UK Asks Athletes to “Speak Out” in China

Usually, the UK’s Olympic effort is managed by the Ministry for Culture, Media and Sport. which used to be the Ministry of National Heritage. Yesterday, though, Lord Malloch-Brown, a Foreign Office minister, spoke up on matters regarding the Beijing games. Rather than engage in an ineffective, conscience-salving boycott, he suggested that Brits at the games “speak the truth.” Embarrassing the ChiComs is the only approach that can work to improve the appalling human rights record in the People’s Prisoncamp of China.

His Lordship said, “We will expect to see our athletes respect both the values of Britain – courtesy and respect for the country where the Games are – but also that supremely important value of speaking the truth as they see it.” That applies to the appalling mess in Tibet as well as the general repression of the Chinese people elsewhere in the country.

Boycotts of the Games have happened with some frequency. The first was in 1956 when the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland skipped the Melbourne Games to protest the Soviet repression in Hungary after the latter’s attempted uprising. At the same time, Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon, boycotted the games to protest the Suez Crisis. In 1972 and 1976, numerous African countries boycotted because they wanted bans on the racist regimes of South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). In 1980, the US boycotted the Soviet’s Games, and in 1984, the Soviets returned the favor in the Los Angeles Games. None of these boycotts achieved anything beyond letting off a little steam.

For better or worse, the Olympic Games have been a source of propaganda for decades, and in dictatorships, this is especially so. The most famous example of a government using the games to enhance its own stature obviously was in Berlin in 1936. The Nazis wanted to show off their glorious new order and the superiority of the Aryan race that built it. Those in favor of boycotts as a strategic tool often cite these games as the free nations of the world handing the Nazis a great propaganda victory – a complete misreading of history.

The proud Aryan nation had to sit in Olympic stadium and watch a black American by the name of Jesse Owens stand on the top of the medal podium four times while the American flag was raised. Adolf Hitler was so incensed that he walked out of the stadium. Nothing does more to damage the propaganda value of the Games quite so much as the lie being shown up for what it is. This journal agrees with His Lordship. The athletes should go to the Games, behave themselves, and when asked by China’s muzzled media how they like the People’s Prisoncamp, they should say, “It would be better if it were a free country.” Get 100 athletes to make the same remark, and the Beijing Games will quickly drop from the ChiComs’ list of favorite topics.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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