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From the Kitchen Table

Blind Eyes

by Peg Luksik

In just a few days, the Olympic torch will be lit once again. This time in Beijing, China. News media from around the globe will be turning their attention, and their cameras, to the unfolding competition of the best athletes in the world. Interspersed with the athletic events will be the usual side stories to acquaint their American audience with the beauty and culture of the host country.

Australia, Italy, and Japan, to name just a few, were treated to a televised advertisement by the American media that continued throughout the entire Olympic event. The host nation's investment in hosting the games resulted not just in the immediate return of those attending the Games, but in the longer-term increase in tourism fostered in large part by those travelogues.

This year China is attempting to become the beneficiary of this process. The Communist government wants the world to see a beautiful, prosperous, and friendly China – even if they have to imprison every dissident in the country to do so.

They have ignored the promises they made to the International Olympic committee when they were bidding to host the Olympic Games. And when the U.S. House of Representatives, with a 419 to 1 vote, asked the Chinese government to end its support for regimes that also been criticized for human rights violations, the Chinese Communist government was furious.

Calling the vote a blasphemy to the Olympic spirit, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, stated that the United States "should curb the 'odious conduct' of a handful of anti-China lawmakers." Aside from the unbelievable chutzpah it takes for Communist China to characterize protests about human rights violations as "odious conduct", while actually perpetrating the violations being protested, invoking the Olympic spirit to justify their complaint is simply ridiculous.

The Olympic spirit is based upon human rights. It was through the Olympics that Jesse Owens, son of a sharecropper and grandson of a slave, proved that individual excellence, and not race or ethnicity, is what allows a man to succeed.

Though the Olympics are athletic events, to say that they are not political is just plain wrong. The success of Jesse Owens was such a deafening political statement that Adolph Hitler had to leave the arena to avoid it.

This year, it is Communist China that is attempting to make a political statement – a statement that flies in the face of the spirit of the Olympics. China is attempting to say that human rights don't matter; that the conduct of their regime should be accepted on the international stage without reproach, or even mention.

In that effort, they may be assisted by the American media. We cannot change the behavior of the Chinese government. But we can, and should, let every media outlet covering the Olympics know that the American public is not interested in seeing a Chinese travelogue. If there is going to be background coverage on China, it needs to include the facts on how the Communist government treats dissidents, on the slave labor practices in Chinese prisons, on China's treatment of Tibet and its active support of other repressive regimes.

The Olympics were created as a celebration of the human spirit, as expressed through sports. The human spirit thrives in freedom. We can contribute to that spirit in this Olympic year by insisting that China not be allowed to hide its shackles behind a slick media campaign.

In that spirit, let the games begin.