The International Olympic Committee made its own bed by deciding to host the 2008 Summer Olympics in China, and now it must sleep in the justifiable cries of protest against China’s human rights atrocities during the Olympic torch relay.
The Olympic Games are supposed to be a time when nations set aside their political differences and unite under the banner of healthy athletic competition. By allowing China to host the Olympics, the IOC has given them the stage to flaunt their authoritarian and isolationist policies and give a big middle finger to all of the legitimate democracies of the world.
The protests for the Olympic torch relays in London, Paris and San Francisco, while belittling the cause of a free Tibet and personal freedom for Chinese citizens by associating it with an angry mob, are indicative of how people do not want the Chinese government to be rewarded for desecrating civil liberties by getting an opportunity to host the Olympics.
With the restrictions the Chinese government places on the media, the IOC hasn’t even been able to receive positive press for the Olympics. Usually, it is around this time during Olympic year where a lot of coverage is given to the new facilities that the host city has built for the Games and a lot of profiles are written on interesting Olympians. But all of that press has been overshadowed by China’s controversial government and its inability to grant the media the access it needs.
The Olympics has historically been a disaster when despots use it as a platform for their political power. The 1936 Olympics in Berlin were bad, even with Jesse Owens’ four gold medals because Hitler used the opportunity to flex the Nazi muscle.
The primary distinction between 1936 and today, however, is that Berlin was chosen as the host city before the Nazi Party ascended to power in Germany. The IOC decided to place the Summer Olympics in Beijing while fully aware of the events of Tiananmen Square and of China’s restriction of natural rights for “national security” concerns.
The IOC should not be surprised that the Olympic torch relay has resulted in so much world-wide controversy. People who live in free societies recognize that rights cannot be denied for any reason. They see how the Chinese government forces its citizens to only have one child, imposes no minimum living wage for employees, and tramples protesters with tanks, and they are outraged.
Turning China into a democracy is something that no nation has the right or probably even the ability to do. However, China should not be rewarded for imposing a Big Brother state on its citizens by being allowed to host the Olympics.