Took these snaps this weekend while I was in the city. I've heard mixed opinions on the situation in Tibet from the States. Last week I read that Clinton and Obama were protesting the Olympics (can anyone verify this information?).
What are you thoughts on the situation in Tibet?
5 comments:
Obama and Clinton have talked about protesting the Olympics. The torch was stopped by protesters in LA as well. Lots of talk in these parts about the controversy!
They, and others, are calling on Bush to sit out of the opening ceremony to protest. Bush will not miss the Olympics, because he wants to support our participants, but he hasn't made it clear if he's going to protest the opening ceremony.
The whole Olympics thing is so hard because we want to support the whole "world coming together thing" , as well as our own athletes, but so many people want to protest the actions of the Chinese. Protesting the opening ceremony is like taking a shot at China's pride, so I expect Bush to sit that one out... but we'll see.
I don't pay attention to Olympics. If I start talking about Tibet then I'll go on and on trying to make a point and I fail to do -- I don't want to start.
It's valiant that people care about Tibet. What about the other countries that their own governments deny their human rights? North Korea, some African countries, some South American countries, Middle East and so on. Should we wait for next Olympics (after China)in such country that denies human rights so that outside people would act or protest?
I don't know how this protest going to work because this sort of thing happened before and miserably failed. I applaud brave people who speak for the rights of humans. Athletes could help too by not participating in Olympics even though they worked so hard for this. It could make an impact by numbers.
Even if I support the protest, I won't be doing anything with it. I'll just root. Woo woo. Again, I don't watch Olympics.
I think it is totally unfair to our athletes and the rest of the world to keep them from participating. But I think protesting the main ceremony is a blow to China's image on the world stage.
Plus, let's not pretend like this is the only thing we are doing to help them and other countries. We are placing sanctions, and Congress is pressing for more sanctions to punish China for its actions on the world stage. The UN is talking sanctions and other efforts to push China into complying. (Sanctions from the US and other countries have kept N. Korea economically weak for some time because of its lack of respect for human rights)
I'm not saying we should force or pressure athletes not to participate in Olympics. I say they "could" by their own choice. And if they did and by numbers, they could make an impact. I was stating a hypothetical situation. I should be clear on the next time I say something like that.
Government is made of people. So the group of people is governing people. In countries like North Korea, how could they do such a thing and how could they follow cruel tyrants? Aren't they people? (rhetorical question)
Now that Josh said about sanctions, I'm bit relieved.
Josh summed up the US politicans view on the Tibet issue. To round out the presidential canidates McCain has said that Bush should seriously consider not attending the opening ceremony.
Other major world leaders already said they are not going to attend unless major changes occur, most notable from the west probably being Prime Minister Brown.
I have considered blogging on this issue for a while, but have no since I don't feel like I know enough about it yet. Still, I will give my opinion here.
I don't think that we ought to do any kind of protest with these Olympic games. Josh is right in terms of the athletes, but I take it much further than them, as it hurts our National image.
My main reason though is that protesting olympics has always turned out bad before. The great thing about the Olympics is that they seem to go on no matter all the horrible things happening in this world. Boycotting aganist that is going aganist that tradition. Carter boycotted the 1980 Olympics and it was a horrible move.
The nations decided to have the games in China knowing about these problems. What were they expecting? That was their point to reject China, not now.
In the politics of it all though. Josh is again right, the pressure will be too much for Bush and he is gonna have to sit the opening ceremony out.
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