By KEVIN B. BLACKISTONE,
Sports Commentary
On July 7, 1936, The Toronto Star printed a letter to the editor that read in part:
“We desire to advise you that we have decided not to take part in the boxing trials to be held in Montreal to select the Canadian Olympic team.
It is a matter of keen disappointment to us to turn down the opportunity of trying for the great honor and privilege of making a place on the Canadian team. However, we have gone into the question very carefully with our families and friends in the community, and find that we cannot act differently from what we have decided. We know that we, as Canadian boys, would be personally safe, and perhaps well received in Germany. But can we forget the way the German Government is treating the Jewish boys in Germany?
We are making a personal sacrifice in refusing the chance, and we are sure that all true Canadian sportsmen will appreciate that we would have been very low to hurt the feelings of our fellow-Jews by going to a land that would exterminate them if it could. We wish the Canadian team every success.”
The letter was signed by Sam Luftspring, who won the Canadian welterweight crown two years later and was inducted into the Canada Sports Hall of Fame in 1985, and Norman “Baby” Yak. They were not alone, either, in athletes refusing to compete for fame and prize in Hitler’s racist Germany.
I only wish their story wasn’t so forgotten and unknown on the eve of this summer’s Olympics in China.
Time was I thought that awarding China the 2008 Summer Games was a good idea. I wrote as much seven years ago in my old column in The Dallas Morning News. I believed that putting China in the world spotlight with the prize it so badly wanted, the Olympics, would at least shame it into reform.
Isolationists argued that China’s human rights record should have disqualified it from hosting the world's quadrennial athletic carnival. They said China wouldn’t feel the least obligated to alter its behavior.
Now, a few months from the Opening Ceremonies in Beijing, China has proved the isolationists right and the optimists like me wrong.
China is still complicit in the war in the Darfur region of Sudan, where at least 2.5 million people have fled their homes during the five year conflict and some 200,000 have died from famine, disease or fighting. The United States termed it genocide.
In recent weeks, China added Tibet to its bloody resume. Its crackdown against demonstrators there has left at least 150 dead, according to Tibet’s government-in-exile in India.
All tolled, it’s been enough to stoke calls for boycotting these games. I called for as much last summer in a column in The Politico. At this date, that won’t happen. The games ultimately are about making money and there is too much of it to lose with it being too late to ramp up a substitute site.
QINHUANGDAO, CHINA - AUGUST 06: Natasha Kai of the USA controls the ball during a Women's Group G preliminary match between Norway and the USA at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 6, 2008 in Quinhuangdao, China. Norway defeated the USA 2-0. (Photo by Noriko Hayakusa/Getty Images)
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QINHUANGDAO, CHINA - AUGUST 06: Shannon Boxx of the USA controls the ball during a Women's Group G preliminary match between Norway and the USA at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 6, 2008 in Tianjin, China. Norway defeated the USA 2-0. (Photo by Noriko Hayakusa/Getty Images)
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QINHUANGDAO, CHINA - AUGUST 06: Amy Rodriguez of the USA controls the ball during a Women's Group G preliminary match between Norway and the USA at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 6, 2008 in Tianjin, China. Norway defeated USA 2-0. (Photo by Noriko Hayakusa/Getty Images)
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QINHUANGDAO, CHINA - AUGUST 06: USA players react after the defeat of Women's Group G match between Norway and USA during the football event on Day -2 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 6, 2008 in Qinhuangdao, China. Norway defeated USA 2-0. (Photo by Noriko Hayakusa/Getty Images)
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Uighurs play cards near a billboard displaying the Beijing Olympic Games mascots in Kashgar, China, Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2008. Kashgar is 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) west of Beijing, in the far western region of Xinjiang _ a vast, rugged territory home to a Muslim minority called the Uighurs. They have a long history of pushing for independence, and Chinese authorities have blamed a series of sporadic bombings, shootings and riots in recent years on Uighur extremist groups.(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
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TIANJIN, CHINA - AUGUST 06: Canadian Women's team coach Even Pellerud looks on during Women's Group E match between Canada and Argentina during the football event on Day -1 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 7, 2008 in Tianjin, China. (Photo by Koji Watanabe/Getty Images)
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TIANJIN, CHINA - AUGUST 06: Canadian Players pose for photographs before Women's Group E match between Canada and Argentina during the football event on Day -1 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 7, 2008 in Tianjin, China. Canada beat Argentina 2-1. (Photo by Koji Watanabe/Getty Images)
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TIANJIN, CHINA - AUGUST 06: Mariela Coronel of Argentina (R) and Clare Rustad of Canada compete for the ball during Women's Group E match between Canada and Argentina during the football event on Day -1 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 7, 2008 in Tianjin, China. Canada defeated Argentina 2-1. (Photo by Koji Watanabe/Getty Images)
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TIANJIN, CHINA - AUGUST 06: Christine Sinclair of Canada and Vanina Correa (L) and Eva Gonzalez of Argentina compete for the ball during Women's Group E match between Canada and Argentina during the football event on Day -1 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 7, 2008 in Tianjin, China. Canada beat Argentina 2-1. (Photo by Koji Watanabe/Getty Images)
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Canada's Tyler Christopher attends a training session for the Canadian Olympic athletics squad in Singapore August 6, 2008. The Canadian athletics squad is training in Singapore in preparation for the Beijing Olympics 2008. REUTERS/Vivek Prakash (SINGAPORE)
Reuters
Something must be done, however. These Olympics need to be turned into a bully pulpit against tyranny.
More world leaders, especially President Bush, need to voice their condemnation of China’s government by doing what German Chancellor Angela Merkel said last week she would do – not attend the games. At the very least they should stay away from the Opening Ceremonies.
More celebrities need to walk away from their commercial relationships with the games, which is what Steven Spielberg did several weeks ago. He was the artistic director for the opening and closing ceremonies.
More important, some prominent athletes need to pull out like Luftspring and Yak, or pull out and become prominent for doing so. After all, they are the stars of the games.
Instead of just having the Olympic rings adorn their uniforms as a symbol of world unity, athletes should add ribbons – or buttons like John Carlos and Tommie Smith wore in ’68 Summer Games for the Olympic Project for Human Rights – in protest of China’s inhumane practices.
These games can’t be allowed to go on as if in a vacuum, adhering to the Olympic Committee’s disingenuous pledge that its games are not about politics. Politics have always been a backdrop, if not a foundation, for the Olympics.
There always has been more at stake than medals and fame and China knows as much. That’s why it so badly wanted these games and now that it has them it couldn’t care less. It is still cracking down on those born to it for daring to speak out for freedom. It is muzzling media. It is, to put it crudely, giving the finger to the rest of the world.
Athletes need to punch back, like Carlos and Smith did in Mexico City with black-gloved fists thrust into the sky.
This is no time for athletes to plead ignorance or exercise selfishness. This is a time to be the ultimate teammate, a selfless one.
Kevin B. Blackistone is a regular panelist on ESPN's Around the Horn, an XM Satellite Radio host and a frequent sports opinionist on other outlets like National Public Radio and The Politico. A former award-winning sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News, he currently lives in Hyattsville, Md.
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