Thread: Get that torch - new challenge

As you can see by today's news the tibetians are making protests and trying to stop the Olympic torch from moving along its path. This looks like it going to go on through the course of the next 130 days. I'm sure there will be some protesters right here in LOS (one torch bearer already said she doesn't want to carry it). So we should get some interesting anti-China - Pro-Tibet news from this tradition.



I feel Tibet should be free but at the moment I don't have plans to join the protest along the path. It would be kind of an interesting act to try out. I've never publicly protested against anything despite having lots of opinions on things. Holding up flags along the route of the torch can make a difference. If someone were brave enough they could even got for the torch.

Watching the protesters going wild running around the police make it look kind of like a game of sorts. What do think about protesting by holding up a flag or lying down in the streets covered in blood as one woman did. have youever done something like this? Would you consider it again? Would you hold up a Tibet flag to make a statement against the Chinese government?

I have never protested anything and I'm not about to risk getting tossed out of this country for waving a Tibetan, Chinese, Thai or any other flag.

I frankly don't care much about Tibet ... or Myanmar. They're China's problems.

^ And the problems of the people in Tibet and Burma.

But I agree with you.

We should stay out - just like Iraq.

Originally Posted by Rattanaburi

Holding up flags along the route of the torch can make a difference

How?

Originally Posted by Rattanaburi

have you ever done something like this?

Yes

Originally Posted by Rattanaburi

Would you consider it again?

No

Originally Posted by Rattanaburi

Would you hold up a Tibet flag to make a statement against the Chinese government?

No

Originally Posted by Rattanaburi

Would you hold up a Tibet flag to make a statement against the Chinese government?

Sure.

Sounds pretty harmless.
Wouldn't go far out of my way though.

Well, holding up a flag makes a statement. That's better than nothing. I guess your participation,Bob in the past may have resulted in no change for the cause you were protesting for.


Those who protested against Thaksin eventually encouraged the generals that there was some support form the people here for stopping him. I'm not saying all people would support a coup but the generals could see that a lot of people hated Thaksin too.

Protesting can cause change at times. Opinions get heard. Sometimes that's the only time they get heard.



I'm not saying I am going to get involved because to be honest I am just a lazy f0ck. There are those who talk and those who do. Most of the time I am just talk the talk.

The Olympic Games is a sporting event designed to bring athletes of all nations together in the spirit of peace,unity and sportsmanship.It should remain as such and not be marred by politics,violence and protests.

The torch will pass through HK April 30 but no mumblings about Tibet,Taiwan from the laowais here and staging protests against the games.Try holding a Tibet or Taiwan up in China and you'll be put away for a very long time.

The Olympics should not be the stage for bringing the world's attention political or religious disputes.

Some background on violence at the Olympics:

The most controversial Olympics were the Berlin Games of 1936. The IOC had voted in 1931 to hold these Games in Berlin, before IOC members could have known the Nazi movement would soon control the country.
When it became known in the early 1930s that under the rule of the Nazis, German Jewish athletes were being barred from the 1936 German team, in violation of the Olympic Charter, many Americans demanded a boycott of the 1936 Games. The boycott movement failed because Avery Brundage, head of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) at the time, was convinced by German officials that Jewish athletes would be permitted to try out for the German team. In fact, only two Jewish athletes were named to the 1936 German Olympic team, and both were of mixed religious backgrounds.

There have been several boycotts of the Olympics by various countries. In 1956 the Egyptian, Lebanese, and Iraqi teams boycotted the Melbourne Games to protest the invasion of Egypt by the United Kingdom, France, and Israel that had occurred earlier that year.


Major boycotts of the Olympics occurred in 1976, 1980, and 1984. In 1976 many African nations demanded that New Zealand be excluded from the Montréal Games because its rugby team had played against South Africa, then under the rule of supporters of apartheid, the official policy of racial segregation followed in that country from 1948 to the early 1990s. When the IOC resisted the demands of the African countries with the argument that rugby was not an Olympic sport, athletes from 28 African nations were called home by their governments.


The issue in the 1980 boycott of the Moscow Games was the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 by the USSR. Although American President Jimmy Carter forced the USOC to refuse the invitation to attend the Moscow Games, many other NOCs defied their governments’ requests that they boycott the Games. Once Carter acted to spoil the Moscow Games (62 nations did boycott the Games), it became clear that the USSR and its allies would retaliate with another boycott at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. Although Romania did send a team to Los Angeles, 16 of the USSR’s other allies boycotted the Los Angeles Games.


From the 1940s to the 1980s, the IOC also had to deal with the political problems caused by divided nations. One dilemma concerned the Chinese Olympic team, after the political division of China in 1949 into the People's Republic of China on the mainland and the so-called Republic of China on the island of Taiwan. In 1952 the IOC decided to invite teams from both the mainland and Taiwan, but this decision led to decades of boycott by the government of the People's Republic, which did not send a team to the Olympics until the Lake Placid Games in 1980.


Another political issue arose in 1949, because of the formal political division of Germany that year into East Germany and West Germany. This division created the question of whether there was to be one German team or two. The IOC tried to solve this problem by insisting on a combined German team. Negotiations lasted several years, and this solution was first tested at the Melbourne Games in 1956; it lasted until the Munich Games in 1972, for which two teams were formed.


There continued to be two German teams until 1992, by which time the countries had reunited. The IOC also had to cope with racial segregation in South Africa. The IOC voted in 1968 to exclude the South African team from Olympic competition in order to bring pressure on the government to give up its policy of apartheid. The South Africans were not readmitted until the Barcelona Games in 1992—by which time apartheid had been discontinued.


Violence has also occurred at the Olympic Games. In the midst of the 1972 Munich Games, the Olympic movement experienced its most tragic hour. A band of Palestinian terrorists made their way into the Olympic village (where athletes from all nations are invited to live during the Games), murdered two members of the Israeli team, and took nine hostages. When the IOC, meeting in emergency session, learned that a gunfight had broken out and that all nine hostages were dead, along with five of the terrorists, the Games were suspended for a day. The IOC’s controversial decision to resume the Games that year was endorsed by the Israeli government.

Year Host Countries (includes both summer and winter )

1936 Germany

1940 Japan Finland Switzerland Germany



Olympic Games - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia





So they had the Olympics in 1936 and 1940 and then how many million people died? Many people should have protested a bit more at that time?

Originally Posted by Texpat

I frankly don't care much about Tibet ... or Myanmar. They're China's problems.

hmmmm, problem lies there, dont it?

I think it's a good slap in the face for China.

China has a very big face to slap.Politics and sports should not mix.

^, ^^ yeah.

^^^ um, yeah, I think. Whaddayou saying? They're regional issues.