Op-Ed: Boycott or not?

The recent actions of the Chinese government in Tibet have called into question how people and politicians should respond especially in regard to the upcoming Olympics which Beijing will host in August.

Calls for an outright boycott remain relatively few and far between at the present time with more serious consideration being given to a call for a boycott of opening ceremony are more wide-spread and have been given an airing by prominent politicians like Nancy Pelosi, speaker for the US House of Representatives. Meanwhile European politicians are making noises in favour of boycotting the opening ceremony. The President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering, told Germany’s Bild am Sonntag that ‘boycott measures’ could be justified. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has hinted he may not attend the opening ceremony and it is a French organisation, Reporters Without Borders, that is at the forefront of the campaign for a ‘political boycott’ of the opening ceremony. It conducted a poll which found a clear majority (53%-42%) in favour of Sarkozy boycotting the opening and a large minority (41%) in favour of a total boycott by French athletes. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and German chancellor, Angela Merkel, have both said they will not attend the opening ceremony. Olympic committees have however opposed the boycott; complaining variously that the athletes and Chinese people will be the ones to suffer or that such issues simply should not be allowed to interfere with sport. Russian and Australian ministers have joined the opposition camp; the Russian government, quoted in the International Herald Tribune, said that it would like to;

underscore that efforts to politicize the holding of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in China are unacceptable,”

and Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith added:

I very strongly believe that we should not in any way bring the Olympics or call the Olympics into question.”

Politics spilling over into sport is not, of course, without precedent – there are numerous instances of the Olympics being involved in political brinkmanship. China itself put pressure on Canada to not allow the Taiwanese team to compete as the ‘Republic of China’ at the Montreal games in 1976. It is hard to avoid the impression that politicians opposed to the boycott are taking as much a political position as it’s proponents. Russian memories no doubt reach back to the 1980 Moscow games and Australia no doubt seeks to cause the minimum offence to a near-neighbour and trading partner; Beijing itself will no doubt use the games to promote not just China but also bolster the credibility of it’s regime. Therefore we can dismiss out of hand the facile arguments of the Olympic committees whose own athletes are uncomfortable and want the International Olympic Committee to make a stand. If the IOC wished for a non-political games then it is hard to see why it chose China in the first place with it’s government that is rightly bitterly disliked by people who hold democratic ideals close to their heart. Given the complete expulsion of foreign media from Tibet it is quite right to question how seriously we can trust assurances on the freedom of foreign media. In reality everything will be choreographed and stage-managed to present not just the games but the government in the most favourable light; the Olympics cannot claim to be totally above politics because of claiming to represent higher ideals. Harder to dismiss is the argument that such a boycott would be damaging to the Chinese people. However, this is the reason that an outright boycott is wrong and would in effect constitute a collective punishment for the Chinese people. If boycott is a tactic for the concerned to raise awareness of the issues then the signs are that the Chinese people are not a receptive audience It seems that, no doubt misinformed by its own media as always, they view Western concern for human rights in Tibet as a hostile attempt to ‘divide’ China. In that sense the Olympics and a boycott represent an opportunity for the Western world to present it’s view better and argue it’s case. Athletes know that they will continue to enjoy the support of the people of their nation in the Games but politicians should send a clear signal to the Chinese government that it’s policy of repression is not excusable; boycott the opening ceremony.