Tuesday, April 08, 2008 

Scum-watch: Defending China by proxy.

As periodically occurs, mostly on special occasions or holidays, the Sun's slightly altered its logo. This one however is especially intriguing:

Looks like someone's decided that the Olympic torch relay needs defending. I wonder who that could possibly be?

The tone for this defence of the ancient right to run a flaming stick through capital cities is set by the Sun's report on the protests yesterday in Paris:

THE Olympic torch was snuffed out four times yesterday as it was relayed through Paris – before eventually being put on a BUS to shield it from anti-Chinese mobs.

Anti-Chinese mobs. Not human rights protesters or Free Tibet campaigners, but anti-Chinese mobs.

In a futile effort to keep some semblance of balance, there is a column at the side dealing with the accusations against China, but perhaps there's something in the fact that it leads with how China executes 22 a day. This is after all the newspaper that recently declared that 99% of its readers wanted the death penalty brought back. It's nearly 300 words in before the Sun finally suggests why the protests have been so vociferous:

Protesters are furious at China’s brutal crushing of opponents in Tibet, which has sparked outrage in neighbouring countries including Nepal.

But wait! Aren't the protests themselves incompatible with the values of the Olympics?

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge blasted the protests as “not compatible with the values of the torch relay or the Olympic Games”.

He insisted of China’s human rights record: “The International Olympic Committee has expressed its serious concern and calls for a rapid, peaceful resolution in Tibet.”


What values exactly does the torch relay represent? The values of public relations, of self-promotion, for both China and the celebrities/athletes that have carried it, of being completely impervious to criticism? It must be, because it certainly doesn't stand for peace, friendship or unity like the Sun claimed yesterday. It instead stands this time round for imperial arrogance, both on the part of the International Olympic Committee for awarding China the games in the first place and then condemning protesters despite China making no effort whatsoever to improve its rights record as it was supposed to do; and also China's own, in attempting to milk the Olympics for all its short-term worth, completely out of line with the supposed values of the games that it is meant to be espousing. Rather than just expressing vague calls for "a rapid, peaceful resolution in Tibet", it should be demanding at the very least that China meets with the Dalai Lama, puts a stop to its ridiculous claims that he's somehow masterminding the protests, and release those that have been taken into custody since the outbreak of the uprisings last month. For those who call for a separation of sport and politics, the moment the IOC gave China the Olympics it was a vote of confidence for its leadership; the two are so intertwined as to be impossible to break apart.

To further labour the point, the Sun's printed a cut out Olympic flame for everyone!

NO matter how many times protesters put out the real Olympic torch, they won't be able to extinguish our special cut-out-and-keep Olympic torch. Click HERE for your very own flame.

The leader column provides for two opportunities: to bash the French and to show the Chinese that Murdoch is firmly behind them and their two-week long sports extravaganza.

IF France fielded as many troops in Afghanistan as cops deployed on the streets of Paris yesterday, the Taliban could be defeated overnight.

If they were prepared to fight.


I realise this is a throw-away jibe, but the idea that somehow an extra 3,000 troops would "defeat the Taliban" is about as much of a fantasy as, oh, this very editorial.

Coachloads of club-carrying police were drafted in to protect the Olympic torch and keep unarmed civilian protesters at bay.

And they still couldn’t keep this iconic symbol alight.

Well, what do you expect? They're French, they're too busy eating snails, riding bicycles and going on strike as to do something as simple as keep an "iconic symbol" alight.

The flame was snuffed out FOUR times as it made its faltering way to Beijing — not by demonstrators but by city officials.

Finally, it was put on a bus for “safety reasons” — even though there was no more violence in Paris than in London, where the flame survived without a flicker.


Err, could this possibly be because, like in London, demonstrators were at certain sections blocking the flame's path? No, it's all the fault of those swarthy French policemen.

There is widespread sympathy for the Free Tibet campaigners dogging the flame’s journey — at huge loss of face to China’s Communist regime.

But this is supposed to be the Eternal Flame, an international symbol of the sporting ideal.


Not to break Godwin's law or anything, but as others have noted (The Times itself won't be repeating Jenkins's arguments, that's for sure), it was the Nazis that came up with the idea for a torch relay. The Eternal Flame - the Eternal Jew, anyone? Even if it was this imaginary symbol of a sporting ideal as some appear to be arguing, China's appropriation of it has snuffed them.

The countries through which it passes owe a duty to the Olympic legacy to keep it burning.

The French should have guarded it properly or had nothing to do with it at all.


