Chinese Olympic officials said yesterday they supported bans on athletes engaging in political protests. “I hope that the Olympic spirit will be followed and also the relevant IOC regulations will be followed in every regard,” said Sun Weide, spokesman of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games. Sun’s statement came in the midst of an uproar over the attempted gagging of British athletes.
On Saturday, the Mail, the London paper, reported that athletes qualifying for the British Olympic team would be required to sign a contract preventing them from speaking out on “any politically sensitive issues.” Athletes not agreeing to the ban of the British Olympic Association would not be allowed to travel to Beijing. Those who broke the ban while at the Olympics would be shipped home on the next available plane. On Sunday, British Olympic chief Simon Clegg said, in the face of widespread condemnation, that he would review the wording of the contract and agreed that the proposed language “appears to have gone beyond the provision of the Olympic Charter.”
The Olympic Charter forbids demonstrations or propaganda at Olympic sites, but the British ban would have gone further, especially if viewed in the context of China, where most topics are considered “political” and virtually everything is “sensitive.” A British competitor could have found himself on the first flight home for commenting on, for instance, polluted air or tainted food.
Up to now, only Belgium and New Zealand have prohibited political opinions from their Olympic athletes. Clegg’s hasty retreat means that, unlike in 1938 when the British soccer team was forced to give the stiff-armed Nazi salute in Berlin, the British will not, in the words of former sports minister David Mellor, be “sucking up to dictators.”
Chinese dictators, no matter how obsessive or efficient, will be unable to stage a politics-free Games on their own. They will need help in suppressing democracy advocates, Tibetan activists, and Falun Gong adherents, and so far some Western nations seem willing to lend a hand. Unfortunately, it does not appear that we can engage China’s rulers without being compromised by them. At least there is now one reason we can thank the craven and utterly reprehensible British Olympic Association. Simon Clegg and his colleagues show us that sometimes the price of good relations with bad leaders is much too high.
certainly they should advise the federal government. cambridge is one of the wealthiest cities in america.
Can madison and berkley be far behind?
Also, I think the city council should pay a little more attention to the Mass congressional delegations actual votes. If I am notmistaken, that delegation voted in favor of a resolution blamig the conflict on the Hamas and affirming Israel’s right to defend itself. Even Kerry voted for it.
why would they do that? neither kerry nor kennedy are from cambridge
Berkeley has a population of about 100,000 as well. I live about 2 miles north. Berkeley’s city council has passed thousands of these things over the last 40 years. To my knowledge, no one paid any attention to any of them, and no one will pay any attention to Cambridge’s either.
I really don’t understand what it is about lefties that compel them to tell everyone, everywhere, how “outraged” they are by anything or everything.
There must be some clinical term for it.
#1, if New York can’t advise the federal government, then Cambridge can’t.
I really don’t like Cambridge
Well, Scott, at least stuff like that doesn’t happen over here in Oakland
We could help these people get over themselves by paying no attention to their sanctimonious BS.
i’m waiting for new haven to start lobbing qassam’s at harvard square….
…but, given connecticut’s prowess, my bet is the bulk of the rockets would hit mit
#9, mds123 nails it. Perfectly. (I’m an ex-Nutmegger).
You don’t understand. Harvard is in Cambridge. That makes the city important. Chalk up another reason I went to Yale: At least New Haven, for the most part, knows its place.
Imagine if Cambridge had passed a pro-Israel resolution. Commentary would have been thrilled. Therefore, any objections to them caring about what happens on the other side of the world are mere window dressing. Commentary is just mad that Cambridge isn’t giving Israel the ol’ stiff-armed salute.
If the Cambridge elders had groveled before the Zionists, no doubt the author would bake them a a chocolate babka.
#13…in the interests of diversity, it wouldn’t be a babka – baclava…[more fattening as well as regionally correct]
c’mon, 15 comments and nobody’s mentioned Ann Arbor yet?
that’s where I live, and this college town of 100,000 has also passed silly resolutions like this before; I believe we supported the Sandinistas, if I remember correctly.
this news doesn’t surprise me at all.
You have to love this line:
“That the City Clerk be and hereby is requested to forward a suitably engrossed copy of this resolution to President Bush, President-elect Obama, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Secretaries-designate of State and Defense…”
Ummm…the Secretary-designate of Defense *is* the current Secretary of Defense.
Fools.
The Cambridge City Council seems to have changed since my undergraduate days in the 1960′s. Back then all their energy was devoted to squabbling with the Harvard administration. The resolution I remember best was one giving the name “Yale Square” to an intersection near Harvard. After passing it, the Council announced that they weren’t really going to put up a sign because, as they claimed, the city couldn’t afford a sign saying Yale Square. I think the implication was that it was somehow Harvard’s fault that they were broke.
C’mon, newbies, Berkeley invented this s**t.
Regarding our Oakland City Council, G, give me a guess. How many of those intellectual powerhouses know where or what Gaza is?
Back in the 1980s, the town of Tacoma Park, MD, just outside of Washington, DC, voted itself a “Nuclear Free Zone”, which resolution stated that no nuclear weapons could be placed in or transit through the sovereign territory of the People’s Republic of Tacoma Park. I am sure that incoming Soviet nuclear warheads targeted on the Nation’s Capital, would respect the laws and good intentions of the people of Tacoma Park.
Someone has forgotten the considerable presence of aerospace & related companies in Connecticut.
These companies are on our side, though, as many universities and university towns are not.
“John Hartland” said, “Commentary is just mad that Cambridge isn’t giving Israel the ol’ stiff-armed salute.”
Another type of salute is more appropriate for “John”.