02/15/08
While two months have to slip by before the Olympic torch transfers hands, the games have already spawned controversy.
One country tried to put a cork on free speech. According to news released Sunday, the British Olympic Association penned a contract designed to sharply censor its athletes while in China.
One clause from the draft said athletes “are not to comment on any politically sensitive issues.”
This regulation extended the rules already tucked into the international Olympic Charter. An agreement that prohibits protest at Olympic venues, the charter allows athletes to voice criticism off site.
Under its provisions, which all participating countries have to follow, Olympic athletes can march the streets of Beijing, promote social change and give a voice to oppressed Tibetans.
But instead of embracing the opportunity to verbalize a social injustice, some countries are muzzling athletes with restrictive clauses.
Under its current contract, New Zealand Olympians also can’t make political comments.
Free speech advocates have vigorously lashed out at both countries.
And thank God for that.
The 2008 Olympic host jails journalists, forbids religious and political freedom and censors overseas news. Instead of jamming socks down athletes’ mouths, countries should be encouraging them to materialize injustices in oral and written form.
To spark social change people have to give problems a voice, not turn heads in silence. A brief cursory glance at the past shows that Olympics’ history is one marked with protest.
During the Bolshevik Revolution in 1923, the International Olympic Committee barred Russia from participating.
Then, just after World War II, the IOC banned Germany and Japan in 1948. On-site protest nudged its way into the 1968 games in Mexico City, when gold and bronze medal winners Tommie Smith and John Carlos shoved black-gloved fists into the air while waiting on the victory podium. The act, which symbolized black power and unity, gained the civil rights movement worldwide attention.
In 1980, 60 nations refused to take part in the games to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Forfeiting this ability is a mockery to the rights most Westerners claim to cherish. It’s also a travesty when one considers the political conditions in China.
After all, silence equals consent.