Surely by "Olympic legacy" the Sun really means "the Chinese", or as they're known to Mr Murdoch, some of my closest business associates? As for the perfidious French, it should be interesting to see if the Sun condemns the Americans so noisily and angrily if the protesters there continue to succeed as their counterparts have here and in France. Somehow I think they might just be treated to a different standard.

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Monday, April 07, 2008 

A celebration of the Olympic spirit.

There's nothing quite like a protest against a vicious kleptocracy to bring out the best in everyone.

The official view of yesterday's relay, expressed by government ministers and torchbearers alike, seems to be that the halting passage through London was a "triumph for democracy", a kind of demonstration to the world of how free speech should be allowed. What nonsense. I was reporting yesterday's protests for the Guardian and, from the outset, police identified anti-Chinese protesters and subjected them to different rules to red-flag waving spectators.

Before the relay had even properly begun, my colleague witnessed police removing T-shirts and flags from demonstrators. At Ladbroke Grove, spectators carrying Tibetan flags were relegated to a pavement across the road, kept apart from a carnival-style reception.

It was the same story at Bloomsbury Square, which, along with Whitehall, was the most heated part of the relay. Several protesters were dragged away. I saw one woman asked to place her anti-Chinese posters in plastic bags. She told me she had been told by two officers that her materials, which complained about China's treatment of animals, were "inflammatory".

Demonstrators who did not obey police requests to stand in designated areas were repeatedly threatened with anti-terrorist legislation. On what grounds?

Police were also restrictive towards the press. I was threatened with arrest several times - for indiscretions such as having one foot on pavement and another, dreadful as it sounds, on the road. Jim Jameson, a freelance photographer, told me he was "thrown to the ground" while photographing an arrest near Whitehall.


If you wanted to be slightly glib, you could draw parallels with a protest that the police decided not to interfere with, where similarly inflammatory slogans were shouted and on clear display:

Then though it was just the whole country and freedom of speech which was being abused, whereas yesterday it was the Chinese, who are notoriously easily offended.

Then via Justin we have the athletes themselves:

Duncan Goodhew, the former Olympic swimmer who ran with the torch, said: "It shows how extreme things can get in this country and it's a great shame. It's such a bad example for children.

Quite so. Children seeing adults protesting against a PR operation by a tyrannical human rights abuser? Might give them ideas above their station, what?

We also have the pleasure of the Murdoch press having to tie itself in knots, not able to be too critical because of News Corporation's business interests in the country, which leads to the publication of garbage such as today's Sun leader, hilariously titled Freedom wins:

THE Olympic torch’s troubled journey across London was a triumph for democracy.

We are lucky to live in a country that values its citizens’ right to hold lawful, peaceful public protests.


Or at least in a country where the police abitrarily decide the definition of what a lawful, peaceful protest is. Or where the Sun decides what a lawful, peaceful protest is.

And police must be congratulated for their skill in allowing that to happen while preventing those with unlawful intentions from putting the flame out or injuring torch bearers.

Yes, congratulations to the Plod. You've set a wonderful precedent for protecting all other countries that want to run a glorified relay through the streets of London, regardless of their internal politics.

As holders of the next Games in 2012, Britain was right to show solidarity with the Olympic movement by allowing the flame to be paraded on our soil.

By "Olympic movement" the Sun presumably means the Chinese government, which allows its glorious proprietor to beam his wonderful satellite television service into millions of homes. Not to mention MySpace China, ran by the gorgeous pouting Wendi Deng, who just happens to be, err, Murdoch's wife.

Protesters claim it gave China a propaganda victory.

But our Prime Minister repeatedly warns China about its human rights record. Only yesterday Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell publicly condemned it as “reprehensible”.


Golly! Repeatedly warned! That's socking it to them. I bet they're quivering in their jackboots in Tibet now that Brown has "warned" them. No more shooting into crowds now lads, Gordon 'n' Tessa will give us a stern ticking off if we do!

What’s more, Gordon Brown will show his personal support for Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, by meeting him when he visits Britain next month.

Only after he was pressured into doing so by David Cameron raising it as an issue at Prime Minister's Questions. He won't however, unlike some on the continent, boycott the opening ceremony, which would hurt and embarrass China far more than anything else.

The flame is not a symbol of China. It’s an Olympic symbol.

Of course. The Chinese bodyguards that surrounded it were also obviously an Olympic symbol.

It represents peace, friendship and unity. Which makes it all the more poignant that the protesters could not extinguish it.

This leader represents obfuscation, sycophancy and not rocking the boat. Which makes it all the more poignant that the protesters for once cut through the layers of bullshit that often surround every political issue, and have continued to do so today.

Tygerland has a slightly more nuanced view.

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