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Home > Jeff Schultz > Archives > 2008 > April > 09 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USSports, politics collide yet again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There are many who still believe the idealistic notion that sports and politics need not bang heads in Olympic years. As if 200 nations, bringing an unstable mixture of languages, beliefs and agendas, can peacefully unite in Eden for 17 days, all in the name of seeing who runs the fastest over 400 meters.
This dream was blown apart long ago. Before Moscow in 1980, when the United States led a boycott over the Soviets’ invasion of Afghanistan. Before Munich in 1972, when Israeli athletes were assassinated by Palestinian terrorists. Before Berlin in 1936, when Hitler hoped the Games would serve as proof of his superior race over blacks and Jews.
Politics and sports were a lethal mix as far back as the Ancient Olympics, when the Greeks formed military alliances during chariot races. Co-existence never had a chance.
China is host to the next Summer Olympics. It has long been criticized for its record in human rights, its policies in Tibet and Darfur and Myanmar. Protests were inevitable.
So was one word: boycott.
Boycotting the Opening Ceremonies (at least) in Beijing has become the flavor of the month in political circles in the U.S. and across Europe. Not surprisingly, a central figure of the civil rights movement has followed in step.
Georgia congressman John Lewis, who took “Freedom Rides” on buses in the segregated South and helped organize sit-ins at lunch counters in Nashville, is calling for at least a partial boycott.
“I’m not saying right now there should be a total boycott of the Olympics,” Lewis said by phone. “I just think we should not attend the Opening Ceremonies. At the same time, even if we attend, we should find a way to make it clear to the government of China that we are standing with the people of Tibet. Their civil rights and basic human rights shouldn’t be trampled on.”
Lewis was among 15 U.S. House members who last week signed a letter by California congressman Maxine Waters, urging President Bush not to attend the Olympics. Waters also introduced a House resolution in August asking Bush to boycott the Games “unless the Chinese government acknowledges and condemns the genocide taking place in the Darfur region of the Sudan.”
Lewis echoed those sentiments, adding: “The people have been crying out for some time for China to change its ways. There are those who have been standing up and advocating change in the last few days, and it [resulting protests] doesn’t look good to many around the world.”
President Carter withheld sending an Olympic team to Moscow as a protest over the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Lewis supported such a move. (He wasn’t a member of Congress at the time, but had been appointed by Carter to direct ACTION, a federal volunteer agency.)
When asked if he would favor a total boycott of the Beijing Olympics should progress not be made in China, Lewis said: “I don’t know. I haven’t gotten to that point. But what China has been doing of late is pushing more and more people to take radical steps to [bring attention] to the issues.”
Lewis added, “I don’t want to see anything that hurts the athletes. I’m not saying athletes shouldn’t go to participate, like we did in 1980. But heads of state and legislative bodies and leaders who believe in standing up for human rights have to find some way to protest, to speak up and speak out. There may not be a better time.”
China has hardly budged. Only recently did organizers agree to open Internet access during the Games.
We’ve seen protesters scale the Eiffel Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge. We’ve seen banners depicting the Olympic rings as handcuffs.
What does China see? Nothing, apparently. Consider this headline on the official Beijing Olympics Web site Wednesday: “San Francisco embraces Olympic flame with pride.”
Organizers have referred to the torch run in news releases as the “Journey of Harmony.” That journey presumably didn’t take into account the thousands of protesters in London and Paris, where the run had to be cut short. On five occasions in Paris, protests forced the torch to be extinguished and the torch-runner to take shelter in a nearby van.
In San Francisco — where protests are common for far less important matters than human rights — several thousand, including Tibetan monks and nuns, lined the six-mile course. Police were everywhere, even on Jet-Skis in the bay. Protesters carried Tibet flags, marched across the Golden Gate Bridge and shouted, “China lie, people die.”
It’s not quite the Olympic motto: “Citius, Altius, Fortius.” But by now, we should be used to athletics being the subplot.
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Comments
By Ned Burner
April 9, 2008 11:36 PM | Link to this
Why do we allow sport to be entangled with politics? What the Chinese do within their borders is not our business. The Dali Lama is a terrorist who fled Tibet rather than face the problem head-on. Now the world must constantly hear all the moaning & griping. It is not our responsibility to bail out every nation … to be the world’s Policeman.
Jesse Owens went proudly to Berlin, showed Hitler’s superior specimens what for. We should never boycott, shouldn’t have done so in Moscow.
