Sometime ago I watched an interview with a senior, very articulate, Chinese official. At one point, in reply to a lop-sided question, he told the interviewer, “You westerners have the most breath-taking double standards”.
The recent Olympics have brought home to me how alive and kicking, these double standards are.
Remarks by a number of people I’ve met here, and reports in the western media, show how double standards have plunged to new depths of hypocrisy.
Prior to the Games, and during it, there was continuous criticism of Beijing’s security measures and the censorship. Nowhere was there the realization that tight security is inevitable nowadays at large, especially international, gatherings. Obviously, the authoritarian nature of Chinese society and the paranoia of its government, made such arrangements obvious to everybody. I remember reading about the U.S authorities having a tank posted outside one of the stadiums during the 1994 World Cup soccer. Even making allowances for football hooliganism, that was a bit of overkill.
Then there were the constant barbs about the training regimen of Chinese athletes, the use of professional performers for the opening and closing ceremonies (as if Olympic rules precluded these) and any number of other issues. Admiration for the performances of the Chinese sportsmen and women, or the organization and conduct of the Games, was always qualified with caveats about the oppressive nature of the government. The constant sniping about the cost of the Games made me wonder whether they had been asked to contribute to it. The Chinese, it seemed, could not do anything right.
Many articles criticized the lip-synching incident at the opening ceremony when a more ‘acceptable’ face was used instead of that of the little girl with the golden voice.
True, that incident like many other things that the Chinese government did, is doing, and will do, was deplorable. But who thought up playback singing, stage names, etc? In the world of make-believe and deceit few people are blameless.
The hypocrisy and meanness, or should it be madness, astounded me when some people kept hoping for a terrorist ‘incident’ that would disrupt the Games and embarrass the hosts. Shocking, shocking, shocking! Obviously, acts of violence against people one doesn’t like are acceptable.
‘Breath-taking double standards’, did we say? What an understatement!
Wow Laos 