Olympic Torch Relay

[krasnoludek]

San Francisco officials completely changed the route of the torch relay today to circumvent the protests that were obviously going to happen. It was transported to another part of the city, run for a short distance, before being shuttled to the airport and sent off. It was a completely cowardly act just so that China could point to it and say

Comments

[once_a_banana]

A different point of view: The news of the massive protests and clashes between Tibetan exiles and pro-Chinese demonstrators are all over the news, internationally, so the protesters certainly didn't get ignored. In fact I almost lean toward the point of view that this allowed the clashes to be about what they're really about, instead of inveigling the torch and the runners in the whole messy business. The media was all over the protesters, and (like them) had to scramble to catch the torch when it actually came out of hiding.... so they had lots of time to interview innumerable protesters and publish quotes from them. And the developing CW is that the massive route changes were a strong indication of just how huge the opposition was, and how unwelcome in the city the self-congratulatory display by the Chinese authorities, effectively ruining their party. It is probably more embarrassing to them to have their route slashed in half, and hidden from public fanfare, and hustled around in secretive busses, than it is for them to charge through a route lined with screamers on all sides (at least that way, they could've claimed to be defiantly staying the course). There is talk following this that the olympic committee may pressure China to drop their huge multi-nation tour, or at least curtail it, since it's pointless if they can't even do a proper torch run in their chosen sites.

[krasnoludek]

I agree and a shade of this was reflected when I said "people across the world will chase their appropriated symbol so that it has to be shuttled secretly through its destinations. Some triumphant parade that is."

The protest still got its attention, but now China's preemptive reaction has done more damage to its position than good. It belies China's statements that the protesters are a tiny, unrepresentative minority. They displayed a fear of confronting their foe; the level of reaction indicated how seriously they are considering this foe.