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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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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