Beijing Olympics. Should Britain and the world boycott

As you all know (Those who bother to switch to digital) steven Spielberg has pulled out as advisor of the artist design part of the olympics in China. China currently helps the darfor crisis by giving the enemy lots of weapons. So should the world boycott the olympics? To let everyone know, all the athletes have been gagged, under contract. The locals who are victims of China's dictatorship, are simply silenced, moved out into filthy estates, far from the olympics. Yet Gordon Brown flirts with the sword of evil. He will probably sit on the presidents right.

 

I think it's a bold move that Spielberg made. However, the Olympics could be held in any country and there'd be a whole raft of human rights abuses or shady international dealings that could be used as reasons to boycott. I sincerely doubt you'd find any country with a spotless record. Should the world boycott London 2012 because we were blackmailed into squashing an investigation into selling billions of pounds worth of weapons to the Saudis? Or because people can be held for 28 days in this country without charge or evidence brought against them? The point is not to excuse the Chinese for their support of the Sudanese, but to accept the Olympics principally as a sporting event and a unifying force rather than a political platform or source of division. If it were taken as the latter, it'd probably never be held again. Spielberg is right to act on his conscience. But a national boycott is an entirely different matter....

 

well I try not to buy anything from china , I dont like the present anti universe government and they wont get any money from me .

and I know lots of chinese who feel the same way

 

Hahahaha, all the best people are anti-universe....

 

No because the Olympics are many peoples lifes work, that they work pretty much 24/7 for for 4 years. Making a gesture like this while not boycotting Chinese products would be hypocritical. Let sport be sport.

 

It does raise an interesting historical question, however. Should the 1936 Berlin Olympics have been boycotted?

 

It turns out that this was a contentious issue at the time: the US ambassadors to Germany and Austria were both opposed to participation in the games, for instance. Other boycott supporters included prominent Catholic leaders and New York's mayor LaGuardia. The boycott campaign was dismissed by Avery Brundage, president of the American Olympic Committee, as a "Jewish-Communist conspiracy".

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007087

Of course nowadays the 1936 games are largely remembered for the outstanding achievements of the African-American athlete Jesse Owens, who was the first American to win four gold medals in one session of the Games.

I wonder if anyone on this thread has revised their opinion after recent events in Tibet? It would seem inconceivable that the games could go ahead if the situation in Lhasa were to escalate into a bloodbath.

 

I support the Tibetans. China have become a dictatorship. The human rights record is appauling. I do hope that the Beijing Olympics is brought crumbling to the ground.By any means. If the stadium was obliterated, I would celebrate with a diet cola and a good old session with the music player. Infact I would get a chinese takeaway The Beijing Olympics is very controversal. I hope that it is boycotted and sabataged. Chin up. we may be able to pull this one off.