't) that they have started to believe it themselves. And they can't seem to understand why the rest of the world just doesn't accept their the lies as well. It must frustrate them so much that other countries won't just lock up and kill their people who dare to go against the status quo.

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Diverging slightly ... there is signifigant talk on the news here in Perth today of the Aus Olympic Committee and athletes being in discussions about thier personal safety after the report last night of a 'foiled terrorist plot' to kidnap and poisen athletes, and confiscation of explosive devices planned to be used during the games.

 

Ok.

 

It is being talked down by the Aus Govt - as China overstating the severity of the threat to take attention OFF the torch and into sympathy mode...but the athletes and thier parents are getting antsy.

 

Another thing to watch develop.

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Governments and terror plots, I tell ya...I'm not one for conspiracy theories but the party boys in Beijing are not the most reliable source of info.

 

It will be interesting to see how well the Chinese athletes do now that WADA is in full swing and everything. There was a report in one of the papers here this morning about the national swim coach playing down the prospects of success. It seems whatever training methods that were getting them success in the pool previously no longer works. ;\)

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I dunno what Thurs is on about but I seem to remember a few Olympics ago the Oz team were swimming in an all body suit made from shark skin that apparently had a significant effect on drag. A few teams complained it gave an unfair advantage, the Aussies didn' t give a hoot and I think they got a huge haul of medals

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Here are two good articles on Tibet, for opposing viewpoints

 

. One by Micheal Parenti, who offers a critical view of the traditional society

 

http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html

 

and a counter, by Joshua Schrei, who actually spent time living there and researching the culture

 

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/04/a-lie-repeated-the-far-left%e2%80%99s-flawed-history-of-tibet/

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It's odd that chinese people get so offended when people point out what a crap government they have. I wonder if they would have the same view if their information wasn't quite so manipulated.

 

Still, there is a bit of jingoism being practiced by both sides at the moment. Here is a good go at China from the Aust popular press (not quite tabloid, but pretty bloody close).

 

http://blogs.news.com.au/news/news/index..._gold_for_china

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