Last Updated on: 8th November 2013, 08:19 am
What’s wrong with this statement?
The national Olympic committees said others should stand up instead of athletes.
“Sports should not carry the burden,” said Togay Bayatli, president of the Turkish Olympic Committee.
“Our countries are doing business there. Everybody is going there,” Bayatli said, adding it was up to businessmen and politicians to take the initiative.
This, of course, is in reference to the idea of a boycott on the upcoming Olympics in China, and the answer to my question above, as should be obvious, is everything.
Why shouldn’t sports carry the burden? Just because it’s not as simple as passing the buck and being part of the problem while raking in billions of dollars?
And speaking of passing the buck, when has it ever been a good idea to leave such an important ethical decision to businessmen and politicians? Businessmen are among the greediest, most unscrupulous pieces of worthless shit on the planet, and many of our politicians are/were part of that culture. Saying that they should be the ones to start the ball rolling towards doing what’s right is akin to saying “why yes, I’m fine letting these NAMBLA folks watch my children, they seem like a fine influence.”
The choice to boycott the Olympics and for that matter China in general isn’t a matter of money or politics or even some guy who can throw a hammer really, really far. It’s a matter of right and wrong, more specifically human rights and government wrongs. It’s about standing up for your fellow man and showing some humanity rather than suckling from the teat of an emerging market because it makes sound financial sense. If, as stated
here,
sport is a tool of dialogue, why not get one started by making the Chinese ask “hey, where’d everybody go?”