Imagine tanks rumbling down Dawn Fraser Avenue in the Olympic precinct at Homebush.
The idea is offensive to the way we think about sport and the Olympics. Sport for us at this level is a celebration of the inextinguishable human spirit and an affirmation of the liberty we enjoy as a birthright.
But China is a totalitarian state with a very nervous leadership and they are deeply suspicious of uncontrolled celebrations of the inextinguishable human spirit. People might be swept up in it all and start getting ambitious for more freedom than the regime is willing to allow them.
In fact, totalitarian regimes don’t have a good track record with hosting the Olympic Games. A clever blogger recently pointed out that Nazi Germany was extinguished nine years after the 1936 games in Berlin and the Soviet Union collapsed nine years after the 1980.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has studied the downfall of similar regimes, particularly the USSR, and has identified “bureaucratic ossification” as the big problem. They are making conscious, albeit hesitant, efforts to re-invigorate their system.
It’s not easy to throw the switch from brutal guard to egalitarian bonhomie. The Beijing Games are now becoming a poignant illustration of just how hard it is to transform an authoritarian regime into something more familiar to the Western world.
The CCP has a clear sense of what a successful Olympics should look like and they have gone to extraordinary lengths to deliver a spectacular opening ceremony, even dodging up bits of it (fireworks, singers), and unsurpassed venues and technology.
Unfortunately, the comrades just can’t grasp the “share the spirit” idea that made Sydney (and other olympiads) so much fun for all involved. The spirit this year looks more like Orwell’s boot grinding the face of humanity than the great celebration of what it means to be human that we inherited from the ancient Greeks.
Consequently, much of the imagery flooding the world through saturation television and internet coverage is not delivering the “we’ve arrived” message that the CCP had anticipated so eagerly.
Instead, the ominous tanks, the internet censorship, half empty venues, official solemnity, absence of “live” party sites and so on are just highlighting the fact that despite the dramatic economic growth in China since 1978, the world’s largest country still lags well behind when it comes to political and social development.
These sobering images are going to put some doubts in the minds of Western observers who cling to the soothing notion that China’s economic success will result in an eventual transition, possibly smooth, to something recognisably democratic.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) must be gritting its teeth and looking forward to 2012. The Olympics brand is all about exuberance and celebration. That brand has been taking hits throughout the year with the highly embarrassing torch relay. They must see London, one of the world’s freest cities, as a lifeline for the Olympics movement.
If you’re superstitious (and the Chinese famously are) you’d be marking off 2017 as a year to look out for.
Our Olympics were great fun, but a lot has happened since 2000. There are “terrorists” killing cops by the dozen in China as we speak. Yes the Chinese are terrible authoritarians, but what are a few tanks? Our very own APEC lockdown overkill was a great role-model – not – yet we pride ourselves on being a democracy!
My main gripe about dictatorships (of any persuasion) is the total lack of humour of the Commissars. The list of do’s and don’t’s handed out to the Chinese media would have been hysterical, if it hadn’t of been real. Also, after the grindingly efficient opening ceremony I was left nursing the old adage ‘Money cannot buy good taste’.
Nor can it buy humility or soul. ‘A hundred thousand scholars do not a Confucius make’.
Isn’t the word Goy, Jewish for foreigner? Or someone who is not Jewish? So, going on that hypothesis you could be a Jewish guy with a chip on his shoulder (I’m assuming goy doesn’t have a female ending. Goya?
Whatever. WTF does criticism of China become racist? Please spell it out or me in words of one syllable. I am groveling Goy. Please, please, please explain to me how it can be racist to criticize the Beijing Olympics. I know I’m slow, half-witted, asinine-throw it at me-but please tell me how I’m being racist? I’ve been besotted, all my life, with things Chinese. I collect Chinoiserie, I’ve been to China-and loved it-I’ve grown Mulberry trees (2) as a child, so I could remember the China I thought I would never see. As I’ve just said I have spent a lifetime being besotted by China. Then I saw some of the Olympic coverage, and hated it. I didn’t hate the Chinese Goy. I hated what they failed to do. They were so insecure of themselves they had to parody themselves. The Commissars had lost all sight of Chinese humanity. By nature the Chinese people are great mockers of themselves and authority. By selling their people short, the Commissars sold the Olympics Games short. (which to me is neither here nor there). But they sold the world short. And If I am racist because of my opinions, then tough! The bureaucrats in China aren’t totally stupid Goy. When they read comments like yours. They say to each other, “What kind of people do they think we are?”
Yeh, they should have parties like the one we have at Cronulla Beach where we showed off our social development and lack of inhibitions.
I repeat again! why is there such a strong negative campaign? You are entitled to your opinion on China or Tibet or anything else, but don’t confuse it with the Olympics.The competitors have trained hard and its their moment. I am amazed by it. I can’t explain it, so it must be because it is held in China, and the differentiation is then one of race, I think.