Ottawa Citizen - February 16, 2008, carried two stories, nearly side by side -
Chinese Blindsided by Games Controversy AND Not for IOC to change world: Rogge
What a fascinating juxtaposition.
The Chinese papers and internet service had kept hidden the “fuss” so many people like Mia Farrow make regarding the atrocities committed in Darfur. China's unwillingness to exert a very real economic, and political authority in the Sudan or in Africa to improve the plight of African refugees, preferring perhaps the evacuation of the Nile Valley and political control that is currently being exerted. For indeed why should China care generally for the good of Africans? Should the IOC either, according to Rogge? No ONE can make a difference, Jacques? Well read on.
On Feb. 12, the Citizen reported a story from Richard Spenser of the Daily Telegragh that 750,000 Chinese were headed to Africa.
China seems perfectly willing to ship their citizens over to the Sudan to work and till the soil. In fact, from this story, Chinese people in Africa can make up to three times more money in Africa than they can in China. Building a dam on the Nile (near Melowe) – Chinese contract – with Chinese workers; getting the food for the workers – Chinese till the soil, plant and harvest, sell food – to the contractor for the workers! To quote again from the original story, sir:
“Liu Jianjun, a former government official who runs the Baoding-Africa business council, said: "We found local people lacked farming skills. Here in China on the other hand we are fast developing our industry, so many farmers no longer had land. The exchange was beneficial to both sides."
Nice deal. Exploit the African resources, without benefit to the African people themselves. Over 12million Chinese people (in the Feb 12th article – the Citizen misquoted- saying 2 million) are expected to be displaced in the next decade, somewhere other than China; Africa is a good bet.
So the Olympics must flatter China – the image of China is essential as one of peaceful, open, non-crowded, non-threatening people. China’s desperate to be seen as the perfect nation, not overflowing with people. Chinese people need to be welcomed soon as positive influences, not the perilous, negative influences being portrayed by some. However, do the Olympic sponsors realize they are subsidizing Africa’s Chinese colonization and repopulation, following the Darfur tragic inhumanity – is China’s real agenda clear to them?
China realizes the positive opportunities, too, of the building of the Olympic infrastructure by all means possible within its own boundaries. Evidence of the positive is plentiful – the propaganda pouring out of the Web Site provided for the Games has shown training young and old people for standing in line; planting millions of aquatic plants to clean effluent from the run-off expected from cities newly built to accommodate citizens moved to build stadiums and residences for The Games; and schoolchildren learning about the “new ways” of the greening of cities.
And there have also been stories that have reached us of those deaths of people treated like slaves in mines; buildings collapsing too fast from shoddy, too rapid workmanship and people dying; flooding in the Three Rivers Dam project, for electrical power and urban development, displacing millions of people. What is the cost of such rapid growth? Don’t tell anyone--ssshhh – Sub Saharan Africa – especially Darfur! But South Africa, Uganda, Kenya… yes, China has re-population intentions and business interests in them all.
Canada is not without guilt in the Darfur affair. Calgary’s Talisman Oil was busy in the Sudan in the ‘90s extracting oil with the Chinese. It seems they are still in it and under duress - read – political pressure from Canada – Lloyd Axworthy – the Liberal Foreign Affairs Minister in the early part of this century and their ongoing legal wrangling.
Canada and China were great friends once – Norman Bethune, Candu Reactor sales and all that (In fact, Chinese people still visit Norman Bethune’s historic house in Gravenhurst, ON. In less than six months, athletes may be competing in the polluted conditions of a summer in Beijing and its environs. What will be the cost in the short or long term to the athletes’ health over the course of the Games from exertion in those polluted conditions? No promises from any Games official now or later can be assured given what has befallen the Sub Saharan Sudanese people, as China turns a blind eye to the human cost of its industrial and economic agendas elsewhere.
It seems Rogge and the IOC are interested more in money, a 14 Day spectacle and its sponsors than in making the actual Olympic statement that really transcends human endeavour which is Sport for All. Steven Spielberg’s withdrawal from assistance with the opening and closing ceremonies in Beijing was hardly a cri du çoeur. But it got Chinese press attention at last. Mia Farrow and many others rage against China’s inhumanity to the earth and to people – their own and another culture’s for much longer.
Which ONES have now made a difference Jacques Rogge? Which ones have begun to connect the dots? Richard Spenser. Mia Farrow. Steven Spielberg. The architect of the National Stadium for the 2008 Games with the principal company - Herzog & DeMeuron (Swiss) and China Architecture Design Institute – who no longer wishes to be associated with the design.
And yet what Rogge says out front is NOT what he seems to be doing. Here is a quote from a meeting January 22 with Ban Ki Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations.
“The Secretary General and I had a very productive meeting that focused on global issues of mutual concern,” President Rogge said after the meeting. “The IOC is aware that we can never do enough to support humanitarian and environmental issues today. However, the IOC is a sports organisation. We must rely on the expertise and influence of the UN to define goals and determine how they can best be met through sport.”
Many athletes the world around are preparing now for this summer’s competition. If asked, what would these athletes choose where money and effort could best be placed for the most good – if they would select China or sub Saharan Africa? Will there be a Games boycott? Time will tell.
Anyone can begin by boycotting Top sponsors. They include Coke Cola, Lenova products – assembled in China, MacDonalds, Visa, and Panasonic.
See June 11 - 2007
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