Olympic Balls: Beijing As Fake As A Chinese Rolex
SAYS Jacquelin Magnay:
This is the Olympics that claims to have sold out a record 6.8 million tickets, yet there are empty seats…
There has been the fake singer, the fake fireworks, the fake minority kids (they were all Han, and not from the 55 different ethnic groups as portrayed), the fake press freedoms, fake internet access, fake promises.
There is a difficulty in ascertaining whether the cheerful welcomes by young volunteers and the over-the-top kowtowing to foreigners are mandated niceties in the national interest, or a genuine passion for the Games.
Controversies and non-controversies are airbrushed out. A fatal bus crash that kills two Chinese nationals and involves Croatian rowers is cleaned up on site within half an hour, and never mentioned or written about in the Chinese media.
A tragic ceremony rehearsal accident that left Liu Yan, the country’s best classical dancer, a paraplegic, is denied then falsely watered down to the Western media as a broken leg.
Beijing Olympic vice-president Wang Wei and other International Olympic Committee officials repeatedly claim the press is free to report on the Olympic Games, yet venue managers, under instruction from the organisers, will not allow reporters to ask topical non-sporting questions of Georgian or Russian athletes. Transcripts of the press conference questions about censorship are themselves heavily censored.
That’s the thing with totalitarian powers – they end up showing you more by not showing you enough…
Posted: 16th, August 2008 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
