Fiction Daily.
A blog on writing, writers and why we read. Posted most mornings by Marion Blackburn. www.marionblackburn.net
Tibet 1, torch 0
photo
They're calling them "violent" protests, but it seems any protest against the Beijing Olympics is considered violent these days. No consumer-driven economy wants to anger the Chinese, but ordinary people aren't afraid to.

Yesterday in Paris, the Olympic torch was put out -- and put on a safe bus -- after protests followed it throughout the City of Light.

The torch was set to arrive in San Francisco today for tomorrow's relay. It may be canceled.

Friends of Tibet in San Francisco, using rock-climbing cables and at a considerable personal risk, scaled the Golden Gate Bridge to hang banners reading, "One World, One Dream. Free Tibet" and "Free Tibet 08." Commuters yesterday could watch the drama -- and the banners -- unfurl as they drove along the bridge.

The Olympic Committee is not amused. They may cancel the torch run in San Francisco, and everywhere, altogether.

The Olympics, which I've held so dear, appear to me now as more of a conservative money maker without decency or morals. I wonder how it felt to the Jewish and ordinary people to see the world go ahead with the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany. Business as usual. Sorry about the fascist brutality. Carry on.

Then again, yesterday as I pondered the awesome sight of those climbers on the bridge, a glint of hope came and I remembered how, one day in 1989, communist rule ... just ... ended. Poof. Over.

People in East Germany drove their Trebbies (small cars) to embassies, left them there, and discovered they were free to leave the country. In what seems like no time at all, the "wall" came down, communism ended, the Cold War, too.

In China today, there is a lot of new wealth. Young people have a better idea of the world beyond their borders. The Internet, even curtailed, has provided a door to ideas.

Could it happen, that tight-fisted rule in China, like that of the old regimes in Eastern Europe, could end?

AP photo by Paul Sakuma
2008-04-08 11:54:09 GMT
Comments (3 total)
Author:Anonymous
Some great reporting happening in the coverage of the Olympic torch relay debacle. The whole thing -- from the starting ceremony in Greece to London to Paris -- has been a huge black eye for the Chinese leadership. Not exactly the image they want to project! Now the cause is being carried even ahead of the torch, to San Francisco.

Bless everyone who stands up for the rights of others!
--Gene-o
<mailto:eugene_downs@hotmail.com>
2008-04-08 13:19:23 GMT
Author:Anonymous
Hey Gene ... I've been thinking a lot about what it could mean for change ... then I remember Tiananmen Square in 1989 ... were you at the Telegram in those days? Hopes dashed. -- MB
2008-04-08 15:33:56 GMT
Author:Anonymous
That was during my first tenure in Savannah (left Rocky Mount in December '88 -- yikes, almost 20 years ago). The image of that man facing down a tank was so powerful ... and then nothing like permanent change came of it.
--Gene-o
<mailto:eugene_downs@hotmail.com>
2008-04-08 18:43:09 GMT
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