The story of the Olympic Torch Relay was my favorite international absurdity of 2008. Let's laugh at it again.
I can’t quite decide what is the most ludicrous aspect of the global public relations nightmare that is the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay.
First of all, why are we having this event in early April when the Olympics don’t kick off for another 120 days. What kind of symbolism is the Olympic flame leaving Athens four and a half months before the Olympic Games, and taking a plane to Beijing? If the “official Olympic flame” is already in China, what happens now? Does it just sit there hissing like the time your uncle Benny forgot to turn off the gas grill and you went out the next morning to find all the Gladiolas lightly toasted?
But forget that part for now. When did carrying that burning stick become such a symbol of national pride for China. It’s not their torch. It’s the Olympic torch. Shouldn’t Juan Antonio Samaranch or Hootie Johnson or whoever the hell is in charge of the Olympics these days be deciding where the torch goes, and generally saying that the Chinese will get the torch in August when -whether they’ve gotten rid of the smog or chucked a few thousand dissenters into General Tso’s Gulag or not - they actually get around to hosting the Olympics?
The next head-scratcher for me is the vehemence of the protesters, in England and France, for the cause of Tibetan independence. For starters, since when did the French hit the street to protest the oppression of anyone but the French? And while there are always agitators for every cause, how did they decide that the flashpoint for this little fiasco would be Tibet. It probably isn’t in the top five of crimes perpetrated by the Chinese government. What happened to their cozy sponsorship of the Sudanese genocide in Darfur? The human rights abuses in their own country? The crippling poverty in the countryside? The wholesale censorship? There are plenty of reason to hiss at the Chinese; shouldn’t we be using them all?
The comedy from today’s “torch relay” in San Francisco abounds. The phrase that lingers longest is still “the only portion of the relay in North America.” This big, important world event called the Olympic Torch Relay - and it must be a big, important world event because the people doing it are acting like anyone cares, and the people using it as a platform for protest are acting like anyone cares, and the media are covering it like Paris Hilton was carrying the torch while riding a horse bareback - this big, important event comes to North America for a six-mile trip around the Embarcadero? And that’s it? Not to sound too jingoistic here, but are you freaking kidding me? Never mind the part about the US being the world’s only remaining superpower and the straw that stirs the drink in virtually every endeavor, let’s look at it this way: as the Olympic Flame circles the globe to encompass all mankind in the warm “I’d like to teach the world to sing” glow that is the brotherhood of international sport, North America, one of only seven continents, something like 15% of the world’s landmass, gets recognized by a six-mile stroll of Fishermans Wharf.
The Canadians and Mexicans should be pissed. They don’t even get sloppy seconds on the continental tour. And isn’t there something sneakily racist in having the North American segment run through Chinatown, USA? Maybe I’m just being white here, but this smacks of “sticking it to the Man.” I mean, New York has a very nice Chinatown too.
What kind of relay hops from London to Paris to San Francisco? Doesn’t relay suggest a lengthy chain of hands passing the Olympic Flame across continents? This sounds more like the Olympic checked luggage derby.
The sight of the Olympic torch being protected by a few hundred police and security in London was funny. The sight of the Olympic torch being doused and toted across Paris in a bus was laughable. But the low point for the week was reached in San Francisco when the torch took a different route around the city and then a ceremony was canceled entirely.
The symbol of the Olympic “Movement” and all of mankind’s highest aspirations for fair play and brotherhood sneaks around the city in a private ceremony. There was a real “we’re going to carry this damned stick around San Francisco for a while and it will too be important” sound to the whole event. It a little like finding out that the national anthem will not be sung at home plate before the game but was actually whistled by a guy in the tunnel behind the visitors dugout about twenty minutes ago. We did it and that’s all that counts. Symbolism be damned; we’re not going to allow our moment in the sun to be taken away, unless we take it away ourselves.
And in the wake of several consecutive appearances of the Olympic torch in circumstances that could charitably be called unfortunate and could accurately be called acutely embarrassing, there has been a proud stand taken by Chinese and Olympic officials that the torch relay will not be canceled. Because cancelling the torch toting would be a loss of honor; unlike the lengthy airplay given to the torch being doused and carried in a bus or the farce of holding a ceremony that is so tenuous that the time, place and manner are all changed to avoid having many people know it was going on. Why not just bring the torch in a handful of cities in the dead of night and ride around on a bicycle for a couple of hours? That is at least as symbolically significant.
But I am not calling for the torch relay to be canceled. You can’t give in to blackmail. I advocate just having the torch-bearers carry right along, without layers of security. And every time the peace-loving, non-violent protesters trip the torch-bearer to the ground and rip the torch from her hands, the officials would pick her up, dust her off and hand her another cheap Chinese knock-off of the patented Olympic torch to carry down the path.
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