Dismayed – I was wrong about OL
Jul 28th, 2008 by Peter
I’ve always been of the opinion that China should get the Olympics. I felt it would pull China towards better hnm@n r!ghts and more fred0m of sqeech. Right now I am not so sure.
Actually I have to admit that I was wrong, and now feel the opposite. A feeling I don’t quite like.
From the start I was in doubt about which side to take, but eventually picked the optimistic path (much unlike my normal behaviour) hoping and believing that OL would actually help China steer the big ship with the current, instead of against it.
The last year, I’ve followed the developments via blogs, the Internet and other media. I know you shouldn’t believe everything you read, but until now I’ve read very few positive stories. Of course fred0m of sqeech also has a negative side exaggerating everything, but even that couldn’t explain that many dismaying stories from the middle kingdom. Well, sure, there has been a few about internet sites like Chinese Wikipedia and similar being unbanned from the GFW, but just as soon as the good news got out, they were back on the black list.
Foreign journalists are supposed to have total liberty to rapport about Olympics, but the government forgot to tell the local police about it (Danish article). The same site tells us a story of how demonstrations are allowed in certain areas of Beijing, but not really when you dig into the application procedure.
The government keeps a straight face and says that the general criticism is uncalled for, while facts say something else.
So what has really changed? Nothing much I suspect. Well, my optimism has, but bet the Chinese government doesn’t care. My gut feeling tells me that it has in reality gotten worse.
That’s about 1 week before the opening ceremony. Somehow I don’t think that’ll be enough to straighten the last bumps (mountains) in the road?
