Olympic boycott?
what do you think?
Jump to more content from this blog
About this blog
PM The evening news and current affairs programme presented by Eddie Mair.
iPM The programme that starts with its listeners. Join the discussions online and contribute ideas for a weekly programme presented by Eddie Mair and Jennifer Tracey.
The PM Privacy Commission
Read the final report of the PM Privacy Commission.
- Full Audio and Transcripts
- Hugh Tomlinson QC
- Zac Goldsmith MP
- Max Mosley
- Stephen Abell
- Hugh Grant
- Sir Charles Gray
- Alan Rusbridger
- Helen Wood
- Max Clifford
- Marcus Partington
- John Kampfner
- Christopher Graham
- Louise Mensch
- Andy Trotter
- John Mullin
- Avril Sanders Royle
- Jimmy Wales
Meet the commissioners, view the terms of reference and hear the Commission Chair Sir Michael Lyons explain his approach.
RSS feed
Email us
Listen to PM
In my opinion, the games should not be awarded to any jurisdiction that uses the death penalty. Nor should any other international sporting event.
NEVER MIND ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE I WANT TO KNOW HOW MUCH BLAIR IS PAID AND WHAT ARE HIS PERKS LIKE EXPENSES ETC. TO GO WITH THE JOB--PERHAPS THEY TOOK PITY ON HIM AND GAVE HIM THE JOB AS HE HAS A HUGE MORTGAGUE--I WANT A JOB LIKE THAT--WHERE IS HE XXXXXXXX
10 Good Reasons to Avoid the 2008 Olympic Games in China
1 The overwhelming humanitarian crisis in Darfur is in great part down to Chinese support for the ruling regime in Sudan. China sees no moral compunction to act to prevent the dreadful suffering, death, rape and torture of millions of people. China believes that its self interest, and the unopposed access to the raw material wealth of Sudan, is far more important than doing the right thing. In this aspect of its character it has a lot in common with the United States of America. Along with this moral cowardice, China supports some of the most odious regimes on the planet, as of course does the USA. The friendship of the likes of North Korea, Burma, and Zimbabwe with China speaks for itself.
2 Tibet has been illegally occupied by the Chinese for decades. Tibetan culture has been all but eliminated, and the Tibetan people dispersed. China has continually ignored the demands of the rest of the world to end its vile policy towards the Tibetan people. An ethnic cleansing original, began well before the phrase became common.
3 The Human Rights of the Chinese people are non-existent. Political dissent is punished in an extreme fashion, land grabs by apparatchiks ignored, and summary executions (the highest total in the world) follow trials of laughable credibility. The Chinese ruling class treats the indigenous population with cavalier injustice and oppression, largely ignored by the rest of the world for reasons of self interest.
4 Environmental destruction on a massive scale with the construction of dams, factories, power stations without consideration for the widespread disaster that ensues, such as increased desertification and massive flooding. Environmental impact studies are totally ignored by the ruling regime, with predictable results.
5 Wildlife destruction on a massive scale. Having devoured practically all their own indigenous wildlife, the Chinese and now hell bent on doing the same to the remainder of Asia. Anything that moves is eaten, often prepared in the most cruel and inhumane manner. Quote from The Independent, a British newspaper, on 26th July 2007. A correspondent in China, Clifford Coonan, on his visit to Tesco Supermarket, Beijing. 鈥淲hen Tesco opened under its own brand name in January, animal rights activists accused it of cruelty by selling live turtles. The animals experience terrible agony when their shell, limbs and entrails are cut away, but they are left alive for hours, the activists said. The turtles do look rather forlorn, it has to be said, squashed against the edge of their glass enclosures, although I鈥檝e never seen a cheerful one.鈥 he writes. Mr Coonan doesn鈥檛 sound like someone you would wish to spend any time with either, does he? This is just one example from hundreds; imagine a live dog or cat having its fur burnt off with a blowtorch, still alive of course, as it improves the flavour. Plenty of organisations that concern themselves with animal welfare will provide innumerable examples of the cruelty of the Chinese.
