No Gold For Blood - Boycott Olympics Now
March 30th 2008 14:15
In Australia we get a little bit silly over sport. We play it,watch it and love it more than any other group of people on the planet and before you say that's overstatement think about the fact that the highest rating programs year after year are sporting events.
In TV ratings - Olympic years go to the station that has the Olympics even before the year starts - the other stations can only minimise the damage. Why? Because we are so damn good at sport. Let's not deny it - Australians love competing, love competition and most of all love winning.
We have just had the national swimming trials to select the olympic team - it received unbelievable attention in the media - world records were broken, the next generation of national heroes was annointed and everyone is talking about how many Gold medals our young superstar team of athletes are going to bring home. Bring on the battle.
But there is another battle going on here - a moral battle which I fear is going to swept up under the carpet in the pursuit of those shiny gold medals. The country hosting the 2008 Olympics is China. They will use the games to showcase their extraordinary culture, wealth, people and resources - it is a big deal to host an Olympic Games we in Australia should know - we did it in 2000.
Why should China not be given this opportunity???
Because it has one of the world's most dreadful records on human rights going around. It has the worst record on executions, of treatment against it's own people like the semi religious group the Falun Gong (whose only crime seems o be a spot of deep breathing). The scope of their human rights abuses goes well outside its own boundaries. It has influenced conflict and terrible human rights violations in Myanmar (Burma) and Darfur (in Sudan) where genocide is going on at a fearful rate.
What are a few gold medals from great sporting achievements worth in the face of these human rights abuses.
People in Australia are already lining up to support our athletes and prevent any call for a boycott. It is the height of apathy that people in this country don't care about what is happening to people over the possibility of sporting success. The leader of the opposition in this country said he didn't want to see all that hard work go to waste!! Let's not worry about Tibetan getting beaten to death or women being raped in Darfur.
What really gets me is the outcry we have over other Human Rights abuse cases - we demand the end of the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe (maybe because we don't get all of our clothes, toys and half our food from there). Worse still is our response to the Japanese Whaling industry - when you consider nobody has spoken out over China's human rights abuses the response to Japanese Whaling seems hysterical to say the least.
We can win gold medals for humanity and dignity if we stand up and say such human rights abuses are not tolerated and so we won't go to the Beijing games
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