Controversial Olympic torch relay: this is a clash of civilizations

Mario Rustan , Jakarta | Thu, 04/17/2008 11:17 AM | Opinion

There is a new street sport: It's called Olympic Torch Relay. Already played in London and Paris, but ended early in San Francisco, it involves people waving Tibetan flags jostling with police covering a torch-carrying local celebrity. The demonstrators also have to exchange verbal abuses with local Chinese youth.

It seems the goal of the offense is to capture the torch, while the goal of the defense is to finish a city tour. In terms of sports, the defense wins. In terms of public relations, the offense wins. In terms of politics, it's a clash of civilizations between the West and the Chinese.

The protesters have one clear statement: We don't want China to boast of its Olympics hosting while oppressing Tibet and committing a good number of human rights violations. In London, Paris and San Francisco, the protesters are mainly Westerners; the Tibetans numbered only hundreds. The Western demonstrators are emotionally enraged not only about Tibet, but also about many other issues such as poverty, Iraq, Muslim rights, and global warming.

The Chinese camp has two different groups with similar views.

The first one is the citizens of the People's Republic of China. Whether they are office workers in Shanghai or IT students in London, they hate the protesters who support separatism in China and the Western public that can't stop being fuzzy about China.

The second group is ethnic Chinese overseas who are proud of China becoming a world focus this summer. Protests about Tibet and human rights violations in China are probably accepted by most of them, but the protesters' efforts to ruin a moment of glory for China is simply unacceptable.

This month, there are plenty of misunderstandings, wrong perceptions and mismatches between Westerners and Chinese in viewing the issue. Even Westerners who have a fair knowledge of Chinese history, and Chinese who are citizens of a Western country, still don't understand each other's stance.

The protesters for Tibet are mainly Western students and activists who strongly support the independence of Tibet. Many of them have met Tibetan exiles and heard their testimonies. They feel empathy with the destruction of Tibetan culture, first by Maoism and then by modernization. Some activists claim China is committing genocide in Tibet.

The people of the People's Republic can't comprehend this. They have been taught since childhood that Tibet is a part of the everlasting China. The people of Tibet had a savage culture, but the glorious Chinese civilization saved them. The Chinese accuse the West of trying to wrest Tibet from China to make it another American colony.

What happened in China in March were fatal mistakes made by both sides: the murders of Chinese families by frustrated Tibetans, and the torture and murders of the Tibetans by a vengeful Chinese military. While the West often forgets the death of burned and bashed Chinese civilians in Lhasa, the Chinese couldn't get the fact that the riot came out of mass rage instead of conspiracy, and that the Dalai Lama is not Osama bin Laden.

Protesters in the West stress they don't hate the Chinese; they hate its totalitarian government. This government creates a new Great Wall to block Internet access to international websites, imprisons dissents and contributes to environmental damage and exploitative industrialization.

For ethnic Chinese overseas, this government could end someday, but China is eternal. Westerners might wonder how San Franciscan Chinese could wave both American and Chinese flags. The logic is simple for those Chinese-Americans: America is my nationality, perhaps my home, but I am Chinese. The red flag is not only a communist flag, but the current flag of China. It could change like it has changed for thousands of year, but it represents the Chinese civilization.

Chinese students in London and Paris experience significant freedom out of China, yet they wave the red flag proudly because they are not mere citizens of China, but also because they are Chinese and are part of the Chinese civilization.

Western protesters might think civilian-clothed Chinese who exchanged pushes with them in London, or surrounded them in San Francisco, were Chinese agents. In reality they are fellow civilians, who -- regardless of nationality -- are enraged with the attack on their Chinese pride and can't comprehend why while the West, Japan and Korea have had their Olympics, China couldn't get one now.

Uniformity in Chinese culture, practiced thousand of years before the birth of communism, makes it incomprehensible for the Chinese that citizens, media and the state could debate, argue and still keep everything in order without resigning to chaos.

The Chinese citizens accuse Western governments of sympathizing with Tibet, as they do not stop the pro-Tibet demonstrations. A proof of this mistrust is the sending of a special unit of Chinese police to follow the rally, which Western media see as their government's complicity with the authoritarian state.

The Chinese audience also asks why international media don't focus on the joy of the relay instead of the demonstration. For the Western audience, it's unthinkable if their news networks omit the scenes of demonstrators scuffling with police and the screaming Tibetans brought down by police, to focus on the celebrity runners and the flag-waving Chinese students. It is not how free media works.

When the Chinese government and citizens speak of a "Harmonious Olympics", they mean it. They imagine an Olympics where everyone around the world is smiling and cheering, taking photographs and strolling around modern Beijing. They don't understand why people don't want that.

The writer holds a BA in Politics from La Trobe University, Australia. He wishes independence for Tibet and a successful Beijing Olympics.

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