Deja Vu?
1936 Berlin Olympics –2008 Beijing Olympics

The International Olympic Committee has awarded the 2008 Olympics to China. While certain countries are routinely referred to as rogue nations, some consider China a 1000 pound rogue gorilla.

In the months preceding this vote, China’s government has: hijacked an American reconnaissance plane operating over international waters and held its crew captive; seized Chinese-American scholars on trumped up spying charges; evicted thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns in Tibet; sentenced thousands of Falun Gong religious Chinese to labor camps; closed down dissenting newspapers; executed approximately 1800 Chinese citizens who were first herded into sports stadiums for ritual humiliation (mobile medical units arrived to harvest vital organs from still warm bodies); and continued to aim nuclear missiles at U.S. cities and Taiwan.

Olympic officials and western business and political leaders who recite the mantra that the Olympics will open up this gulag state to freedom and human rights fail to remember the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Bringing those Games to Berlin did not humanize Adolph Hitler nor his Nazis.

The 1936 Olympics turned out to be an unmitigated propaganda coup for Hitler and the Nazis, aided by editorial adulation in the civilized world led by history’s infamous appeaser, Neville Chamberlain. Appeasement resulted in increased demands from a tyrant, and did not prevent what came after: concentration camps, the murder of six million Jews and brutal military invasions of neighboring countries.

In 1935, Avery Brundage, president of the American Olympics, opined that American athletes should not become involved in “the present Jew-Nazi altercation.” He said, “the Olympic Games belong to the athletes and not the politicians. Politics has no place in sport.”

Politics has no place in sport? Recent history and news accounts demonstrate that the IOC is riddled with politics and corruption. Hitler’s rampage against the civilized world seems to have taught today’s IOC nothing. Now, another powerful and dangerous totalitarian government will host the Olympic Games, staging events at the very same sports stadiums used recently for summary executions of Chinese citizens. Ironically, Beijing’s leaders announced that volley ball events will be held at Tiananmen Square where, just 12 years ago, Chinese democracy demonstrators were mowed down by their government.

In 2008, Beijing will put up a good front as did Berlin in 1936. Meanwhile, Western leaders will cling to their notions that Olympics in Beijing will promote democracy and the rule of law in China. The Washington Post reports, however, that senior Chinese intellectuals worry that the Games will serve only to strengthen the rule of the Communist Party, holding back political reform.

Washington’s policy toward China went beyond “engagement” to “strategic partnership” under Bill Clinton. China is not and has not been a “partner” to America. Appeasement – in awarding most favored trade status, membership in the World Trade Organization and now the Olympic Games – only emboldens aggressive leadership.

Business as usual? Trade with China is largely one way with the U.S. purchasing far more from China than the other way around. Relatively few American businesses profit from selling to China. And no amount of Chinese government repression and slave labor seem to enrage enough politicians and corporations to change their attitude about this regime. Engaging and trading with China is facing reality, but we should certainly not reward their dismal record on human rights by honoring them with hosting the Olympic Games.

Fast forward to 2008. Should American athletes boycott the 2008 Olympics? Absolutely not! Young American athletes should not sacrifice or suffer because of naÔve or misguided decisions by Washington of the International Olympic Committee. Too late to do anything? No, we should hold the decision makers responsible to ensure they do not make similar bad decisions in the future. The U.S. should lead an effort to reform the IOC.

America once cared most about freedom. Does it now care more about commerce?

1936 Berlin Olympics. 2008 Beijing Olympics. DÈjý vu all over again?

Pat Freibert is a former Kentucky state representative from Lexington
editorial@lanereport.com

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