The 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing are fast approaching and it may be high time to address what kind of politics lay beneath the less and less interesting world games. This time around, the Olympics have had more than its usually minimal share of controversy, most of which have to do with the high levels of pollution in and around Beijing, security issues and also–wait for it…–human rights violations! All of the recent attention China has received as not only host of the Olympics but also an economic powerhouse (average economic growth at 6% is real serious-like), alongside India (ya’ll ever hear of Chindia?). Discussions surrounding the Beijing Olympics have usually had this kind of China-is-growing-like-crazy economic triumphalism as its background, which I think has hidden from view what the Olympics, at its core, stand for–blatant nationalism rendered excusable by the hokey, Disney-swagger jacking opening ceremony. Most economically-skewed conversations regarding the Olympics follows a specific story-line which really harkens back to the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. As it did for S. Korea in 1988, the Olympics set the mood for an economic takeoff that would a few years later solidify the country’s position as one of the Asian Tiger economies (Who makes up these terms? Definitely not an Asian person. Well, at least I hope not.), alongside Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. What this did for Korea was it basically solidified its entrance into the global economy and thus effectively awarded it respectability, facilitating investment opportunities for foreign capital. (If you were wondering, yes, the tax rates for foreign investment were MAD low.) In the case of China, however, there’s been a kind of upending of sequence; it is already a major player in the global economy and most definitely a big shot geopolitically. (Chinese Prez Hu Jintao helped broker the North Korean de-nuclearization deal, which just resulted in a nuclear cooling tower being dismantled and blown up by the N. Koreans as a sign of good faith.) China has seemingly jumped a lot of steps to get to where it is currently economically and geopolitically.
But back to the Olympics, all of this kind of talk regarding “the post-American world,” which is the name of the new book by Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek and CNN, has rather covered over a fundamental aspect of the Olympics which I think is kind of worth talking about: the quanta or basic unit of the Olympics is a geopolitical one; it’s the nation-state. In the realm of geopolitics, with internal strife and often outright civil wars, the “national Olympic team” is a mythical entity which serves to gives the impression of a cohesive unit under false pretenses. And in many ways, what the Olympics do, is it charades the internal divisions that are at the core of many nations. (Ever wonder who the Sudanese national soccer team consists of?) Now, many people claim that the Olympics do exactly what I laid out and it’s for the better. It serves to heal the wounds of in-fighting and for a few weeks, it relieves tensions–political or otherwise–that may exist within any given nation. I could swallow this argument if it weren’t for the fact that it is a similar argument made to black soldiers during every single conflict until Vietnam, when the armed forces first began to desegregate its combat troops.Were black troops and even civil rights folks (of all races) being traitors to their country? See, this is where the nationalism thing really gets me. It seems that sometimes the American brand of nationalism–”patriotism”–is a bit severe. (Some political scientists believe that “patriotism” and “nationalism” are different monsters altogether and should not be confused. I kind of tend to agree, although I haven’t traveled enough, and haven’t looked into it enough to really speak on it.) Because in the States, when someone is seen as critical of the nation, s/he is seen as against the nation. (Forget that, no lapel pin=terrorist nowadays.) In fact, during the early part of the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong (the Communists that had hold of the north) picked up on this uniquely American paradox and began drop-down missions of fliers that were addressed to black soldiers asking, in fact, why they were killing other people of color for a country that could not bother to give them equal protection under the law. Touche, Ho Chi Minh, tou-freaking-che.
Whenever I watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, the spectacle of the flags and marching remind me of a very very scary, yet similar scene. Don’t you think that’s a problem?
