French Action Against Beijing Olympics

Two months ago a French-based group called the Collective for the Boycott of the Beijing Olympics (COBOP), supported by many other organisations, journals, professors, philosophers and intellectuals held a protest in front of the Chinese Embassy, calling for boycotting next year’s Beijing Games.

The Group pointed out that since getting the right to host the Olympics, the Chinese government has increased its “attempts to weaken dissidents, its critical intellectuals, the poor, the unproductive, and the country’s independent unions”. The Games has also “meant the accelerated demolition of many working-class neighbourhoods (hutongs) and historical sites. The international recognition of the Games, consecrated by the Olympic consensus, will put a stamp of acceptability on this violence”.

Pointing to China’s aggressiveness with regard to Taiwan, the release said that it not only has plans to take over Taiwan, it is also pursuing a diplomatic and warlike offensive on Japan whilst terrorizing the autonomous Uighur region. “The colonisation of Tibet is taking a genocidal turn: acts of murder, torture and forced abortion are committed with total impunity,” said the release. Referring to other controversial Games in Berlin and Soviet Russia, the release said that “the Olympic Games have always served as a screen for strategies of war and extermination”.

Finally the group pointed out that in the end the Olympics is about ‘manipulation and waste’. “Five billion euros are being spent to impose a fortnight of “fun” in a country where the oppressed are in every way deprived. The waste that the Olympic Games represents is an insult to world poverty. How can we tolerate that the sports world and its colossal capital preach this lesson of solidarity to billions of people living on less than 1 euro a day?,” the group asked.

“Ultimately for the 2008 Olympic Games, the International Olympics Committee’s diplomatic manoeuvre is well and truly to support a regime of totalitarianism and slavery” said Mr Fabien Ollier from COBOP. The demonstration was attended French and Tibetans living in Paris and across France.

It would seem that the French have taken the lead on this issue and it is up to all other free-thinking nations to follow suit!