Human Rights Vs. Handball

27Mar08

Commenter Jared writes about my hope for a European lead boycott of the Summer Olympics

All this does is hurt the athletes. If you want to boycott the country, then boycott the country, but don’t hurt people who have trained their entire lives for this.

At the risk of having a crazed dude at a keyboard moment I’d like to say the following: Screw the athletes. There are bigger issues at stake then which country’s citizens can row a boat faster or which country’s scrappy no name basketball team beats team USA in basketball this year.

The whole idea that only the athletes would suffer isn’t at all right. For one thing there is a lot of money involved. If there was full boycott by Europe there would be millions and millions of dollars lost, which would create a lot of pressure for change in China. Also the national imagine of China would suffer, which would in turn send the message that you can’t commit massive human rights violations and still be a great country in the eyes of world.

Would the athletes suffer? Sure. Would they go on television and whine endlessly about it? Absolutely. “Why does your politics have to keep me from throwing a disc around in front a big crowd?” they would demand. And the whole world would be subjected to moaning and crying about how tragic the whole thing was. You’d think someone had died. People have died in Tibet, of course, but in all likelihood none of them were steroid addled sprinters.

Currently the suggestion is to have a limited boycott, where the athletes, precious delicate souls that they are, would still get to compete. Instead you would have countries boycott the opening ceremonies or find some other way to make a symbolic gesture. I’d be fine with that as a compromise.

It’s also worth noting the threat of a boycott is really more valuable, then an actual boycott. The ideal outcome is that everyone, with the U.S. being the last to agree, declares their intention to boycott and China changes its attitude toward Tibet. It’s not an impossible scenario. The Tibetans aren’t making unreasonable demands, China wouldn’t have to let Tibet be its own country.

As for the whole question of “boycotting” China, economic sanctions have a crappy track record of changing countries. They worked in South Africa, but pretty much failed everywhere else they were tired. Sanctions would also have a huge humanitarian cost, they would hurt lots more people then a boycott of the Olympics ever could.

However, the fact that there aren’t sanctions on China means there are rich elite capitalists, millions of members of the middle class, more intellectuals with contact to the outside world, and generally a whole set of dynamics that could pressure the government for change. But right now human rights violations don’t have much of a cost to anyone in China other then the people actually being oppressed.

Jared has written more extensively on a boycott at his blog “Salt Lake Condensed” which you can read here

Filed under: China, International, Sports   |  2 Comments
Tags: 2008 Olympics, Beijing, Beijing Olympics, Bejing Summer Olympics, Boycott of the Olympics, China, Economic Sanctions, Summer Olympics, Tibet