Boycott the Beijing Olympics

As I write this, less than twenty-four hours from now, the XXIX Olympiad will officially begin. I will not be watching. I admit, I'll miss it, miss the pageantry, the excitement, the Parade of Nations, and all the thrilling events such as gymnastics, swimming, and track. But, unfortunately, the powers that be decided to allow China to host the Olympics this year, and in response I've decided to wage a little boycott.

I'm not the only one, of course. There has been a worldwide outcry against the Chinese hosting of the Games. It's easy to see why. China's oppressive Communist political system makes a mockery of individual freedoms and basic human rights. There is no First Amendment in China. I doubt there's even a Second Amendment. China denies religious freedom and independent political thinking to its subjects while repressing and murdering Tibetans, as well as pursuing a foreign policy which enables atrocities such as Darfur. China has the largest armed forces in the world. China continues to deny the rightfully earned independence of Taiwan. In many ways, the 2008 Olympics are directly equivalent to the 1936 Olympics, hosted by Nazi Germany. Only then, a few brave athletes chose not to participate, according to this story. I have not heard whether any athletes today will make the same stand.

Of course, some will say that the time to debate all this was back in 2001, when the International Olympic Committee first debated giving the Games to China. This is true to an extent; the IOC made a grave error back then in choosing Beijing. But this doesn't mean that opponents of the decision should just shut up now. We cannot stop the Games, to be sure, but we can still make our voices heard. As the saying goes, "Better late than never."

Another argument against boycotting the Olympics is that the Games are supposed to be nonpolitical. To quote General Sherman T. Potter from M*A*S*H*, "Horse hockey!" If the Olympics are so unbiased and nonpolitical, why did the IOC ban South Africa from the Olympics in 1964? (Note: I'm not saying this decision was wrong, I'm only using it as an example of the injection of politics into the Games.) Why has Taiwan, to this day, not allowed to compete under its own name, national anthem, and flag? What about Iran's continuing refusal to allow its athletes to compete alongside Israeli athletes? What about the 1980 and 1984 Cold War-inspired boycotts by the US and the Soviet Union, respectively? Need I go on?

Finally, it could be argued that boycotting the Games is a show of disrespect to the athletes. However, my counter to this is that, at the end of the Games, disrespected or not, these athletes will all be alive and, more or less, free. The same cannot be said for the untold millions slaughtered in Mao's Cultural Revolution and so-called 'Great Leap Forward', or the thousands killed during the Tienanmen Square protests in 1989, or the countless Chinese Christians or practitioners of Falun Gong who undergo constant persecution because of their religious beliefs, or the Tibetans, or....or...or...the list could go on forever. China is a tyrannical power which does not deserve to host a ping-pong tournament, let alone the prestigious Olympic Games.