{"id":1621,"date":"2008-04-09T22:21:40","date_gmt":"2008-04-09T14:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maddruid.com\/?p=1621"},"modified":"2008-04-10T23:56:32","modified_gmt":"2008-04-10T15:56:32","slug":"1615-of-china-is-no-stranger-to-the-politicization-of-the-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/?p=1621","title":{"rendered":"[1615] Of China is no stranger to the politicization of the Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

In addressing the proposed boycott of the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics, supporters of People’s Republic of China are urging the world community to not to politicize the Olympic Games. That is a fair comment. After all, in ancient times, the Games offered an Olympic truce during war. Yet, supporters of China cannot really be truly honest about the issue of the politicization of the Olympics until they condemn China too; China itself is guilty of politicizing the Olympics on a number of occasions in the past.<\/p>\n

China boycotted several Games to object to the participation of Taiwan in the Olympics from the 1950s up to the 1980s.[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/a> In 1976 in fact, not only China boycotted the Olympics, it forced the host Canada to pressure Taiwan on the issue of national identity. That eventually caused Taiwan to refrain from competing in the Games.[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/a> In 1980, China again showed its willingness to politicize the Olympics: it boycotted the Moscow Olympics to protest the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union.[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

Supporters of China must acknowledge China’s past politicization of Olympics and criticize China for that if they would like to have the moral authority to criticize those whom propose a boycott of the Beijing Olympics.<\/p>\n

Regardless of that, I do not support a boycott of the Olympics, be it in partial or in full. Rarely does a boycott work. In my opinion, the better way of highlighting issues associated with the Games is engagement. Witness the torch relay first hand, watch the opening and the closing ceremonies and follow the Games.<\/p>\n

But do it in protest. While attending or watching the Games, whether in private or public, express your displeasure of China’s action peacefully. Put banners up. Distribute pamphlets around. Engage the crowd and make them aware of the situation in Darfur and Tibet as well as China’s record of disrespecting liberty.<\/p>\n

It is only through greater awareness could the world gently realize of the issues at hand and apply gentle pressure on China to reform and respect liberty.<\/p>\n

\"Mohd \"Mohd \"Mohd<\/p>\n

[1]<\/sup><\/a> <\/a> \u2014 China participated in 1952 but boycotted the Games after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recognized Taiwan. The Taiwanese team carried the “China” banner in 1956, and China did not return to Olympic competition until the 1980 Winter Games. [Cold War Olympics highlights<\/em><\/a>. CNN. Accessed April 9 2008]<\/small><\/p>\n

[2]<\/sup><\/a> <\/a> \u2014 See the 1976 Summer Olympics<\/em><\/a> at Wikipedia. <\/small><\/p>\n

[3]<\/sup><\/a> <\/a> \u2014 See the 1980 Summer Olympics boycott<\/em><\/a>, at Wikipedia. <\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In addressing the proposed boycott of the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics, supporters of People’s Republic of China are urging the world community to not to politicize the Olympic Games. That is a fair comment. After all, in ancient times, the Games offered an Olympic truce during war. Yet, supporters of China cannot really […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","category-politics-government","category-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}