The Beijing Polympics!

"Keep the politics out of the Olympics. I am not sympathetic to those who would try to embarrass China, try to spoil the Games or try to make political hay out of the Olympics." George Bush Sr reportedly told the USA Today recently.

That is understandable. In fact, the United States has reasons to thank China for coming to the rescue of the Los Angeles Games in 1984. Peter Ueberroth, president of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, was gravely concerned when the then Soviet Union decided to boycott the event in retaliation of the US-led effort to shun the Moscow Olympics in 1980 following Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

But a heavy burden was lifted off his back when Ueberroth received a phone call from Beijing, confirming Chinese participation in the Summer Games. With China on board, the Soviet boycott would not succeed, or "we would be finished", so said Ueberroth.

There you go: when the Games are hosted by an enemy state, it is morally and politically correct and even justified to boycott them; when they are not, the biggest sport event in the world should just be about athlete and sport.

Which is pure hogwash. As Dallas Darling recently wrote in Asia Times Online, politics will always trump the Olympics and sporting competitions. It is a perfect political arena to showcase the host nation’s wealth, power, strength and might. In the case of Nazi Germany and China, it is about global recognition and legitimacy.

(In fact, when the host rights were awarded to Berlin in 1929, Germany was still under the chaotic but democratic Weimar Republic, while Adolf Hitler was dead against the idea of the Aryan race competing alongside the "niggers". The Führer changed his mind in no time the moment he realised the Berlin Olympics could be used to boost his image. Despite a sceptical American public, Washington embraced the Games gladly as it now does.)

If China’s communist leadership is at pain to drive home the message of a depoliticized sport event, why were President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao so eager to court the attendance of world leaders? And why should they set aside several designated protest zones in Beijing just to please foreign journalists? If they were truly convinced of the Olympics being non-political in nature, they should have stood their ground instead of caving into others’ demands.

Even then, it would seem easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for one to get a permit to protest in the Chinese capital.

Mind you, when China made its bid back in 2001, Liu Jingmin, vice president of the Beijing Olympic Bid Committee, lobbied the International Olympic Committee by arguing that an opportunity for Beijing to host the Games would help the development of human rights in China.

I am rather puzzled when the majority of Chinese Malaysians are seemingly receptive of the idea that sports are politics-free. Too bad that Malaysia is too small a nation, whose limited geo-strategic value and economic clout are simply not important enough for global powers such as the US, China, Russia and the European Union to threaten us with boycott.

Imagine if Britain, Australia and Canada were to shun the 1998 Commonwealth Games in the wake of Mahathir Mohammad’s authoritarian rule and the discriminatory practices towards the non-Malay communities, I am pretty sure much of the Chinese population would be throwing up their hands in a cheer - except for the private sector that salivates at business opportunities of course.

As for the Umno-led government that is increasingly warming up to China as an economic powerhouse in the region, the Beijing Olympics are all about sport but not politics, despite the tight rule in the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang that has resulted in the marginalization of the Muslim communities: not only the Uygurs, but Kazaks, Kirgiz, Tajik and Tartars also.

Imagine again if Israel were to host the Games, all hell would break loose with Umno and PAS competing for Muslim support by demonizing the Jewish state.

Malaysia was awash with high expectations before Lee Chong Wei was set to play against Lin Dan, the world’s No.1 player, in the Olympics Badminton Final. Chinese Malaysians, naturally, earnestly hoped a win would bring glories to first the community and then the country, while the non-Chinese too were looking forward to Malaysia’s first Olympic gold medal.

Alas, Lee was no match for "Super Dan", who won with a smash down the line.

As soon as he returned home, Lee was whisked away by Umno to Butterworth to be a poster boy in the Permatang Pauh by-election. Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak now has the nerve to tell the Chinese Lee is a living proof of the BN’s equal opportunity. Not to be outflanked, Lim Guan Eng, Penang’s chief minister, saw it fit to confer a datukship on Lee, making him the third youngest datuk in the country.

Now, it is up to those who are easily deluded by state propaganda and lost in vainglory to reiterate the Olympics are never about politics.

Be it the US, China or Malaysia, it is always one rule for themselves and another for the rest. I mentioned Afghanistan was the reason why much of the "free world" boycotted the Moscow Olympics. Today, the situation in the central Asian Muslim nation is in no better shape than in the 1980s, as the war on the Taliban in 2001 has turned the country into a powderkeg, where the remnants of Taliban units operate freely.

And it is not only the extreme Muslim forces that are trigger happy. In May this year, Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary execution, reported that widespread civilian deaths in Afghanistan were also a result of the illegal actions of the CIA and other international military forces. Air raids that targeted civilian dwellings indiscriminately were also a major cause of tragic deaths in the country.

If the situation in Afghanistan (and Iraq for that matter) deteriorated beyond rescue, would Malaysia consider boycotting the London Olympics in 2012 given Britain’s deep and extensive involvement in the military operations there?

I don’t know, but it perhaps depends on whether Umno or PAS is among the ruling parties at the national level then. In any case, history has shown us separating politics from the Olympics is as hard as weeding out corruption in Malaysia. I wonder whether any mentally sound person would buy a shallow argument as such.