Tangled Up In Green: Faster, Higher, Stronger, Greener
There has been talk recently of boycotting the 2008 Beijing Olympics for any number of valid reasons. Whether it is for the freedom of Tibet, the atrocities in Darfur, or China’s environmental policies.
However, what would be achieved by boycotting the Olympics? Is China going to step back and say, “Whoa… the United States is right. We are all messed up and need to change.” Probably not.
And who are we to tell another country that they aren’t perfect? If the Olympics were here, who would be boycotting our games?
As a child I was led to believe that the Olympics were a coming together of different cultures and nations for the sake of sport and international cooperation. And in fact that WAS part of the basis for reinventing the Olympics in the first place. As the father of modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin once said,
“May joy and good fellowship reign, and in this manner, may the Olympic torch pursue its way through ages, increasing friendly understanding among nations, for the good of a humanity always more enthusiastic, more courageous and more pure.”
Of course, I grew up and found that most of my dreams and fantasies taught to me by society were pure poppycock. But do all of our childhood misconceptions about the world have to be disproved? I mean, Santa Claus is a given, but what about the concept of peace on earth and goodwill towards man?
Yes there is a ton of controversy in the Olympics and has been since Ancient Greece. But why not use it as a tool to make the illusion a reality? Let’s take the Adam Werbach approach and make the Olympics blue by working with countries for a better future. Let’s use it as a starting point of international cooperation to move forward with international blue and green initiatives.
We have everything to lose, and nothing to gain by boycotting the Olympics. It is not going to inspire change. It is not going to help the environment or Tibet.
But it is going to hurt our relationship with China. What happens next time North Korea wants to do some nuclear missile testing, and China boycotts our efforts to stop it?
Let’s make the Olympics a symbol of our commitment to working with the entire world to make it greener.
Protest photo by 3rd eye guy @ Flickr
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