Olympic boycotts - a bad idea
They don't work. Instead, promote the Olympic truce.
By John K. Cooley
from the April 9, 2008 edition
Athens - Opponents of Chinese policy in Tibet, Darfur, and elsewhere
are calling for total or partial boycotts of Beijing's summer
Olympics. Protesters disrupted the running of the torch in London and
Paris this week, triggering talk of canceling the international leg of
the relay. And Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton called on President Bush
Monday to boycott the opening ceremonies in Beijing.
These efforts are mistaken. History suggests a better idea: Revive and
promote the idea of the Olympic Truce period, when violent conflicts
halt for the period of the Games and sometimes afterward.
As the Olympic flame began its long ceremonial journey last month to
Beijing from Greece, the Games' ancient birthplace, International
Olympic Committee chairman Jacques Rogge rejected the boycott idea.
The 2008 Games, he said, would help to open China, including its human
rights policies, to the world media.
Since the ancient Games were revived in Athens in 1896, few if anyone
proposed boycotts during the early decades of this most global of
s****ting events. Human rights activists in 1936 could have justifiably
stigmatized and boycotted the Berlin Olympics. But they didn't, even
though Adolph Hitler's persecution of Jews and other minorities and
his territorial expansion in Europe had already begun.
The first Olympics boycotted - by Spain, the Netherlands, and
Switzerland - were the 1956 Melbourne Games because of the Soviet
Union's cru****ng of the Hungarian revolt. Egypt, Iraq, Cambodia, and
Lebanon also boycotted Melbourne because of the Suez War. None of
these boycotts had the slightest beneficial effect on the political
situations they tried to target.
Many African states threatened or carried out boycotts of the Games in
1972 and 1976 to force officials to ban white-ruled South Africa and
Rhodesia (they failed to get New Zealand banned in 1976 because its
rugby team had played in South Africa). This aroused sympathy for the
athletes banned from competing, but apartheid and white rule weren't
affected in the two banned states until years later.
The US and the USSR boycotted each other's Los Angeles and Moscow
Games in 1980 and 1984 respectively. President Jimmy Carter led 65
nations boycotting the Moscow Games in protest of the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan. The Soviets retaliated by keeping their teams and
those of 13 other East bloc states away from Los Angeles, promoting
their own "Friend****p Games" in that summer of 1984. Careers of many
athletes suffered and cold war tensions rose as a result.
This year, an alternative to boycotts - reactivating the ancient
Olympic Truce concept - would serve the causes of peacemakers and
human rights activists everywhere. Last year's UN General Assembly
session, referring to the Beijing Games, reiterated the Olympic Truce
resolution taken for the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2001.
The UN's appeal for observance of the Olympic Truce in the 1990s
allowed athletes from former Yugoslavia to participate in the
Lillehammer, Norway, Winter Games, despite the wars raging in their
regions.
The Olympic Truce concept first arose as early as the 9th century BC.
The Greek city-state of Elis and two neighboring states arranged a
cease-fire. Elis citizens traveled around Greece to publicize it.
Athletes and their families and fans were guaranteed safe travel
through hostile territory for seven days before and seven days after
the Games.
Groups who urge boycotts of Beijing could instead cooperate with the
UN and its members in promoting the truce concept. One way would be
for China's government to invite a Tibetan delegation headed by the
Dalai Lama to Beijing. China should further guarantee the safety and
security of those attending the Games, including dissidents and
protesters. Opposition groups, for their part, should suspend
aggressive or violent tactics.
The Dalai Lama has often expressed readiness to travel from his exile
in India to talk peace and Tibetan autonomy with Chinese leaders in
Beijing, despite their wrathful denunciations of him.
At the Sydney Olympics in 2000, when delegates from supposedly hostile
North and South Korea marched together under a unification flag, Kofi
Annan, then UN Secretary-General, said: "Olympic ideals are also
United Nations ideals: tolerance, equality, fair play, and most of
all, peace."
Not a bad formula to inspire the Beijing Games - and many future
Olympiads to come.
* John Cooley, author and former Monitor correspondent, has covered
the Middle East and parts of Asia for nearly 50 years.
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