How Olympics have made life worse, not better, for Chinese

Eamon McCann, Columnists - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk: ‘Not for decades has an Olympic Games been opened in such a colourful and overpowering fashion’ — Die Welt. ‘Eye-poppers gave way to jaw-droppers, stunners were followed by dazzlers’ — NBC. The most common reaction to the Olympic opening ceremony has been awe. But the hype and the hoopla can’t hide the fact that the single most awesome aspect of the occasion has been the scale of the deception, and the extent to which the Western media have colluded in presentation of a pageant of propaganda. Over the seven years since China ‘won’ the 2008 Games, the International Olympic Committee has encouraged a belief that human rights in the country would improve as quid pro quo for selection to stage the Games. In fact, no undertaking along such lines was given, or required. It may be that the IOC muttered something to the effect that there might be a problem with regard to human rights, and the politburo replied that would all be sorted out. It’s been sorted out in the sense that dissidents have been thrown into jails and the poor hunted out of sight lest visitors be brought face-to-face with the reality of life for the mass of the people. Far from the Games ushering in more tolerant attitudes on the part of State officialdom, they have brought about a zero-tolerance approach to anyone or anything which might challenge the fraudulent picture of China which the free-market Stalinists of the Hu Jintao regime want the Games to transmit to the world.