Over the weekend the Daily Mail reported that the British Olympic Association [BOA] was planning to require that all participating British Olympics athletes sign a contract “promising not to speak out about China’s appalling human rights record – or face being banned from traveling to Beijing.” And this can mean only one thing:
It’s pretty much guaranteed that at least one British athlete will speak up about China’s human rights record at the Beijing Olympics. In fact, I’d place serious money on the proposition (even now that the British have announced that they are reconsidering the policy). And if August is too long to wait, Richard Vaughan, a British Olympian in 2000 and 2004 – and a hopeful in 2008 – is already talking. Would he be talking if the BOA hadn’t floated this perfectly stupid gag clause? I don’t know Vaughan, but I do know media, and I’m pretty sure there’s more than one British reporter out there now under general orders to find politically outspoken British Olympians. Odds are, that’s a beat that didn’t exist a few days ago.
As China likes to point out, Article 51 of the Olympic charter prohibits political demonstrations and propaganda in Olympic venues. The British Olympic Association [BOA] proposed gag cause actually referred competitors to article 51. At the same time, though, seems to have missed the irony here; namely, that requiring political silence of British participants (also preferred by Beijing) is as much of a political act as the (feared) raised fists and voices of athletes against Chinese government policies. Only the naive, or the hopelessly cynical, would deny that simple fact.
Anyway. I can’t remember who, but a wise person once said something along the lines of: “When people say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money. When they say it’s not about sex, it’s about sex.” So, in that spirit, let’s add this timely amendment: “When Beijing says it’s not about human rights, it’s about human rights.” And when organizations like the British Olympic Association try to corner their athletes into keeping their mouths shut about what is so obviously in front of their faces, they’re just reminding their athletes – for the most part, I’d guess, not the most politically motivated people – of their role in a pageant staged partly to burnish the ruling credentials of a political party.
Where do you stand on a boycott?
A few months ago, during the most serious period of unrest in Darfur, Jim Fallows wrote a piece on the subject, in which he observed: “… China as a whole – not just its government but also the great majority of its people — would take such a boycott as a deeply hostile act.” And he coupled it with this: “The U.S. was way too slow to think about the consequences of alienating a billion or so of the world’s Muslims with its Iraq and “global war on terror” policies. I think it would at least pause before alienating another billion or so people.”
I agree, and until somebody can explain to me the tangible good that would be accomplished by a boycott, I’ll continue to think the concept is a very, very bad idea.