Give Us A Break

Once every four years the human race harnesses its physical prowess with a rare resilience for the cause of Peace by a positive pursuit called the Olympic Games. Youth from across the globe descend upon a city, as against a country or nation in order not to take on any political color, in a show of sporting camaraderie in the traditions of the Games’ aim of promoting healthy competition.

This year the Games will be held at Beijing, the Chinese capital. The city of Beijing was chosen eight years ago from among other great cities of the world in an intense competition.

Then, as now the people of Tibet were under the Chinese and their land was considered part of China as it is now by most people around the world. Then, as now the Tibetans were in a struggle to safeguard their religion and culture from a planned deluge of Han Chinese into their region. Then, as now Tibetan language and culture was under severe suppression by the Chinese regime. Then, as now the so-called international community knew about all this but did little to trip China’s chances of getting the Olympics into one of its cities. The prospect of losing business from China was simply unthinkable then as it is now to the opportunistic international community. China’s fast and sustained high growth meant good trade and a thriving market for its products and jobs for its people which is why the International Community did not show much chagrin when Beijing was chosen for the 2008 Games.

Today however, after China has spent billions of dollars for the promotion of that resilience of the human race and just when the torch is going through its customary run around the world before it reaches Beijing for the games’ inauguration, the custodians of the International Community have let loose a well planned and coordinated show of un-sportsmanship all along the route of the torch’s run, often time more violent than peaceful.

It is indeed ironical that just when the world is eagerly awaiting a break from four years of violence and occupation like the illegal war against Iraq, the continued occupation and violence in Palestine by Israel, the past months’ slid by the American economy into recession threatening the world economic growth, crashing property prices in the US and the UK and may be elsewhere to follow, rising food prices, the ever increase in the trade of weapons and hi-tech weapons of mass domination, the rise of a new strain of drug resistant malaria mosquito around the world, and the list goes on and on, there are those to whom causing embarrassment to the Chinese is a higher priority.

Doubtless, Olympiads have many a times than few been mired in political mud, but those were times when disputes were local and did not threaten world peace, and protests or politicization did not make an impact on the psyche of participating men and women or the countries they represented.

Today the story is different. The world is mired in all sorts of trouble, political, military misadventures, mono-power superiority, occupation, Zionism, Terrorism, Global Warming, melting glaciers etc, and therefore the people of this world need a breather from the ill effects of politics, which is why they can do without the deliberate planned attacks on the Olympic Torch on behalf of any political cause.

What would western powers' reaction be if Arabs decided to hog or protest against Israeli athletes, peacefully that is, for the continued occupation by that nation of Arab land? Terror against Games for Peace?

Let us cut the hypocrisy and allow everything that has anything to do with the games to be done without hindrance or politicization, whatever cause there might be. The games are the only means for the human race to unwind in the midst of four years of distress, violence and a conscience wrenching brutal occupation of Iraq that the world has come to loathe.

Let the torch keep burning and let the Games begin!

Khwaja massoud