Making A Difference

Ah, The Human Race

Today China, tomorrow India? In the pro-Tibet, anti-repression march, are we on sure ground?

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Ah, The Human Race
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What The Rights Groups Say

  • Amnesty International Doesn't support boycott of the Olympic Games, sees them "as an opportunity to get some results" on human rights. Will do the same for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.
  • Olympics Watch Doesn't advocate a boycott, but wants international pressure to influence China's policies
  • Human Rights Watch Doesn't support boycott, but is urging heads of state to attend the opening/closing ceremonies only if China makes key rights improvements. Will "probably not" advocate boycott of the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
  • PUDR Does not support boycott of the Olympics or Commonwealth Games. Says such calls can only arouse chauvinistic feelings in China or India. But will use the Games to highlight human rights issues.
  • PUCL Is against boycott of the Olympics, any cultural or social event. But says it's alright to highlight issues related to that specific event-the issue of the displacement of people to clear the site for the Commonwealth Games, for instance.

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Protesting Manipuri women make a weapon of their bodies

But there are those who justify a call for boycott in all 'abnormal situations'. Colin Gonsalves of the India Centre for Human Rights and Law is unequivocal in his demand for the boycott of the Beijing Olympics and, yes, even the Commonwealth Games. "Of course, there ought to be a boycott of the 2010 Commonwealth Games!" he told Outlook. "For one, the site of the games village was built by demolishing slums on the Yamuna riverbed. And India has a poor record of human rights, from Kashmir to Gujarat to the Northeast. India has gone to trade in Darfur even after the western nations withdrew. The government even supports Myanmar's inhuman military regime."

Sophie Richardson of Human Rights Watch, New York, also has her gloves off while slamming India. "India has its own, extremely serious human rights problems. Primary among them is the culture of impunity. The government's failure to publicly prosecute officials or security forces that commit human rights abuses has led to discontent and anger. In Jammu and Kashmir or in the Northeast, the army has been responsible for serious crimes such as torture and extra-judicial killings."

So, since all states are culpable in rights violations, how would the boycott of a sporting event help? Well, it wouldn't. Which is why most human civil liberties groups are not seeking a boycott of the Beijing games. Instead, they want to use the Olympics to highlight human rights issues and mount diplomatic pressure on China to initiate meaningful talks with the Dalai Lama.

T. Kumar, advocacy director for Asia & Pacific at Amnesty International in the US, says the pressure on world leaders, including President George Bush, is intensifying. "Since Bush is planning to visit Beijing during the Olympics, we are putting pressure on him. We want Bush to meet some Chinese political prisoners, Uighurs, Tibetans," he told Outlook. "We also want Bush to make a strong statement. The White House is open to this, but until it happens we won't know."

Now activists are divided on a boycott call but most say it could be justified in the most extreme cases, say, racial discrimination and grave war crimes. "The American treatment of the people of the world is far worse than China's in Tibet," says Gautam Navlakha of the People's Union for Democratic Rights. "Along with the UK, they've committed war crimes in Iraq, in Afghanistan. They're the aggressors, and if they're still engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time of the London Olympics, there definitely would be a case for a boycott."

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A Kashmiri boy being led away by the police in Srinagar

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.

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A Tibetan protester is taken down during the London torch relay
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