Monday, April 14, 2008

Fareed Zakaria Gets It Right on Tibet

Read it here. Making a show of boycotting the opening ceremonies is certainly counterproductive. Not to worry, though. The Australian Parliament is not going to pass a resolution on this one. Nor will the European Parliament for that matter. Unlike the case with liberal democracies, the Chinese government can hit back.

Speaking of governments, when did heads of state acquire the habit of attending Olympic ceremonies held in cities that they have nothing to do with? Don’t they have work to do elsewhere? More importantly, shouldn’t we give the Olympics back to the cities, like it used to be before Hitler figured out how to use it for a state propaganda stage (or so I’d to imagine)? After all, it’s the Olympic leadership itself that is claiming that their games have nothing to do with politics.

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