“China can depend on us.”
April 7, 2008
So says Canadian Olympic Committee president Michael Chambers, responding to various local and international pressures for Canada (among other Western nations) to boycott the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
Evidently, the fact that China has a piss-poor human rights record doesn’t matter to Michael Chambers. Perhaps, then, it should be the athletes themselves who stand up and say “we will not go.”
Protests against the Summer Olympics have been large and numerous. In Britain, attempts were made to douse the Olympic Torch as it was paraded through the streets. In France, the Torch was successfully doused. And in Tibet, Chinese authorities have already killed and arrested hundreds of people in an effort to secure the path that the Torch will be taken along as it is paraded toward Beijing.
Michael Chambers thinks this will all just go away in a few weeks, it seems. Personally, I don’t think this will be the only torch-dousing we’ll see. And I think the clamour for boycotts will grow.
Update: Welcome, Steynians!
