Orville Taylor, Contributor
It's as elusive as an Olympic gold medal for Asafa but the torch is playing games of hide-and-seek and tag. All and sundry want to extinguish the eternal flame as it seeks to follow the path of thousands of American jobs and earnings and go to Beijing, China, the home of this year's Summer Olympiad.
Protests began as soon as it was to be lit in Greece and continued with demonstrations in Turkey, Britain and its brief extinguishing in France. In the latter, the China-bound symbol of harmony escaped 'kidnapping' by the hair on its 'chin'. As it reached San Francisco, where the largest population of Chinese in the western hemisphere live, protesters and supporters faced off.
With a mere four months before the start, the conscience of the Western world has suddenly ignited with more continuity than the torch and many are symbolically trying either to capture or put it out due to China's poor human rights record and in particular, its maltreatment of Tibet.
Tibet, a Himalayan province slightly larger than Jamaica with a similar-size population, has resisted Chinese rule and has sought autonomy since the early 1950s. In 1959, after an unsuccessful pro-independence uprising and thousands of deaths and arrests of legions in the region, its spiritual and political leader, the Dalai Lama fled to India. During his 49-year exile, the Chinese authorities have increased their control and during the last salvo since the torch was first lit, some 140 persons have been killed in clashes with the Chinese security forces.
Anything but free
Over the past five decades, China has been anything but free, with several 'pro-democracy' movements violently suppressed, including the ill-fated massacre of hundreds in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Make no pretence; there is restricted access to the Internet, limited freedom of expression, compromised freedom of association, and no universal freedom of movement. Add to that the suspicions of workers toiling below international labour standards and the allegations of child labour. No Chinese media personality could write a column such as this, and I doubt that any of them would be allowed to read the Internet version. Were I a resident in China, whatever my ethnicity, I couldn't say 'ping'.
As if their own history of human rights was unworthy of 'yellow listing,' former British Cabinet minister, Michael Portillo, has compared the upcoming Olympics to the 1936 Berlin games held under Nazi rule. Others are calling for its shunning. Quite a comparison indeed, especially since neither the USA, Great Britain nor Canada spurned this event hosted by the most evil regime in modern history.
Interestingly, the international gay community, including Egale Canada, which gave us an ultimatum to give more backing to gays, is not calling for a full 'boycott' either. Yet, China has consistently refused to legalise gay unions and its police routinely harass homosexuals and shake up suspected gay recreational places.
In contrast to Jamaica, the 'most homophobic place on Earth', which allowed the showing of the gay-themed Broke Back Mountain in 2006, China banned this movie, directed by Chinese Ang Lee. Regularly, gay websites are shut down and programmes with homosexual content are blocked because they go 'against the healthy way of life in China'.
A 1999 court ruling declared homosexuality to be "abnormal and unacceptable to the Chinese public" and a 2003 judgement reinforced the illegality of same-sex marriages. Imagine a Jamaican judge or politician making such a statement. J-Flag, OutRage and other 'heterophobes' would be breathing down their back with such fire, the Olympic torch would have to be stuck in a closet for safekeeping.
Hypocrisy! Though still unacceptable, China's human rights record is slightly better than a decade ago. Yet, when it was really repugnant, Canada was its bedfellow. From the position of being the fourth-largest trading partner with total merchandise trade of $8.7 billion in 1997, it is now number two, second only to the USA. In 2006, this figure reached $42.1 billion. Imports from China quintupled over the period, while exports increased three-fold.
Trade imbalance
America's trade with China is even more revealing. From a trade deficit of $49 billion in 1997, this had run to more than $256 billion in 2007. Simply put, the USA loses a great deal of money in trade imbalance and ultimately, loss of jobs. The political backlash of this has also increased.
Perhaps the opposition to China is more about economics than human rights. After all, the USA had Olympics in Missouri in 1904 and Los Angeles in 1932, when racial apartheid existed there. Indeed, in 1968, when Tommie Smith and John Carlos attempted to sensitise the world to American racism, they were penalised for raising the Black Power salute on the medal podium.
Few seem to notice, but the Chinese are masters at imitation and are following the very same methods that the western Europeans and Americans used to accumulate their own wealth.
Industrial Revolution
England was the firstborn, as she initiated the Industrial Revolution around the 1760s. This she did by exploiting a domestic labour force in England and a population of Africans in the Caribbean and the continent. Later, she brought the Asians under her banner.
The horrors of African chattel slavery are well known. Nevertheless, between 1760 and 1871, a series of anti-labour laws and court decisions made trade unions illegal and strikes punishable by exportation to Australia. Wilfully breaking or sabotaging machinery could cost a worker his life and a master could lawfully beat his workmen.
I like the black protest flag with the Olympic rings made into handcuffs, but not for Tibet. Rather, it reminds me of the Africans who suffered and died for the very system than China is now taking over.
Dr Orville Taylor is senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work at the UWI, Mona.
