2001-05-17
INTERNATIONAL Olympic Committee officials aren't big on history. On Monday they released a report rating Beijing a top candidate to host the 2008 Summer Games. Other leading contenders are Paris and Toronto. Beijing long has been considered a front-runner for the Games, a fact underscored by the report developed by a commission reviewing applications from cities to host the event.
The Associated Press said the report skipped over China's abysmal human rights record and other political issues entirely. Instead, the panel practically drooled over Beijing's potential as host, even as supporters talked about how having the Olympics in China would help bring about positive change.
Boy, where have we heard that line before?
The IOC, which will choose the ང host city July 13 in Moscow, gives no indication it has paid any attention to recent events involving China. Apparently, someone needs to send the IOC newspaper clippings on China's angry threats and missiles aimed at Taiwan, its repression of political dissidents and its ruthless persecution of the Falun Gong religious [group].
The IOC must not have heard about Tiananmen Square, or about people who've been tortured, murdered or who've simply vanished. News of last month's detention of an American airplane crew must not have reached Lausanne, Switzerland, the IOC's home.
Instead, Olympic officials are focused on traffic, housing for athletes and other logistical concerns. Political prisoners rotting in [party' name omitted] gulags won't stop a good party in 2008. All that has to do with recent history. The IOC's blinkered view of China reveals a lack of historic depth, too, because the Olympic movement has been down this path before.
In the early 1930s some folks thought Nazi Germany would make a good host for the Olympics, and Berlin was awarded the འ games. Adolf Hitler and his henchmen hijacked what was supposed to be a celebration of sport and turned it into a celebration of the Aryan race, fascism and totalitarianism. Only Jesse Owens' triumphs kept the games from turning into a propaganda bonanza for the Nazis.
It's said those who pay no attention to history are doomed to repeat it. So very true.
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