Futuríveis
domingo, abril 06, 2008
The Olympic torch’s journey to the Beijing Olympics is threatening to turn from triumphal progress into marathon humiliation
The lighting of the torch in Athens was awkward enough. It took arrests and heavy-handed policing to keep pro-Tibet demonstrators at bay. Things could get worse this weekend, when the torch will reach London to be greeted by a combustible mix of police, demonstrators and patriotic Chinese students. Other potential trouble spots on the route to the Olympic opening ceremony in August include San Francisco and New Delhi. Then there is the trip across Tibet itself. The one spot on the Olympic torch’s progress where we can be guaranteed that there will be no public demonstrations is Pyongyang.
Is the Chinese government beginning to regret its triumph in securing the Olympics for Beijing? The games were meant to be a coming-out party for modern China – playing a similar role to that of the Tokyo Olympics of 1964 and the Seoul Olympics of 1988.
Unfortunately for China, the analogy that increasingly springs to mind is not Tokyo or Seoul – but the Berlin Olympics of 1936. This is not to say that the Chinese government are modern-day Nazis. Any such comparison is grotesque.
The Berlin and Beijing games are comparable for other reasons. China – like Germany in the 1930s – is an emerging superpower. Within 20 years it is likely to be the largest economy in the world. The rise of China – like the rise of Germany in the 1930s – is reshaping the world system. So the comparisons with the Tokyo and Seoul Olympics do not really capture the political impact of the Beijing games. The new China is far more than just the latest and largest Asian tiger economy.
The Beijing Olympics will be stuffed with political symbolism."....
Gideon Rachman, Financial Times
