Reach Out and Torch Someone

I don’t protest much. At least not in the active, paint a sign and march with it sort of way. But every once in awhile when people take to the streets and shut down traffic in San Francisco I am immensely proud to live in a city full of people moved by their beliefs enough to march. Laugh it up cynical New Yorkers, you’re just jealous. On the fifth anniversary of our invasion into Iraq, for example, there was a massive protest, and I sat at my computer listening to it going on outside with goose bumps.

This Olympic torch thing, though, I’m not 100 percent sold on. Protesting China’s human rights abuses gets a thumbs up, but I’m not sure that snuffing out the Olympic torch really sends that message. It just seems like a protest that won’t do much but hurt people like this guy, while China carries on doing whatever they want. If anything, I worry that some poor bastard is getting beaten in a Chinese prison for every torch-stopping march. I don’t know…allowing human rights abuses in China to snuff out a torch that’s supposed to represent world peace just seems wrong. The argument is that this will shine a light on abuses in China, publicly embarassing the country into doing better. But when’s the last time anyone did anything because someone they didn’t respect embarassed them? Call me crazy, but I just don’t believe that Chinese officials are worried about what protesters think of them. The real protest seems to be against the IOC for allowing China to host the Olympics at all, which makes sense, but why wasn’t anyone joining with the Tibetans protesting at IOC headquarters last month then?

And let’s not forget that the Olympic rings and the torch relay were apparently introduced to the modern Olympic Games by the organizers of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin as a way to reflect a powerful image for the Third Reich. Critics of Chinese policy are pointing to that regime’s similar use of the symbols to project a more innocent image of itself. In fact, they’re even trying to run the torch through Tibet–nothing to see here folks, everything’s a-okay in Tibet. Definitely fucked up, but again how the hell did they "win" the Olympics in the first place, and why on Earth did the whole world keep using Nazi symbols to represent peace and unity? Maybe I should get out there and march after all.

What do you think?