By Al Sharptongue
April 10, 2008 7:45 AM | Link to this
Funny how politicians from amerikkka can tell someone else about human rights. we are torturing people all over the world, holding people without trials and then have the audacity to talk about civil rights in china. what a bunch of hypocrits
By arrf
April 10, 2008 8:03 AM | Link to this
I’m shocked! A column about something other than Michael Vick or Deangelo Hall! These hacks at the AJC all need to go. You’ve got Matt Lehr a former Falcon involved in a federal investigation and the Braves top prospect getting suspended for using PED’s and not a peep from Steve Wyche, Mark Bradley or that clown Terrence Moore. Why don’t they get on their soap box over that? They sure didn’t mind offering their opinions on Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens. Why don’t they criticize these guys instead of writing a lame column about a potential boycott of the opening ceremonies in China.
By Master-Baiter
April 10, 2008 8:22 AM | Link to this
I’m shocked! A column about something other than Michael Vick or Deangelo Hall!
You forgot the weekly article on how bad the hawks and the trashers are, how the coaches and gm’s should be fired etc… then we need a puff piece on how great smoltzie and chipper are
By Bob from Winder
April 10, 2008 8:27 AM | Link to this
’m shocked! A column about something other than Michael Vick or Deangelo Hall!
You forgot the weekly article on how bad the hawks and the trashers are, how the coaches and gm’s should be fired etc… then we need a puff piece on how great smoltzie and chipper are
then we need the old coot furman bisher to relive some old athlete from the 40’s and tell us how great he was compared to some modern day athlete. Bobby jones was not better than tiger Bob Burkman was not better than dale murphy but old senile bicher always brings up the old coots
By thebighairybeast
April 10, 2008 9:24 AM | Link to this
The Olympics should have never been given to China in the first place. The only reason it was, was because of Olympic sponsors wanting to get their products to the 1 billion Chinese. That coulped with kick backs ti IOC members (a staple of choosing a city, i.e. Salt Lake City, Sochi, Sydney, and yes even Atlanta.
Its funny how the IOC can ban South Africa from competing because of Apartheid, yet ignores what China does. Oh and those companies that wanted in China … McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, UPS, Adidas, Visa, just to name a few.
As for Al Sharptongue, the US is by no means perfect, but just about everything we do is open to public scrunity or will be. The murders and violence in Darfur, Tibet, and Myanmar go far beyond anything the US has done.
By thebighairybeast
April 10, 2008 9:41 AM | Link to this
Oh and the suppose Torch relay of Harmony in San Francisco was a complete comedy. Cut from six miles to three. At the last minute changed to starting place and the route. So you have a whole lot of people waiting to see the Olympic Flame which is being spirited out the back door like a man who just got caught in bed with another man’s wife.
By Chikara
April 10, 2008 9:59 AM | Link to this
While I agree that China’s human rights records are deplorable, the fact that they have a lot of money to shell out to the greedy IOC may have more to do with why they ended up getting the Olympic Games instead of Toronto.
Bottom line is that a boycott at this point will change NOTHING regarding China’s policies. When the IOC decided to give them the Summer Games they showed that in the long run human lives and freedoms are insignificant compared to the almighty dollar.
That said, no country should do a disservice to all hard working athletes by not allowing them to participate.
Nothing will change in China. In fact they will be the final Communist country remaining in the last days, so let’s not kid ourselves here.
By JSS
April 10, 2008 12:57 PM | Link to this
What an idiot!!! I just knew he would try to chime in on the Olympics… This from a Buffoon who never mentioned the fact that an AMERICAN won an unprecedented double at last year’s World Track championships. This from a fool who did not whisper a peep when the games were first awarded to the repressive government in Beijing. This from a dunce who steps on the legal rights of anyone not in his circle of “heroes.”
Schultz, 1st try learning about sports! Then try writing about just that, SPORTS!!! Then you’ll learn to shut-up, because you’re incapable of doing either of those things…
To those of you who keep calling the Chinese communists, get a dictionary and look up plutocrats…
A pox on you Jeff Schultz, you NO TALENT HACK!!!
By Richard
April 10, 2008 1:58 PM | Link to this
You posters never fail to amaze me. You constantly bash Shultz for never writing about anything other than Vick and Hall, but then when he writes about something other than Vick and Hall you keep bashing him. Awesome.
Someone needs to explain to me how refusing to have athletes walk in a circle at the opening ceremony or not having Bush in the stands changes China’s human rights ideals. Carter’s boycott didn’t work either. All these things do is punish the athletes that have been training for their entire lives for this event.
To all the protestors out there. If you really want to make a statement, when you carry your signs to a protest rally, don’t write on them with markers that say “Made in China”.
