Today China, tomorrow India? In the pro-Tibet, anti-repression march, are we on sure ground?
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India had better be warned, Navlakha says, for if people here insist on a call to boycott the Beijing Olympics, then they can't possibly insulate the Commonwealth Games from similar action. "India's record in Kashmir is far worse than China's in Tibet in terms of violence against people," he argues, "though the Tibetans do have valid reasons to protest, especially over fears of losing their cultural heritage." Adds Pushkar Raj of the People's Union for Civil Liberties, "India is the homeland of the Tibetans too, and they have the right to protest. But even here, as in the cases of Gujarat and anti-Sikh riots, or on the issue of the people displaced by 'progress', the government doesn't take kindly to protests."
Navlakha, though, feels a boycott of an international sporting event defeats the noble purpose underlying it. "Neighbours who don't even look at each other, who would like to think the worst of each other, share the arena in a fair, peaceful fight. There clearly is a political message."
But such has been our history, it's nearly impossible to insulate sports from politics. Human rights issues, ideological hostilities, hostilities between nations, they have all marred the purity of the Olympic ideals. The mingling of sports and politics began with the Berlin Olympics in 1936, when a call for boycott to protest against Hitler's anti-Semitic policies was not heeded, and continued till the early '80s (see Olympics: A Turbulent History and Mike Marqusee's column). It was during that decade that the boycott policy was completely discredited by the tit-for-tat pull-outs by the USSR and the US in 1980 and 1984.
But the Olympics have always remained in the crosshairs of civil rights activists. One reason is that Olympian ideals speak in lofty terms of the human condition, and in so many words too. One ideal says "the goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity." China, for one, had earlier been enthusiastic in espousing these ideals. Liu Jingmin, vice-president of the Beijing Olympics Games bid committee, had even said in April 2001, "By allowing Beijing to host the games, you will help the development of human rights." Two months later, Beijing mayor Liu Qi said, "The games will help promote all economic and social projects and will also benefit further development of our human rights causes." But that was then.
It isn't clear whether international uproar produces results. Amnesty has noted a reduction in the number of executions in China though. But Petr Kutilek of Olympic Watch—which was established to monitor the human rights situation in China in the run-up to the games—says this can't be verified as the number of executions remains a "state secret". Critics also say that perhaps there's been a temporary, artificial lull to allay international fears, that only the future will tell how successful the ongoing campaign has been.
Alarmingly, human rights campaigns stoke chauvinism and invite retaliation. The degradation of the torch worldwide—it had to be snuffed out more than once to protect it from protesters—even provoked angry Chinese students to mobilise "150 strong and energetic runners" to defend it in Australia, raising the spectre of violence. Attempts to disrupt the torch run have united the Chinese against what they perceive as their humiliation by the West (see story from Beijing).
"It has bred chauvinism and extreme nationalism," says Navlakha. "The campaign for Tibet has lost those Chinese who were beginning to think there was something wrong. China is not a country that world powers can influence by force." There are also fears that when the Olympics are over and done with, all the people lending their voice now will go home, forget about Tibet. A case of yet another protest going out of vogue.
A Tibetan protester is taken down during the London torch relay |