Posted on 02/13/2008 3:49:36 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Spielberg quits Beijing Olympic role
By Mure Dickie in Beijing
Published: February 13 2008 02:07 | Last updated: February 13 2008 07:14
Steven Spielberg, the US film director, has quit as artistic adviser to the Beijing Olympic Games, complaining that China was not doing enough to end violence in Sudan's Darfur region.
The move by Mr Spielberg, an unpaid adviser to organisers of the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies, is a heavy blow to China's efforts to prevent international criticism of its support for the Sudanese government from casting a pall over the August Games.
China has repeatedly denounced efforts by activists to use the Olympics to push it to change its policies on issues ranging from Darfur to its own restive Himalayan region of Tibet and its continuing crackdown on domestic political dissent.
However, a group of Nobel Peace laureates including Archbishop Desmond Tutu this week signed a letter to Hu Jintao, Chinese president, calling on him to uphold Olympic ideals by pushing Khartoum to end atrocities in Darfur.
Activists including actress Mia Farrow and former Olympic athletes pushed a similar message outside China's embassy in London and its mission to the United Nations in New York.
China's ties with Sudan, which include buying much of its oil exports and supplying it with arms, have made it the primary target of campaigners pushing for stronger efforts to end a conflict that has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced 2m people since 2003.
In a statement, Mr Spielberg said his conscience would not allow him to spend his time and energy on Olympic ceremonies while "unspeakable crimes against humanity" continued in Darfur.
"Sudan’s government bears the bulk of the responsibility for these on-going crimes but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more to end the continuing human suffering there," the celebrated Hollywood director and producer said.
Organisers of the Beijing Games declined to respond immediately to Mr Spielberg's resignation.
However, China's special envoy to the region last year said that anyone who linked the situation in Darfur with the Olympics was either ignorant of reality or steeped in obsolete cold war ideology.
Beijing insists that it has been labouring in a low-profile and non-confrontational way to help end the violence in Darfur, saying the Khartoum regime is a legitimate government that "deserves respect".
China also insists that politics should not be allowed to intrude on the biggest sporting event it has ever hosted, although critics counter that Beijing itself ties the Games to its political agenda of promoting patriotism and "harmonious" development.
It is unclear how much traction such critics will achieve in the final months before the Games begin at 8pm on August 8, 2008. Despite an international campaign threatening to dub the Games the "Genocide Olympics" there appears little enthusiasm for a boycott and world leaders including US president George W. Bush have promised to attend.
Mr Spielberg stopped well short of calling for wider non-participation, saying he still hoped to attend the Games. "I saw, and continue to see, the Beijing Games as an opportunity to help ease some of the tensions in the world," he said.
When I think of the Sudan, the first thing I think isn’t “It’s China’s fault.”
Don’t Muslims and their world-wide Ummah get blamed for anything anymore?
Who’s Spielberg? (haven’t been to a hollyweird movie in 30 years).
I forgot using your Christians for an Organ Bank... that's "ok." What the heck.
Yeah. Next time the Mohammadan scum riot in the Philippines, I’m blaming Sweden.
While it is commendable for Spielberg to protest China’s lack of action concerning a truly reprehensible situation (that once again involves the religion of peace), I do not know if the Olympic Games are the appropriate venue. The Games are supposed to be a break from the contoversies of the world, not an opportunity to showcase them.
Despite the economic and foreign policy diasasters, Jimmy Carter still had a shot at a second term until he decided to boycott the Moscow Games. I believe that, more than anything else, ended his political career.
Lipstick on a pig.
And what state was Mr Spielberg's conscience in during Saddam Hussein's reign of oppression and genocide?
There will be two Olympics this year: one is for sports competition, while the other would be for dissidents. Chinese political activists are gearing up for it. Especially those outside China.
I think two will go at the same time. Just as Gorbachev's visit to China set the stage for Tienanmen uprising in 1989, this Olympic could do the same. However, Chinese regime will also do their best to head off any such developments. It is interesting to watch the cat and mouse game between Chinese securities and dissidents/protesters.
Inside China, there would be a lot of "preventive detention." There are many Chinese who want their plight to be publicized.
No. The Olympics are a chance for a dictatorial regime to show it’s “benign” and “sporting” side, while in the background the persecutions and killing are planned.
Good for Spielberg... “Saving face” is crucial to the Chinese, especially with the world focusing on its Olympics. Stepping down was the right move.
Typical western historical myopia combined candle lighting crisis of the week hippy activism.
Sudan has been in a state of a civil war since 1955 with only an interlude of 11 years of peace. The darfur conflict is just another side conflict of the second Sudanese civil war that is still raging. The war which has already claimed 2 million dead and is the most destructive in terms of human life since WWII.
This is akin to shrill outcries about a cat being runover by a car while the same accident mangled 20 other people in a massive pileup just a few feet away.
What these imbecilic activists don’t realize is that the only way to end the conflict is to make the “deh deh dehs” realize that killing each other over whose turn it is with the goat is a bad idea is the first step towards peace.
What Chinese racists like cmdjing don't realize is that the non-Chinese peoples of the world aren't the generic goat f**kers he sees them to be. They are separate peoples with distinct histories and languages who aren't necessarily as submissive and craven as the average denizen of the Chinese empire (which used to be several dozen independent countries with distinct languages and cultures before they bent over and took it up the rear end). Getting used to living on their knees is unique to the peoples of the formerly independent countries of northeast Asia that presently comprise the Chinese empire.
Lol, why am I not surprised it would be you that would respond to this post in the expected manner. Give your amply demonstrated anti-Chinese chauvinism across any number of blogs and forums I can’t say I am shocked at your outburst.
Responding to the truth that most of Africa’s problems are the results of the inability of Africans themselves to engage in civil, political, and social developmental crisis without resorting to tribal violence with a sexist and mysoginistic and ultimately non-sensical and irrelevant insult to Chinese is a par course for you Zhang Fei. Me the racist? Perhaps it is time to take a look at the beam in thine own eye.
By the way, what did you say to get yourself banned from WAB btw? I’d imagine something likely to the above.
I said Chinese imperialism would be an issue whether or not the Communists were in power. The problem with China is that throughout history, it has expanded its territory in times of military strength, without exception. This was similar to Richard Pipes' (the Russian scholar) observation that the reason the Soviet Union was scary to its neighbors wasn't because it was Communist, but because it was Russian - a relentlessly territorially acquisitive power with no end to its appetites.
This is a real milk-and-water observation quite distinct from calling Africans goat-f**kers as you have done. My assumption is that the Chinese guy who claims to be a former member of the Canadian armed forces kicked me out. I'm not surprised - this kind of attitude goes with being Chinese.
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