An Olympics for these times

As the Times artfully phrased it today, since it was awarded the 2008 Olympics, Beijing has always viewed this as China’s “coming out party.” It is.

The IOC awarded the games to Beijing on July 14th, 2001. I’m trying to think of some things that have happened in the world since then, and I have to admit, a few things do come to mind: September 11th; the arrival of truly global competition for natural resources, driven by economic growth in China, India, and elsewhere, that has driven commodity prices way up; for-all-practical-purposes-universal agreement on the cause of, if not the solution to, climate change; George Bush; and the war. In Beijing: the government recently banned half of all drivers from driving for a week, to see if that could make the sky visible; a growing middle class is eating meat in the air conditioned comfort of their homes that they drive from and to; the country’s furious growth demands economic and diplomatic relations with the world’s real bad guys; and exhaustion of water resources has caused desertification such that, on some days, dust from the Gobi desert now blows into the city.

Add in a dash of international spotlight on recent political unrest in Tibet (bravo, Tibet PR), and you get a totally protest-plagued torch relay, despite the fact that the event is such a micro-managed, tightly-scripted piece of propaganda (propaganda for what?) that sanctions are threatened against French athletes who wore patches that said “for a better world.” Presumably in French. It’s hard to imagine that the IOC isn’t wishing for a mulligan right now.

The Olympic games are meant to be a celebration of our species; a time when we marvel at the simultaneous expression of our one-ness and our many-ness, through sport and culture. This is not a time for easy celebration, though, and so in that sense, it seems fitting that we are coming together in this particular place at this particular moment. In the past – in Munich and Mexico City, for example – the games have been at the vanguard of global politics, a moment when the world reflected on a problem with an unusually global perspective. The torch relay so far indicates a coming clash this summer between those who seek an opportunity to call desperately needed attention to global challenges and the forces of power and the status quo, who we usually find wherever we find the first guys. Maybe the rabble-rousers will rouse the rabble, or maybe the Chinese government et al will prevent it. Either way, it looks like this summer in Beijing will capture the mood of the moment.