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The West is in moral decadence. The 2022 Winter Olympic Games hosted by communist China is an emblematic symptom of the ethical debasement taking place in the world’s democracies. It reveals something additional. The problem is not just a moral one. It is existential. The free world, by its own misgivings, is making itself an endangered species. The genocidal communist regime in Beijing has only acted upon this opportunity.
We look back at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin with shame. How could democracies take part in such a scheme that served National Socialism’s self-interest? Although the antisemitic policies and actions of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi Party) preceded the actual Holocaust, the heinous practice of concentration camp confinement and murder of Jews began officially in 1941. That was 5 years after the shameful presence of athletes representing free societies playing into the Nazi propaganda ploy. Apologists for the 1936 games excused themselves by pleading ignorance and lamenting their inability to predict future events.
The systematic persecution, confinement, torture, rape, organ extraction, forced slave labor, forced sterilization, forced abortions, brainwashing, and killing of Tibetans, Uyghurs, Christians, Kazakhs, Falun Gong practitioners, Kyrgyz, and other ethnic groups and nationalities have long witnessed the genocidal repression of Chinese communism. In the case of occupied Tibet, this began in 1951 and geometrically expanded in 1959. The evidence of genocide and other crimes against humanity committed in China is extensive, irrefutable, and has been ongoing for over 63 years.
Olympic Games, despite not supposedly being political, are embedded with politics. It is in their genetic composition. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has numerous mottos. Among these philosophical statements is “Olympism is a philosophy of life…[it] seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles”. The IOC’s notion of “universal fundamental ethical principles,” it appears, parallels those of tyrannical regimes.
It is expected that somewhere in the vicinity of 3 billion worldwide viewers will be tuning into the games. Airbnb, Bridgestone, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, and Visa are some of the official sponsors of this lamentable event. 10 of the 12 largest Olympic sponsors, according to Bloomberg, will generate in China $110 billion in revenue. This amoral exercise of capitalism is emblematic of the structural commercial entities that Vladimir Lenin is credited with astutely referring to when he said, “The capitalists will sell us the rope to hang them with.”
Communist China has totally corrupted the West. America, very particularly, has been infected. As of October 2020, 217 Chinese communist businesses were listed in American exchanges with a total market capitalization worth $2.2 trillion. U.S. assets invested in Chinese securities neared $1.2 trillion at the end of 2020. This entangled relationship between the world’s most successful democracy and the globe’s biggest communist dictatorship has not stimulated a democratization process in the Asian giant. It has, however, converted American businesses, politicians (from both parties), consumers, and cultural elites into accomplices of evil.
The complicity of America and the West with the Genocide Olympics should serve notice that free societies are, indeed, in danger of self-immolation. The amount of money made by American enterprises and individuals, resulting from their connection to China’s bloody regime, has bought their conscious and souls. In July 1959, observing the invasion and conquest of Tibet by Mao’s communist army, the International Commission of Jurists Secretary-General Jean-Flavien Lalive wrote “The danger in such cases as that of Tibet is of a feeling of impotence and powerlessness overcoming people in the face of a fait accompli.
What happened in Tibet yesterday may happen in our own countries tomorrow.” China must be stopped! Boycotting the Genocide Olympics and their sponsors would be an easy start for everyone.
Julio M Shiling, political scientist, writer, director of Patria de Martí and The Cuban American Voice, lecturer and media commentator. A native of Cuba, he currently lives in the United States. Twitter: @JulioMShiling // Julio es politólogo, escritor, director de Patria de Martí y The Cuban American Voice. Conferenciante y comentarista en los medios. Natural de Cuba, vive actualmente en EE UU.