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EDITORIAL: U.S. should boycott Olympics
Staff Editorial
The Lariat (Baylor U.)

©asianews.it

(U-Wire) WACO, Texas — With just a few months left before the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, the calls for a U.S. boycott of the games are growing in intensity. But resistance has come from not only the Chinese government and corporate sponsors of the worldwide event, but also state department officials here in America.

While a boycotting the games will not instantly lead to world peace, the idea should not be dismissed as ridiculous, and the Chinese government should not be left with the illusion of complete Western support of its policies.

Those opposed to the boycotts have argued that the games shouldn't be made political. But the games have always been made political: In 1936, Nazi Germany used the Olympics as a stage to show the world their advancements and cement their place in the accepted world order.

Then in 1980, the U.S. led a boycott of the Moscow games to make a statement about the U.S.S.R.'s invasion of Afghanistan. Four years later, Soviet athletes were banned from the 1984 Los Angeles games.

So turning the Olympics political would hardly be unprecedented. Although the International Olympic Committee strives to push politics aside for the games every two years, the fact is that they are a huge revenue-generator and bring publicity to the host nation. This is political, no matter how unpolitical the games are declared.

The laundry list of problems with China's government starts with free speech violations. China severely restricts both foreign and local media, jailing journalists and censoring thousands of Web sites.

China also is the most important foreign investor for Sudan, indirectly helping sustain the Sudanese government while it perpetrates the genocide in Darfur. The Chinese government also wields its significant Security Council power in opposing any sanctions against the African country.

The most recent problem to come into the limelight has been China's oppressive crackdown on dissidents in Tibet.

The European Union is talking about boycotting the Olympics, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has already announced she will not attend the opening ceremonies of the games.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling for George Bush to do the same. Opening ceremonies always function as bragging rights, and China has spent unprecedented amounts on its games. Skipping the opening ceremony might be a symbolic step in intensifying the United States' calculated rebukes of the Chinese government, but it should hardly be the only step. If the U.S. doesn't want athletes to be punished for the problems being fought out on the international political scale, it should at least show the same concern for the millions of people affected by the Chinese government's brutality. And the Olympics might give the U.S. a chance to do more than just talk.