China: And the World Turns a Blind Eye

The Olympics are almost over.
And now, perhaps, we can go back to acknowledging what China is really like, rather than pretending that everything is ok, because some people are running fast around what is, without doubt, a fine stadium.
For some weeks now, most of the world has been focussing almost entirely on the running, jumping, swimming, boxing and other events in Beijing.
As it did, the repressive Chinese regime has been keeping up its bad work. It is still, systematically, depriving its people of information. It is little surprise that those Chinese you meet outside their home country are completely indoctrinated. I have been told, categorically, that there was no massacre at Tiananmen Square. It didn't happen. It's a 'western invention.'

Right now, the Dalai Lama has revealed that many dozens of protesters were massacred in Tibet on August 18.
Pro Tibet protesters in Beijing have been jailed. iTunes has been blocked because it's selling Songs for Tibet, produced by the Art of Peace Foundation in support of the people of that disputed region.
The hateful murders and deliberate starvation continues in Darfur.
Burma continues, with Chinese support, to be run by a despicable junta which murders its own people with bullets and neglect.
And China continues to support the dictator Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
But for two weeks, the world, or most of it, managed to pretend none of this was happening. Britain, surprised by its medal tally, is devoting page after page of its newspapers to its glorious athletes, and little or no space to those who are suffering under the odious Chinese regime.
There has, for example, been little mention of those who were jailed specifically because of the Olympics. Scant mention of those thrown out of their homes to make way for the 'fine stadium.'
But then, the world will turn a blind eye even when the games are over when things will, undoubtedly, get worse.
China is useful. Indeed, there are those economists who say China is vital. And staying on the right side of China is vital for western economies.
The world has a habit of turning a blind eye. It did so in the Balkans. It did for years as Ethiopians starved to death. It did in Darfur until it was forced to react. It hasn't exactly covered itself in glory in relation to Zimbabwe.
The Games are all but over now.
And everyone's counting their medals.
Who, I wonder, will count those imprisoned for their religious or political beliefs, who will count the dead when the real repression resumes in the near future?
Anyone?

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Small Gestures Maybe, But Gestures of Hope

There are many reasons why we should not boycott the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer.
They will bring huge employment and therefore benefit to tens of thousands of Chinese people.
They will provide an opportunity for athletes from Third World countries to appear on a world stage and, maybe, break free from poverty.
They will provide the whole world with an opportunity to see all that is best about sport.
And so on.
In fact, I would say, that if I sat here for long enough, I could probably come up with a hundred reasons not to boycott the games.

Indeed, if I was simply to make an argument for boycotting the Games on the basis of China's behaviour in Tibet, despite the worldwide protests during the farcical Torch Run, there aren't really that many people who care. A pity. But true, nonetheless.
Some people may be appalled that China is doing its best to arm the despot Mugabe in Zimbabwe despite his brutality, his dishonesty, his corruption and the patently fraudulent nature of the elections there. At least, unlike China, there were elections there.
Others might feel a touch of nausea when they think of how many people are executed in China each year, often after no more than show trials and often with doctors on standby to harvest their body parts.
There are still more people who recoil at the idea of the way China treats its own citizens, those who raise even the quietest voice against the unelected regime, those who are summarily thrown out of their homes to facilitate some development or other, a practice Bertie Ahern appeared to admire, those who practice the Catholic, or indeed, any other faith, those who dare to be different in any way.
There are those angry at the way China shows utter disregard for the environment in its rush to be as greedy as, well, as greedy as us.
All of those thing sicken me.
But I am sickened most by China's support for the Government of Sudan, the government which has facilitated and carried out genocide in Darfur, a government which will, most certainly, not consider the nationality of the UN troops operating in Chad, if they find that operation inconvenient to them. That, of course, includes the Irish troops
There are many sick countries on this earth of ours, many countries rules by despots, dictators, brutal armies and, in some instances, men who are simply mad.
We must, of course, help the people of those countries as best we can.
Legitimising brutal regimes is not the way to go about it.
Shaking hands with the devil is not the right thing to do.
Personally, I will have no interest in the Olympic Games.
I am still, I fear, a child of the Sixties to this extent.
I hope.
I know in my heart that small gestures, even millions of them, are as naught against the power of the powerful.
But I'm for making them anyway.

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The Extraorindary Effect of John Gormley

Gormley = gormless

If you're reading this from outside Ireland, you may not be aware of the misfortune that happened to us last year.
We got three 'Green' ministers.
If they are green in any sense, it is in the sense of being unprepared, unready, naive and plain old stupid.
The first thing they did when negotiating their place in Government with Fianna Fail, was to sell their souls.
This was utterly predictable.
It was like putting Shirley Temple in the ring with Mike Tyson. And yes, I know that Shirley was in her '70s when Mike was champion.
They gave in on the scrutiny of US planes passing through Shannon on their rendition flights.


