China Policy

The Shame of the Games

While China has been largely successful in using intimidation and incarceration in silencing its critics at home, a broad and international coalition of activists and concerned citizens are interrupting the around the world journey of the olympic flame in order to bring attention to China's human rights atrocities against Tibetan monks and its citizens.

Two key differences with this current movement include its organized social media utilization and the high number of never before seen groups upset with China's disregard for human rights. Several protest groups are using well structured and organized online forums that include the big three social networking sites of Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. The sites have also developed an array of widgets, podcasts and other web-based gadgets in order to spread their networking across the Web.

While long-time China critics such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Free Tibet Campaign continue their long fight, many previously less recognized groups and many first time groups are gaining attention in their anti-Beijing causes. The common aim is drown out China's attempts to broadcast the Olympics as a celebration of its coming of age as a modern economic powerhouse and refocus international attention on China's many human rights atrocities.

Now that the Olympic torch is has begun a four-month, 19-nation tour of the world, before returning to Beijing for the opening ceremony on August 8th, expect to see the symbols of the Games come under sustained attack.

I hope organized protesters also direct their outrage toward IOC President Jacques Rogge and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) which granted China the opportunity to present a farce and facade to the world. What the hell were they thinking when granting the olympics to the world's largest prison?

Amnesty International's Australian branch has created a monkey called Nuwu, meaning angry young boy in Mandarin. The name is a play on "Fuwa", the name given to the five Teletubby-like mascots created by China for the Beijing Olympics. While the Fuwa five claim to "seek to unite the world in peace and friendship through the Olympic spirit," Amnesty's mascot wears a red bandanna like the ones worn by many of the Tiananmen Square protesters in 1989.

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