2008 Woodie Awards
Torch relay protests defeat unifying spirit of Olympics
Eric Eikmeier '08
Issue date: 4/16/08 Section: Opinion
The protests surrounding the Olympic torch relay leading up to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing have been a hot topic in the media over the past week.
When the torch passed through London, Paris, and San Francisco, individuals protesting China's handling of the recent violence in Tibet, as well as other alleged human rights violations, met it.
The torch was at times redirected to avoid crowds, while other portions of the planned routes were cut out completely. This adjusted procession was covered extensively as it neared, and then proceeded through, the United States.
Now that it has moved on to countries where protests are less likely to occur, such as Oman and states in Southeast Asia, U.S. media coverage will likely subside.
But this recent scrutiny of the torch relay should force us to look at the reasons for having a torch procession in the first place. It is a facet of the Olympic Games that contributes little to the spirit of the competition as a whole.
The torch relay isn't really a matter of long-standing tradition. The first relay from Olympia to the site of that year's Games was for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The relay was part of the propaganda efforts of Hitler's Nazi regime, emphasizing the believed connection between the ancient Greeks and the Aryan race of the Third Reich.
This expression is not exactly the type that we should reenact prior to every Olympic Games.
The recent trend of a fully "global" torch relay is not an established tradition either. The flame in past years often traveled from Olympia to the general region of the games, where it was then carried for a few weeks at most before arriving in the host city.
The truly "global" relay did not occur until the 2004 Athens games, where the torch relay ballooned to an affair ranging across many continents for several months before reaching Athens.
In this era of increasing globalization, an event such as this one has offered a new platform for political activists to reach a world-wide audience. Whether or not people disagree with China's human rights policies is a different debate.
The fact of the matter is that these games should be a point of global unity, not divisiveness. If the global torch relay does not contribute to the spirit of unity, then it is not serving a useful function as part of the Olympic Games.
The torch relay has become an overblown, self-important act. The symbolic gesture behind carrying the torch is lost when it cannot even be seen by those gathered to witness it passing by. If the torch relay is to continue, it should return to the regional event that it used to be until the last few years.
The Olympic Games are still several months away. However, the mishandling of the torch relay has already resulted in a premature dulling of the fabricated luster that surrounds the 2008 Games. Canada, the United Kingdom, and Russia would do well to tone down the torch relay, if not scrap it altogether, when their nations host the Games in future years.
When the torch passed through London, Paris, and San Francisco, individuals protesting China's handling of the recent violence in Tibet, as well as other alleged human rights violations, met it.
The torch was at times redirected to avoid crowds, while other portions of the planned routes were cut out completely. This adjusted procession was covered extensively as it neared, and then proceeded through, the United States.
Now that it has moved on to countries where protests are less likely to occur, such as Oman and states in Southeast Asia, U.S. media coverage will likely subside.
But this recent scrutiny of the torch relay should force us to look at the reasons for having a torch procession in the first place. It is a facet of the Olympic Games that contributes little to the spirit of the competition as a whole.
The torch relay isn't really a matter of long-standing tradition. The first relay from Olympia to the site of that year's Games was for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The relay was part of the propaganda efforts of Hitler's Nazi regime, emphasizing the believed connection between the ancient Greeks and the Aryan race of the Third Reich.
This expression is not exactly the type that we should reenact prior to every Olympic Games.
The recent trend of a fully "global" torch relay is not an established tradition either. The flame in past years often traveled from Olympia to the general region of the games, where it was then carried for a few weeks at most before arriving in the host city.
The truly "global" relay did not occur until the 2004 Athens games, where the torch relay ballooned to an affair ranging across many continents for several months before reaching Athens.
In this era of increasing globalization, an event such as this one has offered a new platform for political activists to reach a world-wide audience. Whether or not people disagree with China's human rights policies is a different debate.
The fact of the matter is that these games should be a point of global unity, not divisiveness. If the global torch relay does not contribute to the spirit of unity, then it is not serving a useful function as part of the Olympic Games.
The torch relay has become an overblown, self-important act. The symbolic gesture behind carrying the torch is lost when it cannot even be seen by those gathered to witness it passing by. If the torch relay is to continue, it should return to the regional event that it used to be until the last few years.
The Olympic Games are still several months away. However, the mishandling of the torch relay has already resulted in a premature dulling of the fabricated luster that surrounds the 2008 Games. Canada, the United Kingdom, and Russia would do well to tone down the torch relay, if not scrap it altogether, when their nations host the Games in future years.
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