Sunday, April 6, 2008
Tibetan Boycott
As usual Anne Applebaum nails it. Her WaPo article about the calls for an Olympic boycott deconstructs many of the arguments against. There seems two strains of objection about demonstrations. One is that a boycott will make things worse for the Tibetans, whether or not it succeeds. The second is that it isn't in the spirit of the games to politicize them. The latter absurdity is evident to anyone who watches the build-up to the Olympics. The Olympics are transparently a political exercise, particularly for the host nation. What yields especial cognitive dissonance is that the non-politicization argument is often delivered in a sanctimonious fashion.
The former argument, about causing further harm to the Tibetans, seems difficult to counter without knowing what they would want the world to do. There is much evidence they would welcome help.
No wonder then, that everyone who hates or fears China, whether in Burma, Darfur, Tibet or Beijing, is calling for a boycott. And the Chinese government and the International Olympic Committee are terrified that those appeals will succeed. No one involved in the preparations for this year's Olympics really believes that this is “only about the athletes,” or that the Beijing Games will be an innocent display of sporting prowess, or that they bear no relation to Chinese politics. I don't see why the rest of us should believe those things, either.