The WAL

Beijing seems to be worried that the world is ganging up on China. This comes as a surprise? Really though, mobbing the torch in Paris or San Francisco and global protests of thousands of people seems a little tame next to oh, say Tianamen square in early June of 1989, much less the events in Tibet or the routine human rights and environmental abuses in China itself. My own view is that more protesting should have happened when China was first awarded the games back in, was it late 2001 or early 2002? I believe that giving China the Olympics is on par with allowing Nazi Germany to host them in 1936.

Easy enough to type that in the cool safety of my basement.

The question on so many lips seems to be: should we boycott the games? I think no. That would punish the athletes, not China. The time to announce a boycott was when the games were first awarded. It’s far too late now and would only deprive the athletes a chance at dreams they’ve worked really hard for. I do think that any western political or public figures planning to attend the opening or closing ceremonies of the games should let their seats stay empty. And I think that the rest of us shouldn’t watch them on TV. That won’t punish China, either, but it might make an interesting statement to the state. The low TV ratings would make almost as interesting a statement to the networks in question to start thinking more responsibly about things.

And really, punishing China isn’t the objective. The objective is, or should be, finding ways to pressure China into becoming a positive force in the world instead of the power and energy hungry beast that it currently seems to be. Is China after global domination? Gods, I hope not, but the government running things sure doesn’t seem to give a shit about anything other than maintaining power and its vision of superiority.

Oh, and yes, absolutely Free Tibet.

There’s no way I’m going to be finished in 11,117 words. It’s probably going to take something close to twice that. I’m not going to change the target metre, though - I’ve got this kind of perverse desire to see the progress hit 113% or whatever it winds up being. The ultimate word count will be whatever it takes for me to finish telling the story.