6 Chinese medicine, the original mumbo jumbo, has bought about the near destruction of innumerable species, 20 million seahorses a year ground up for spurious unproven medications, rhino horn to get an erection, the magnificent tiger on the brink of extinction, the vile cruelty of the bear bile farms where brown bears are confined continually in coffin sized bamboo cages till they die, milked by a metal pipe inserted into the abdomen, an agonising procedure that drives these unfortunate creatures insane. The list is endless, and the nonsense that is Traditional Chinese Medicine has destroyed more of our wildlife heritage than climate change ever will.
7 Dog and cat fur trade, its import banned by most civilised countries due to the extreme cruelty to which these unfortunate creatures are subjected. Again, well documented by the various agencies that investigate such vileness, pictures of the markets where these poor animals are traded are painful to look at, the death of these poor creatures by boiling and skinning alive, so hideously cruel as to defy belief.
8 Bling obsessed Chinese are now demanding ivory mobile phone covers, and other ivory gee-gaws. In this pursuit the Chinese government is seeking an end to the international ban on trading ivory. Avarice and ignorance, and another species soon to become extinct.
9 Censorship and blocking of media and other websites, such as 麻豆官网首页入口 World Service, ensure the Chinese people are unable to access the truth that we all take for granted. At least 30 journalists and 50 internet users are in prison in China, many have been tortured. They serve heavy jail sentences for writing articles or sending e mails. Censorship and surveillance ensure control of what the people can be exposed to, and perhaps China鈥檚 internet model may one day be imposed on the rest of the world?
10 The Olympic Ideal, and whatever the Games themselves stand for, cannot possibly be advanced by holding them in a country where the ruling regime practices and condones such uncivilised behaviour, a brief insight above. China made clear promises to IOC in 2001, a Chinese official telling the IOC 鈥測ou will be helping the expansion of human rights鈥 This has turned out to be a total lie. The fact that The International Committee legitimised this odious regime by granting Beijing, and the Chinese government, the 2008 Games brings shame on this already discredited body.
Everyone who loves sport will be shocked to see the Olympic Games used by a government that refuses to free thousands of prisoners of conscience and refuses to stop the practice of torture and forced labour.
No, his first name is Geoffrey.
NO.
I think probably not.
Ap (4) Haha! Very clever.
But his first name was in fact Charles - Captain Charles Boycott, an army captain from Norfolk, who had an estate surrounding Lough Mask House in Co Mayo and also acted as agent for extensive properties in the province of Connacht. Ostracised by tenants and locals his name entered the English language.
You do realise of course, that I am doing my best to be patronising. :o)
Appy, you beat me to it! I was going to ask if he was a little too old to be entered int the olympics...
John Wood (3) - If you ever get a chance to visit the PRC, go there.
Your choice of rhetoric tells me that I couldn't convince you to reassess your views, but maybe the Chinese people themselves could.
Also recall that the present PRC government is made of people that survived the Mao years. Hence their attitudes towards food and rebellion are somewhat more pragmatic than nice.
RJD (7), I thought that, as it is the cricketing season, Eddie was asking about that chap's name and just a tad confused. As to your historical information, I don't find it at all patronising to hear my elders speak of times gone by... ;-)
John Wood at 3)
If we could unite and take the same stance against oppressors and polluters and all of the above WHERE EVER we find it, then I'm with you. But that means taking a long, hard look in the mirror and at the company we keep. A State that that contains half the world's population is going to do everything on a massive scale and break many records. And, as consumers of commodities, we are all responsible for the pollution. My factory uses Chinese parts to assemble on our 'UK' products.
But, as I say, if we could conquer our egos and unite for our world... it's up to us.
Humanitarian crisis in Darfur? What about Iraq? Boycott London 2012?
Ap (10) - You know there is a very fine line between banter and abuse. Any more of that and I'll hit you with my zimmer frame!
Tony (12) there was a report from Baghdad last night, Darfur has been featured on the programme regularly.
I say 'Yes'. Who really thinks that the facilities can possibly be ready in time anyway? They haven't even finished the compulsory purchases yet to build the stadia on the land.
Oh, it's Peking 2008 you're talking about? Sorry.
The Olympics is a prestige event. Worth lying, cheating and swindling for.Our bid committee for 2012 told blatant lies over costs, including 'overloking' the fact that they would have to factor in VAT. The cost has already tripled from their statement, although we are told that security concerns post 7/7 account for most of the increase. A 拢5bn increase for extra security? I think not.
