I really shouldn’t be blogging right now (6 more pages of papers to write what?!), but I really felt like I had to share this article. My own nationalistic feelings about my homeland, uh, diminished a lot over the last few years, especially due to my work in the summer of 2006 with the Open Net Initiative. I’ve gotten in some pretty ugly debates over the Chinese Students Association’s listserv at Harvard (really the only occasion in which I participate in the organization at all!), often on the anti-nationalist side. But when it comes to the 2008 Olympics, I can’t help but disagree with the common opinion among most of the liberal friends and academics I really respect.
I just don’t think boycotting, at least the way people are currently talking about it, is the answer at all.
Rebecca MacKinnon, the always-amazing former CNN bureau chief in Beijing who I’ve had the pleasure of meeting through Berkman, seems to think the same thing, and I’m sure her reaction is much more thought out than mine. She’s been posting a series of blog posts and news articles on her daily linkthink that all point to various aspects of this, and a lot of them are really worth reading (not to mention they make me feel a lot less insecure/guilty about my initial reaction to the liberal reaction!) Unfortunately, I’ve only been skimming through them lately, which is why I initially missed this article.
Why I will Carry the Olympic Torch is by a Chinese-American lesbian feminist living in San Francisco, and I can’t agree with it more.
“Many of my conversations were with elderly survivors of civil war and revolution who have endured immense human suffering, from deprivation and humiliation to torture and death. Almost every one of them had family members or friends who had committed suicide before or during the Cultural Revolution that ended three decades ago. Yet, nearly all told me that they believe China is changing for the better and they are hopeful that Chinese society will continue to become more open.”
Hope. That’s the keyword here that’s causing this rift. For many Chinese nationals, this Olympics is an event about hope–hope that China will become a better country not just economically, but as a nation progressing in all ways. The generation that is currently in power, the Chinese baby-boom generation, has almost certainly lived through the Cultural Revolution and the cultural memory of the Japanese occupation and the Chinese civil war are fresh in the minds of the people as well. The frustration and anger that many of the Chinese bloggers have with the American portrayal of the situation is, I think, one of a child that has already improved his grades from an F to a B- but is still being admonished for not being good enough. And yes, I definitely agree that China is still failing at many things (sometimes spectacularly), but if the Western world doesn’t give it a pat on the back to encourage this direction of change, I’m worried that there will be some kind of reversion out of resentment rather than an increased drive to improve.
If you disagree, I’d love to know. But I think that I, too, would proudly carry the Olympic torch if I were given the chance.
Filed under: Uncategorized | 6 Comments
Tags: 2008 olympics, china, human rights, olympics
-
pictures
More Photos
I’m sure the conditions of everyday life have changed for the better for most of China, but for Tibet it’s still the Cultural Revolution.
They’re still ruled directly by the party, and have absolutely none of the freedom of speech the anti-west bloggers clearly have.
Tibetan college grads in TAR get 2 percent of the jobs for which they should qualify, the rest going to good Han people just like yourself.
But you’re right. Carry the torch and be proud to do it.
I’m not against all the ceremonials, and certainly would not want to get in the way of anyone’s games. But when the games are over, Tibet will still be there to answer for.
They won’t shut up. Not for long.
Dear Dava,
I absolutely agree with you that the situation in Tibet is deplorable. Personally, I haven’t really found enough information from trusted news sources (which is in and of itself a huge problem!) to form definite opinions on what is happening there, but I’m pretty damn sure it ain’t pretty. That’s not what I want to support at all, and if I didn’t make that clear in my original post then I *really* apologize.
My willingness to carry the torch and the pride that goes along with it is not because I want to support a game or a ceremony. I couldn’t give less of a shit about the rhythmic dancing competition, okay? Or about the pomp and circumstance that is going to surround the silliness. In fact, I think that China has made a lot of serious mistakes in planning for the Olympics (like–where the hell are we going to fit these enormous buildings in overcrowded Beijing? I guess those people don’t have to live THERE anymore…).
The pride is, rather, for how far the country has bounced back after all the catastrophes of the 20th Century. At least people are back in school and colleges are open. At least the civilians of China aren’t so poor anymore they have to eat dead relatives. At least we’re not burning books and burying scholars anymore, or brazenly pulling into Tiananmen Square with tanks. For a country that has grown up under a gauntlet of horrific conditions, the term “human rights” is a little harder to believe in than it is here in America. This is not to say that human rights violations like the ones in Tibet (and the many more that are much less popular amongst foreigners but happen all year round, all the time) are justifiable–not at all! Just that for most of the people in China, the situation looks really, really different.
Maybe the difference between us is just that I believe China is trying, and most westerners looking in just don’t. I don’t blame them. It’s a hell of a mess in there. But China *is* trying to improve the lives of its citizens. Maybe it hasn’t figured out what “citizen” means yet, or “improve” for that matter, but it’s still recovering from some really serious stuff and it’s going to take some time. Not that the Tibetans should be forced to wait, but–it could be so, so much worse.
Also, I’m not Han, I’m Manchurian. I’m one of the minorities that would have gotten a bonus on my exam grades had I taken the “gao kao” in China because of the persecution my people have gone through in the last century. Of course, that was a completely different situation than the current one in Tibet, but I certainly hope that the Tibetan will have a happier ending than the Manchurians. We don’t even have an autonomous region or, really, any centers of culture anymore. Like a fumbling adolescent, China is doing the best it can. Don’t encourage it to be more destructive than it already is on accident.
If you want to read a reader’s feedback
, I rate this article for four from five. Decent info, but I have to go to that damn msn to find the missed parts. Thank you, anyway!
Great games blog, cheers