The spirit of the olympic games is dead. Maybe it was doomed from the start, when it was decided to give them to China to host. China is a communist country with no regard to human rights or human dignity. We always knew that, but given that it now has a capitalist market economy, we thought we would give it a chance. Of course, it has nothing to do with the fact that it is lending the US $1 million per day, and that the aussie economy depends on its trade.
The olympic torch debacle is a farce. It should have been aborted, and given China a strong message, that it wouldn't be business as usual. The protesters are our friends. They have serious concerns about human rights. They should not have to do battle with authorities to get their message across. Rudd has been blunt with the Chinese, and they have not taken any notice.
In OZ we are bussing school children to view the torch 'relay'. Reminiscent of when Nazi Germany held the games.
What we are waiting for, of course is to see how the Chinese polies behave when thousands of cameramen descend on Beijing. Will there be mass demonstrations of pro democracy activists? Will the TV feeds be interrupted with scenes of human rights abuses in Tibet? Maybe not. China can not afford to loose face in such a humiliating way. Already they are gaoling dissidents. What other measures they are taking we can only guess at, and maybe we will never know.
Rudd is not going to break long standing protocol and attend the opening of the games. No doubt Nelson will try and make capital out of that, and as usual be left with egg on his face.
Many European heads of state are also refusing to go to the opening.
We will be watching it on TV, hoping that somehow, someone will expose what a farce it really is.
Is there barbed wire planned for Western embassies? Not a few dissidents will be wanting to seek asylum. It will be a measure of Rudd's resolve if he grants them that.