Now if a liberal and free democracy is willing to tell porkies on an epic scale just to secure the right to host the Games, what will a one-party totalitarian state do to put on a good show? They will brook no opposition and tolerate no dissent in their efforts to make the Games a showcase for China.
Which means that your sporting commentator guest was wrong, wrong, wrong. Having the games will not cause the grip of the Chinese Communist Party to relax one iota. It will not introduce any freedoms into that country. It will, instead, serve for them as a validation that their police-state rule, and the repression used to support it, are morally acceptable globally.
The Games will be used as a political statement by the regime in China, nevermind that the same gentleman thought that politics ought to be kept out of the Games. How naive he is to imagine that sport and politics never mix.
In our own country politicians use public money to fund sportsmen and women. They divert Lottery money from the 'Good Causes' to fund the 2012 Games, rather than dip into their own pockets to fund it. A misuse of Lottery money which we were explicitly told would never happen when the Lottery was set up.
Smaller countries validate their existence through excellence in sport. Think of Ethiopian runners, Aussie swimmers, All Black rugby players and you get the point.
So do totalitarian regimes and in the case of the Communist regimes that historically meant doping on a grand scale, forced labour from childhood in athletic/gymnastic camps and so on.
Check out the list of 'social issues in peoples Republic of China' on Wikipedia. There's not much disputing the contents of that list. Ask yourself how many of these are creations of the State system itself (Patronage, corruption, waste, censorship,etc.) and how many the State could try to improve, if it wanted to (old age pension, social security, wealth gap, organised crime, counterfeiting, underdevelopment, elitism, environmental problems). There is a lot of crossover between the columns, once you start trying to categorise things.
Every country is culpable to some degree on some of these things. Nowhere is perfect. But China suffers all of these and many more to a high degree.
Is this really a fit place to host an Olympics?
Si.
I have mixed feelings about this subject.
On the one-hand I dislike boycotts of sports events as they run counter to true sporting spirit and the Olympic ideal. They also squew the results because the winners were not competing against everyone. In my opinion that slightly lessens the credability of the medals awarded. I would also like to keep politics and sport separate in an ideal World, but in the real World I can see that such an aim is not possible.
I was extremely disappointed that Bejing was awarded the 2008 Olympic Games, as much because I thought there were better candidates as the various issues there are with their ruling regime. However, I can also appreciate Simon's point of view that we're not exactlt pure as the driven snow are we?
On balance I'm against a boycott; mainly because it would make not a jot of difference to China and its people, and because a lot of people who have dedicated their lives to this pinicle of sporting achievement would have their (possibly only) chance dashed. I would however consider making a more informal protest at the Games, such as not participating in the opening ceremony, parade of teams, something like that.
I definitely won't be going.
Si. Every country that ever hosts any big event, sporting or otherwise uses it as a marketing opportunity 鈥 be it for their tourism, their political standpoint or whatever. Every country that has ever hosted the Olympics or heaven help us, even the Eurovision Song Contest does exactly that.
But surely the logical conclusion to your argument is that we should have nothing whatever to do with China. It the regime is so awful in terms of civil rights, censorship, corruption, elitism etc., why are we having anything to do with them at all? Why single out Sport as an activity?
Is it wrong to play volleyball in Bejing but perfectly OK to allow high-tech exports? Should we ban swimming competitions in China but still permit it to be the world's top destination for foreign investment as Western firms take advantage of its mix of cheap skilled and semi-skilled labour? And what are we doing, allowing all these imports from that awful regime if we think that it is so terrible that it is unfit to host the games?
I鈥檓 not saying your views on China are wrong, I just don鈥檛 see why the Olympics should be singled out when all these other links seem perfectly acceptable.
Any chance we could get a boycott of the London 2012 Olympics organised? If we know about it now we can save all that money on buildings we won't need when nobody turns up.
MM @ 19, alas, too late.
If the Berlin games in 1936 are the precedent, it's hard to imagine what a regime would need to be like before the Olympics couldn't be held there. It takes a major war to stop them (1940 taken away from Tokyo in 1937 because of the Sino-Japanese War, moved to Helsinki, cancelled because of WWII; 1944 London, cancelled because of WWII). Merely having the death penalty in force in the host country certainly isn't regarded as a debarrment: Atlanta 1996.