On individual responsibility

Most of these words aren’t mine.

“I don’t feel like it’s my decision to go and say, ‘I know what’s best for the entire country of China, I know what’s best for the entire Olympic team.’ I think it should be a joint decision, kind of all-for-one decision, whether every Olympic team boycotts or we all go and we represent our country with pride.” — James Blake, U.S. tennis player [Source]

“In the present circumstances, no one can afford to assume that someone else will solve their problems. Every individual has a responsibility to help guide our global family in the right direction. Good wishes are not sufficient; we must become actively engaged.” — Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

“I’ve worked hard. I would love to be there. I’m proud to be a part of the U.S. Olympic team. If they tell me it’s the right thing to do to go over there, I’ll go over there. If they tell me it’s the right thing to do to stay home, then I’ll stay home. I would be disappointed, because I want to compete in the Olympics and I want to be there.” — James Blake

“Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us individually. Peace, for example, starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us.” — The Dalai Lama

“I have my own concerns from a personal standpoint, and I don’t like what’s happening necessarily (in China). But I also don’t believe it’s my place as an individual to take that next step.” — Stacey Nuveman, U.S. softball player [Source]

“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” — Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist

“Anytime you mix sports and politics, the athletes usually lose out. That’s what happened in 1980 when we boycotted and nothing came out of it.” — Sanya Richards, U.S. sprinter [Source]

“Many persons have the wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” — Helen Keller, author and activist

“Why is it OK to even consider sacrificing athletes’ dreams on behalf of making a statement? I know that there are some human rights violations taking place in Tibet and the Dalai Lama is speaking out. This sounds so naive and jaded, but there is only so much time in the day and I have been spending most of mine preparing myself to be at my peak in August.” Kyle Shewfelt, Canadian gymnist [Source]

“Yes, I am my brother’s keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by any maudlin sentimentality but by the higher duty I owe myself. What would you think me if I were capable of seating myself at a table and gorging myself with food and saw about me the children of my fellow beings starving to death.” — Eugene Debs, U.S. union leader, co-founder of International Workers of the World, and presidential candidate

“I don’t see why there should be protests only now. Just because of the Olympics? There should have always been protests. They used to stop wars for the Olympics and now they want to stop the Olympics, it doesn’t seem right.” — Filippo Magnini

“It is never too late to do what is right. Justice delayed should not be justice denied.” — Lawrence Guyot, civil rights activist

(P.S. There have been protests against Chinese occupation of Tibet for decades. I have personally known at least two active groups protesting occupation of Tibet for nearly ten years. It’s just that now they finally have the opportunity for attention from a media machine that mostly ignores the situation.)

In 1936, athletes from the United States chose to compete in the Berlin Summer Olympics, though many had personal disagreements with the Nazi Party that had recently taken power in Germany. As they ran races and smiled from medalists’ podiums, that party was already crafting the system that would take the lives of 11 million people and ruin the lives of countless others.

Would boycotting the Olympics have stopped these events? Probably not. However, it would have been the right decision. By competing, and by a policy of non-involvement in other spheres, the United States and each of those athletes were complicit in some minor way in the events that would later be known as the Holocaust and the Porajmos.

For two weeks in August 1936, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi dictatorship camouflaged its racist, militaristic character while hosting the Summer Olympics. Softpedaling its antisemitic agenda and plans for territorial expansion, the regime exploited the Games to bedazzle many foreign spectators and journalists with an image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany. Having rejected a proposed boycott of the 1936 Olympics, the United States and other western democracies missed the opportunity to take a stand that–some observers at the time claimed–might have given Hitler pause and bolstered international resistance to Nazi tyranny. With the conclusion of the Games, Germany’s expansionist policies and the persecution of Jews and other “enemies of the state” accelerated, culminating in World War II and the Holocaust. [Source]

Is this what will happen in China? Will the world be dazzled by a Chinese government that is already quite publicly building a facade of social contentment for the Games, while in the background, persecution of ethnic minorities and harsh occupation of Tibet and other regions continues?

In 1968, African-American atheletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos were faced with a choice. They could quietly accept their medals, representing a country which treated them like second-class citizens, while other African-Americans were being beaten, attacked by police dogs, lynched, murdered, and attacked because they had the nerve to ask for equal rights. Or they could protest and face the possibility of being ostracized and losing their chances for future athletic accomplishments.

They chose to protest on the podium, and they were ostracized by the athletic community.

Peter Norman, a white Australian athlete who had no personal investment in this show of political protest, wore a badge supporting his two colleagues on the podium. He didn’t have to — he got nothing out of it, and by doing so he too suffered major damage to his athletic career — but it was the right thing to do, and he did it.

A chance to compete in the Olympics is the high point for many athletes. The vast majority only dream of it. Giving up that chance would be an incredibly painful, difficult decision.

But at what point does someone decide that their dream — a dream which has, for some of the athletes, already been reached once or twice, and which, for others, will be attainable in four more years — is so important that it is worth looking away as people are oppressed, tortured, or killed? How does someone decide that the chance of winning an athletic accolade is worth sanctioning massive human rights violations? Has selfishness finally triumphed over individual responsibility and ethics?

“I had no regrets, I have no regrets, I will never have any regrets. We were there to stand up for human rights and to stand up for black Americans. We wanted to make them better in the United States.” — Tommie Smith, U.S. Olympic gold medalist

“The issues are still there today and they’ll be there in Beijing and we’ve got to make sure that we don’t lose sight of that. We’ve got to make sure that there is a statement made in Beijing, too.” — Peter Norman, Australian Olympic silver medalist

“Those people should put all their millions of dollars together and make a factory that builds athlete-robots. Athletes are human beings. We have feelings, too. How can you ask someone to live in the world, to exist in the world, and not have something to say about injustice?” — John Carlos, U.S. Olympic bronze medalist; he recently spoke at a Free Tibet rally against the Beijing Olympics and ran the first leg of the Human Rights Torch Relay