But then, there are the Olympics. I love the Olympics. I love how despite the corporate sponsorships they aren’t enterprises like the NBA or NFL. I love how they bring the world’s countries together and make sports just that much sportier. For a few weeks, I actually enjoy getting caught up in it all, obsessively keeping track of how well my ponies are galloping towards the medal rounds and marveling at the thrill of friendly but intense contests. Really: The Olympic season should be a national holiday. After all, when the sport you want to watch – fencing, or archery, or pin the tail on the donkey – is on in the middle of the night, it would be nice not to worry about getting out of bed the next morning and lumbering to work.

A Cork in the Bottle of Excitement

I admit, though, that the location for this year’s summer Olympics – Beijing – has put a cork in my normally bubbly enthusiasm. I’m sure Beijing is a great city, just as I’m sure China is a beautiful country…but what about that whole Tibet thing? The crackdown on Tibetans protesters demonstrated all too-clearly that as much as China is putting forth the face of the cuddly capitalist – look ma, no communism! – old-school totalitarianism is alive and well. As Naomi Klein described in a recent piece for Rolling Stone (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/), “China today…represents a new way to organize society. Sometimes called ‘market Stalinism,’ it is a potent hybrid of the most powerful political tools of authoritarian communism — central planning, merciless repression, constant surveillance — harnessed to advance the goals of global capitalism.”

When China’s violent suppression of protests in Tibet was flaring up, the news was a-twitter with talk of boycotting the opening ceremonies or engaging in some sort of act that would, politically speaking, give China the bird. That talk has quieted down, it seems, but the ghost of Tibet’s trouble is very restless indeed. The tragic situation reveals the extent to which those “political tools” have been put to use in controlling information and, by extension, people. Naomi Klein again: “But inside China, the Tibet debacle may actually have been a boon to the party, strengthening its grip on power. Despite its citizens having unprecedented access to information technology (there are as many Internet users in China as there are in the U.S.), the party demonstrated that it could still control what they hear and see. And what they saw on their TVs and computer screens were violent Tibetans, out to kill their Chinese neighbors, while police showed admirable restraint.”

If the censorship and manipulation of information for propaganda purposes isn’t disturbing enough, let me introduce you to Golden Shield, which isn’t a fancy name for a deluxe pee-pee teepee, but a vast 24-hour surveillance system that makes use of advanced software, biometrics, cameras, ID cards and all that Orwellian good stuff. Again, for all the plushy good will of the Olympics and China’s performance as the savvy, if not lead-free, junior entrepreneur, it’s clear that there is also something very wrong going on behind the façade.

Worse, that dictatorship, that sinister image of constant surveillance by Big Brother, is made possible by American companies willing to sell and/or develop “security” technology to Chinese firms – a relationship that is apparently turning Westward as the Chinese try to break into American markets. (See Klein’s article.) As London, New York and other cities attest, we residents of the so-called Western democracies are increasingly inoculated to the outrage that should confront increased surveillance – or, as it should really be called, government spying. This begs a few questions: Are we being complicit in China’s totalitarianism? Are we reinforcing the business relationship between ours and China’s security-industrial complex? What does it mean, then, to hold the Olympics in China? Given what we know, does China really deserve to have the Olympics?