Aby April 13th, 2008
The charged political atmosphere in the torch relays of the Beijing Olympics of 2008 should cause the founder of modern international Olympics, the French nobleman Pierre Fredy roll in his grave. The sporting event revived with ideals of promoting peace, harmony and international cultural exchange has eventually grown to turn to to a background of violent political events. Over the last 70 years, there have been several instances where propaganda machinery tried to hijack the Olympics to their political games. However it is significant in the history of Olympics that a pre-sport event such as the Torch relay was mired in so much violent poltical protests, that the security for the torch is much as that a top foreign dignary from a hostile country would require.
Violent anti-China protests at London in April 6, 2008. Note the exaggeration of numbers by the protesters
The Beijing Olympics of 2008 has been turned into political theater for several reasons, right from a percieved threat of a rising China to the issue of Tibetan independance. The loudest protests in UK, US and France have been for the reason that one can be most self-righteous and moralistic about, the cause of Tibet’s freedom. One wonders, had London or San Francisco hosted the 2008 Olympics, would there have been as much widespread and violent protests? We are talking in context of the Anglo-US invasion of Iraq, of course. For those among us who are experienced in media bias and public attention trends in these countries, the answer is already obvious…
A violent anti-Iraq War protest in an Olympic event hosted by UK or US would most likely have been met with nationalistic outrage. The media and public would have had a field day with frenzied disgusts at the protesters with statements like, “How could they politicise an international sporting event like that?”. While the Chinese crackdown on Tibet killed a few hundreds of Tibetan protesters, the civilian death toll of the Iraq War (since 2003) is over 0.6 million and counting. In comparision to China’s crackdown on the Tibet revolution, the human rights abuses of Iraqis by US forces is much more perverted and brutal in nature. Yet the plight of the Iraqi people is far less likely to be a cause for concern, especially in an Olympic ‘run up’ event.
In contrast to the protests in London or San Francisco, the torch relay in the Tanzanian capital Dar Es Salaam met with a warm welcome and cheers from the local people. There were no ‘free Tibet’ protests or attempts to snatch the torch from the people as reported by BBC Afrique. BBC also reports that the torch passed a 20 km run through Muscat, Oman in the Persian Gulf without incident. It seems the violent protests against Beijing Olympics are limited only to a few countries, particularly the Anglo-US group of nations. This leaves us a question to ponder about, is the West European and American protests against Beijing Olympics a self-righteous expression of popular brewing anti-China sentiments? More on that in the coming articles….
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Dmitri July 15th, 2007
The attempted firebombing in Glasgow airport by radical Islamists on July 1 held the the attention of the world for the last few weeks. There were debates and then even more debates about what could have led educated doctors and engineers to an act of terrorism, though it is agreed that their religious inclination had a lot to do with it. Such religious hate and extremism is however, not limited to Islam. If trends in the last few centuries are to be seen, radicalism and intolerance exist in almost all religions be it Islam, Judaism, Christianity or Hinduism. The Islamic radicals of today, in their religious and nationalistic fervour are acting out their religiously intolerant hate against non-Muslims; much like Christians did during the Crusades and Inquisition era. A recent case of a non-Islamic religious intolerance is the protest in the US Senate by Operation Save America against a Hindu priest delivering a prayer.
An news video showing an example of religious intolerance in the US Senate (Click video to play)
One of the most significant reasons of such religious intolerance is the sense of common identity, created by a religious faith, shared by a large group of people. A strong sense of religious identity and faith has time and again been successful in grouping people to a common religious ideology, leading to violent intolerance and bloodsheds in the name of God. It does not matter to religious fanatics that the ‘others’ are human beings with common blood running through them all. All that matters is their religious difference and prescribed hate for others. Radical Islamists, Zionists and Christian extremists were grouped on a common ideology - a lack of understanding of the others’ points of view and an extremist sense of ‘identity’ associated to their religion. In such a case, their education or lack of it holds no influence on whether they become religious extremists or not - it is their faith and religious identity which rules such outcomes.
To attempt to contain religious fanaticism by ideologically attacking a particular religion is as effective as trying to contain fire by putting more fuel. Such a move gives a cause to the religionists, making them regroup in hate filled violence against the people(s) who seemingly insulted their religion. A stark reality of this was the global violent protests against publication of Muhammad’s cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten (followed up by other European newspapers defending free speech). An attempt to repel radical Islamic terrorism by a newspaper using satire, unified Muslims all over the world under the common goal of ‘Islam’ irrespective of the cultural or national sides of their personal self. The radicalised Muslims then went on a rampage against the Western European secularism to avenge the ‘insult’ to their religious leader by a small Danish newspaper.
Whether it is Christian fanaticism or Islamic extremism - humanity or compassion for other human beings become irrelevant when religious identity gains supreme in an extremist way. As long as religions and blind faiths exist, religious intolerance and violence will remain a part of dark reality, whether in the secular Europe, conservative America or extremist Israel and Iran.
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