the opening ceremony of the olympics games in Beijing was really beautiful. It radiated the image of a highly developed and refined civilization, with a high sense of beauty, history and progress.
Here: remembering the discovery of mobile-type printing
(Photo credit: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
Hopefully China will develop soon a comparable level of human rights too.
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Cheers! Sandra. R.
Riccardo says:
August 9th, 2008 at 12:31
Hi Alex,
you forgot to say that the ceremony of the olympic games in Peking has also been a huge show for the chinese (communist?) regime.
For comparison, see some video of the olympic games of 1936:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1vOrIf_FdE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJFlv8uiLig&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7Q1HbUJDKo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV28uGic5hs&feature=related
This beautiful show must be put in the perspective of the modern China. It disappears compared to the vast number of capital punishments, the hidden massacres, the absence of any political freedom, the censorship, the repression and cultural annihilation of the minorities. It doesn´t seem that these people learned a lot from history.
I didn´t see any real progress yesterday.
I respect the (non-doped) athletes, but all in all, the opening ceremony of the olympic games in a dictatorship is just propaganda.
Riccardo
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alexziller says:
August 9th, 2008 at 14:16
Dear Riccardo,
I partially disagree with your statement “is just propaganda”. I think it was a beautiful and memorable event, but as the “american beauty” and every kind of beauty in the universe, also the “chinese beauty” surely has something to hide.
Regarding progress, do you think only ethical progress is valuable? And what is ethical progress after all? How to measure it? I think the show was about real progress.
Of course I recognize a big issue about human rights in China, and it is good that such issue arise also because of activists during the games and I endorse them (to those who think the games should be keep completely separated from politics I remember olympic games are for sure not only about sport, but a lot about business and politics) .
But I think it is wrong to only focus on the problems of China forgetting about the best parts of this very fascinating culture. Also it seems to me quite unfair to totally
forgetunderestimate the importance and uniqueness of the open cerimony of yesterday because of China´s problems.Also one has to regard China as a huge human system. And you know, to administrate well such a system is always hard because of entropy. So ask yourself if China is actually ready for a totally free “west-like” society and if this could even have some worse conseguences on the stability of a system with almost 1.5 billion human particles..
best, AZ
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