Downward Turn For Beijing Olympics?
Olympic Torch, Live From Beijing, News April 8th, 2008
Tonight World Have Your Say talked about the recent torch protests. I was pleased to be on again… But as the show went on, I started to get intimidated. There was a really impressive range of guests, including an Olympic torchbearer, a girl who was arrested for protesting, a Thai Buddhist who backed out of carrying the torch out of solidarity for Tibetan Buddhists, an Olympic historian, and, uh, me. I write a blog about the Olympics.
Over the last few months, my posts have gone from weird Olympics trends and fun pictures of the Fuwa, to depressing posts about boycotts and protests and censored news. I still have high hopes for China and Beijing, but I’m getting more worried every day that the Olympics will be a disaster for everyone involved.
I’m sad that protests and political demonstrations are marring the celebration of the Olympics, but China wants to be a first-world nation, and this type of criticism is part of that. Whether China acts on foreign criticism is a different matter entirely, but the “nothing to see here” style of censored journalism forces political or social interest groups away from the written word into protests in the street.
The torch goes on to San Francisco, California tomorrow, and I expect much wilder demonstrations in the US than in the UK and in France. I really wonder how China will handle it.
Crossposted to my own blog
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It’s not looking good for China. They need to shock the world with some positive announcement on Tibet. The stories from CCTV on the relay are comical.
It’s pretty depressing. I still hope that China will come out of this looking like a winner, but right now it doesn’t look likely. Pretending that everything’s going fine almost forces protestors to get wilder because they’re not being heard.
It’s sweet that you have such hopes for Beijing, but no you really think freedom and liberty will triumph in China?
I am worried about our country. everybody hope we could have a great event. this is our dream. however, someone take this oppotunity to insult China and show the dancing face to world regardless whether he should respect chinese people. Tibet is always a beautiful and peaceful place in my mind. many friends travelled to Tibet and like to stay in there. why some ugly politians want to destroy it? what do they want from China? before critisizing China rudely, pls go to Tibet to see the truth!!
Common Chinese Citizen — I would LOVE to take your advice and visit Tibet! Unfortunately, right now the government won’t give me or other foreigners a visa to go to Tibet.
I am not sure whether it is easy to get visa now. But frankly speaking, I personally dare not to go to Xizhang(Tibet)righ now. Some bad guys there attacked Han people in the past days. I hope everything will become normal in the coming future. Peace and harmonious wil come back to Xizang soon.