By JSS
April 10, 2008 4:02 PM | Link to this
RICHARD
We bash the IDIOT NON-SAVANT because he does not KNOW what he is talking about!!! To paraphrase Gen. MacArthur’s Chief Intelligence Officer two days before Japanese launched their attacks on Manila and Pearl Harbor, Kiss your a$$ goodbye boys… The time to do something about the Chinese plutocrats was in 1989 after the Democracy crackdown… Now, they own 65% of our debt… Their GDP and their growing manufacturing base makes ours look like a ripple in the Pacific… Go to Dubai, India, and the rest of the developing world, now tell me why should they shudder when we kick up a stink? If you’re going to whine now, go and kick the grave marker of Gen. Eisenhower for being the coward that he was by letting the CIA screw up yet another attempt to undermine a regime like they did between 1956-1959 in Tibet with no fear of direct retribution…
Stick to poorly commenting on Sports, NO TALENT HACK!!!
By Richard
April 10, 2008 4:10 PM | Link to this
JSS,
Just out of curiosity, why are you reading a newspaper collumn written by someone who as you say “does not know what he’s talking about?” Just so you’re aware, regularly taking the time to read articles from a particular writer doesn’t really scream distaste for that writer.
By JSS
April 10, 2008 5:08 PM | Link to this
To get his “arse”(and that is how the British say it) out of here and to get a group of columnists in here that have some kind of a clue… And just so you “know,” just because you read it does not mean you agree with it, the only way that this sad display is to comment on it, not to pay for a subscription to it. I ended my subscription the day they gave this fool a column. And unlike the broadcast media and clowns like John Kincade, who I can actually turn off, nor do not shop or patronize any of the morons that choose him as a pitch man… I don’t agree with Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Jeremiah Wright, Billy Graham, Terence Moore, or Adolf Hitler, but like most literate people the only way you can determine a person to be wrong is to actually explore why the person is wrong… Just stick to being a Jeff Schultz apologist, I hear it is a very small club…
By richbrave
April 10, 2008 10:33 PM | Link to this
CHIKARA:
That’s the almighty YUEN to you.
By Bias sport media need help
April 11, 2008 12:48 PM | Link to this
Jeff Schultz , John Kincaid these guy hate black stars to no end. If you don't look like them this media in this town the sport media will spray poison to no end, and what make it so bad they think they are so right. wrong is wrong and these guy need to be gone, they pour out pure hate. I hope and pray Mike vick come back .The dome will be full and these guy will be so red face. when your hate show this much you need another Job in Mississippi , Zimbabwean some where else not Atlanta. Sport should be about sport and unbias the world has change we don’t all look like you.
we have a sport Media bias in the main stream sport media , all of them!! Read any sport media now days pure bias to no end. we need a new sport media with people of color in mind.
People of color sport news. may be they would be even handed maybe and not dog out people that don’t look like you every chance you get! Blank you do have a heart and you still love money!
By richbrave
April 11, 2008 4:04 PM | Link to this
FIAS:
Maybe if everyone was green Blank could relate. Just sayin’.
By In midst of Idiots
April 11, 2008 11:02 PM | Link to this
Reading these “comments” is a reminder of just how many f* and hubes live in this sorry a* city. Atlanta is really a piece of sewage. Inhabited by animals and governed by criminals and idiots.
By fox noise
April 12, 2008 10:48 AM | Link to this
In the midst of georgia Idots. Please tell us how you relly feel!!!!
By rachael black
April 12, 2008 12:38 PM | Link to this
Since the end of the Thirty Year War it has been understood that states are sovereign. Internationally, we don’t go around conquering other countries because it violates that standard of sovereignty that we mostly come to acknowledge. This means the invasion of Tibet is the business of the world.
The Chinese government lacks compassion and they violate the Universal Declaration of Independence. Through boycotting the opening ceremony, we put international pressure on their government to improve their human rights. Embarrassment is a successful form of political pressure.
The United States government is in no way perfect and I am sure that other countries condemn us for our own atrocities. We certainly need to improve our human rights standards and the wonderful thing about that is by putting pressure on our government we can demand change. People in China and Tibet are not allowed this privilege.
No, we shouldn’t be the world police, but the United Nations should. Let’s be frank, if it was your rights that were being stripped away, if you were the Darfurian man whose wife was being rapped and your loved ones were being brutally murdered in front of your face, wouldn’t you want help from someone?
I admire the athletes for their dedication, but the truth is that millions of people’s lives are more important than winning some medal.
By GW
April 12, 2008 12:39 PM | Link to this
Since we’re already off subject…..I watched thousands of rich, white folks fist pump and roar when Tiger saved par yesterday in Augusta. Why? Because he keeps his politics private, away from his life as a golfer. Why can’t others follow suit? Of course he’s loaded enough not to worry about being called an Uncle Tom. That helps I’m sure.
By Pago Flyer
April 12, 2008 1:24 PM | Link to this
We understand baseball is very very unhappy that there aren’t more blacks. However, no complaints from football and roundball, pretty funny!