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Volumes have been written about the upcoming Beijing Olympics. While critics liken it to the Berlin Olympics of 1936, supporters speak of it as a rite of passage for China from wannabe to superpower. It is beneficial to analyze both the vociferous condemnation of the critics and the cheerleading of the supporters from an international socialist perspective.
First of all it is necessary to question some of the pervasive mythology surrounding the Olympic games.
The myth of the Olympics as a primarily sporting event: Well, this is what they're supposed to be, but the Olympics is primarily big business. Billions of dollars of profits hinge on the success of these games. Marketers and the corporate world view this as one lengthy commercial in which sport plays an incidental role, as the audiences are truly global in nature.
The myth of fairness: To put it bluntly, the Olympics are far from "fair" in any genuine sense of the word. In an unequal world, it is nonsense to assert that athletes from impoverished nations lacking equipment and facilities for training face "fair" competition from vastly better equipped rivals in more prosperous nations.
The myth of the Olympics being about unity and "bringing people together": The rancor surrounding the present Games should put this one to rest. The Olympics have degenerated into a platform for rival nationalisms, each seeking to use the Games to embarrass the other. Individual athletes may, no doubt experience such feelings, but these should not be extrapolated to the nations they represent.
With the understanding that the Olympics are theater for competing capitalist and nationalist interests more than anything else, the actions of both the critics and supporters become easier to understand.
For a majority of Western critics, the hosting of the games by China is fundamentally unacceptable. While the putative reasons are Chinese treatment of its own people, its support of atrocities in Sudan or the curtailment of press freedoms, the reality is quite different. It is hard to believe that the Western ruling class and media have any real sympathy for either the Chinese working class (whose oppression funds profits of capitalists world wide, not just the Maoist hierarchy) or Sudan. That they are indifferent to the lives of impoverished masses in "poor" countries is amply illustrated by their complete lack of shame, sorrow or concern about the fate of the million plus killed in Iraq or the many millions more displaced as a consequence. Supporters of imperialism and the worst forms of capitalist exploitation are no friends of working people anywhere.
The real reasons that motivate these hypocrites are to be sought elsewhere, namely, in the uneasiness they feel about the rise of a new challenger to the existing global order, with more than a tinge of racialism reminiscent of the "yellow peril". The emergence of a rival capitalist entity (especially one as aggressively nationalist as China) is always seen as a serious threat to the forces of "order" and the status-quo. Ergo, this is the perfect opportunity for them to stoke jingoist nationalism. China is already portrayed as a "prospective enemy" in many quarters, besides being presented as an economic threat to the West. This is a cynical exploitation of the fears of working people in uncertain times and its consequences could be catastrophic.
For their part, the Chinese rulers have very similar goals. While accusing the West of hypocrisy and politicization of the games, they have in turn used the Olympics as an opportunity to whip up extreme forms of nationalism. These games help to serve as a perfect shield to deflect the rising anger of China's masses over worsening economic conditions and runaway inflation. Cheap nationalistic pride is poor grist for hungry bellies, though, and the Chinese rulers are aware of this. Oppressive as they are, they fear their working classes more than anything else. Any perceived "slight" by Western powers would thus be utilized to the greatest extent possible by the CCP to further inflame the passion of their people.
These games ARE in that sense, eerily similar to the 1936 Olympics. At that time too, a realignment of global powers and the emergence of an ambitious upstart plunged the world into a brutal conflict the likes of which had never been seen before. The devastating consequences of the repetition of such a conflict would be borne by working people; war makes the bosses rich, while ordinary people pay in blood and dollars.
Seen in this light, it is clear that the dichotomy of either "supporting the Olympics" or "opposing it" is a false one for the working class. There are no "sides" to take here, and the "winner", whoever it is, will not be the working class.
-entanglement
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