They gave in on incinerators to dispose of our waste.
They gave in on tax allowances to help people deal with the radon gas problem.
They gave in on the wanton destruction of our - and the world's - legacy at Tara.
They gave in on just about everything except what they call 'the big picture.'
And that's global warming.
True, they have helped alleviate global warming.
Because, just as manure can be used to generate heat, the words they are speaking can do exactly the same thing.
This is not bulls**t.
It's green s**t.
One of their number from the backbenches was talking the other day about how we can all help contribute to ending the threat of climate change.
I didn't hear everything he said.
Because I was rolling around the floor after his suggestion that we wear wooly jumpers instead of turning on our heating and that we become more or less vegetarian.
The only thing he failed to suggest, was growing beards and wearing open-toed sandals.
But what the Greens have done to me this week, is to have me defending China - and that's not a pleasant place to be.
I fully support those who believe Irish athletes - ALL athletes - should boycott the opening ceremony. Politicians who attend will, I believe, bring shame on their countries.
Would they attend an opening ceremony in Zimbabwe or Burma?
Why, yes, of course they would!
But I am defending China because of what the Greens did to them in Ireland at the weekend.
They invited the Chinese ambassador to Ireland to attend their annual conference.
And then they insulted him.
John Gormley, one of the 'green' dopes in our government, deliberately used language he knew would offend the his Chinese guest.
Now, you might say that insulting Chinese ambassadors is fine and dandy and the more they are insulted, the better.
And you might be right.
But Government ministers shouldn't do it.
It's shooting ducks in a barrel.
It's like inviting someone into your home and insulting them.
It's not mannerly.
Gormley was like the cat who got the cream when the ambassador walked out which only goes to show how vain and stupid he is. No wonder spellcheck throws up the word 'gormless' when it comes across the name Gormley.
A notice box is the phrase my father used, I have to confess, about me occasionally.
John Gormley, and indeed his Green colleagues, are pretend politicians. They are in Government because the experienced boys in Fianna Fail think it makes them - Fianna Fail - look good. They think it gives them 'green' credentials.
And it probably does.
But if they don't want to end up at the back of the class, they'd want to put manners on the Green boys soon.
Because if they don't, this will end in tears.

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Someone Has To Say It. Boycott Beijing 2008

Boycott. It’s a world coined in Ireland in 1880, when impoverished tenants in County Mayo took passive action against land agent Captain Charles Boycott who, not only, refused to reduce rents, had the unfortunate people evicted for failing to pay on time.
The local people decided they would have nothing to do with Boycott or those working for him. It hurt the people. But, in the end, it hurt Boycott more.
It was the Times of London which first used the word as a verb.
There are those who think a boycott is a crude tactic. And it may well be.
But it not half as crude as the tactics employed by, say, the Burmese generals. It is nowhere near as crude as, for example, the brutal regime of Robert Mugabe. It is in the same league when it comes to the crudity and unpleasant tactics used by China to suppress the people of Tibet.

What have they all got in common?
China. China which supports the Burmese generals. China which props up Robert Mugabe’s regime.
And that is why it is utterly wrong for the people of the world to travel to China next year for the Olympic Games, as if everything was fine.
Indeed, you don’t even have to look to Tibet or Burma or Zimbabwe to begin to ask yourself if it right for the nations of the world to give legitimacy to the Chinese government with its appalling human rights record.
China has mistreated millions of its own people, forced them out of their homes to nowhere in particular in the name of progress.
Its use of the death penalty is not only frequent, but in many cases, for purely political reasons.
It oppresses religious practice. It will not permit freedom of speech (Google this in Shanghai and you won’t find it). The Tiananmen Square massacre still lives in the memory.
China too, is fast becoming the world’s greatest polluter, not caring a whit about the future of the planet.
But even if you could leave aside China’s dreadful record on human rights and pollution and the death penalty within its own borders, it is its opportunistic support for corrupt regimes which should result in those from civilised countries refusing to travel to Beijing next year.
Sure, winning medals can bring joy,especially to those in poor countries. And certainly, the financial rewards for the winners of gold medals are, potentially, enormous.
But is any of it worth the repression of the people of Burma? Is any of it worth the suffering of the people of Zimbabwe? It is worth what the Chinese do to their own people?
Of course not.
Has any world leader the courage to suggest a boycott?
Unlikely.
And we won’t be looking to our own ‘leader’ Bertie Ahern, he being a great admirer of all things Chinese.
But someone, somewhere, should make sure that China’s odious regime is not legitimised by something, once, as fine as the Olympic Games.

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