Reflections From a Murky Pond

The 2008 Summer Olympics - also called the 2008 Genocide Games - will start on Friday August 8th, but they’ll start without Olympic gold medalist Joey Cheek. China has revoked the athlete’s visa.

Joey Cheek is co-founder of Team Darfur, a group of 70 athletes who are striving to raise global awareness of the human-rights violations taking part in the Darfur region of Sudan.

China’s military, economic and diplomatic ties to Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir’s regime have apparently made it undesirable - for the Evil Old Men in Beijing at least - for Cheek to enter China during the Games.

I am saddened not to be able to attend the Games. The Olympic Games represent something powerful: that people can come together from around the world and do things that no one thought were possible. However, the denial of my visa is a part of a systemic effort by the Chinese government to coerce and threaten athletes who are speaking out on behalf of the innocent people of Darfur.

– Joey Cheek

China has also revoked Cheek’s partner and Team Darfur’s co-founder, former UCLA water polo player Brad Greiner’s visa as well. Both activists were told that they had no recourse in the matter and that China did not owe them any explanation as to why they had been banned from the country.

This seems like another typically stupid and childish move by the Chinese. It’s not like any new damning evidence would be brought forth by Cheek or Greiner. The whole world is quite aware that China has consistently violated the 2005 UN Arms Embargo against Sudan by providing the weaponry that al-Bashir needs to complete his ethnic cleansing of Darfur. The whole world is also quite aware that Sudan pays for those arms with oil that China needs to fuel its growing industrial sector.

I guess the Chinese are just tired of hearing about about their collusion with other genocidal states and their utter inability to conduct themselves with anything remotely resembling human decency.

On Monday, March 24, 2008, at the altar of Hestia in Olympia, Greece, the Olympic Torch was lit - amid peaceful protests - for the 2008 Beijing Games. Eleven women, representing the roles of priestesses, performed the ceremony in which the torch is kindled by the light of the Sun, its rays concentrated by a parabolic mirror.

The Olympic Flame will now be carried by runners during a 85,000-mile, 136-day relay across five continents and 20 countries, ultimately culminating with its descent into Hell as it is plunged into the Cauldron during the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Games. To add insult to decades of injury, the Olympic Torch will be carried through Tibet to further show Chinese control of the occupied territory.

So, after decades of being a beacon of hope for mankind, the Olympic Torch returns to the darkness as it is used once again for the glorification of a totalitarian and genocidal regime. It should now be remembered that the modern torch relay was introduced by Carl Diem, president of the Organization Committee for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, as part of an effort to turn the games into a glorification of the Third Reich.

In 2005 the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten and 12 of its cartoonists were threatened by Muslim extremists for publishing cartoons about the prophet Muhammad deemed offensive by Islamists. The resulting religious hysteria and extremism was amazing and horrible to behold.

Eleven Muslim ambassadors traveled to Copenhagen to confront Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen demanding apologies from the newspaper. The ambassador of Turkey had received full support of the Turkish Foreign Ministry in demanding that Rasmussen call Jyllands-Posten to account for “abusing Islam in the name of democracy, human rights and freedom of expression.”
When Rasmussen refused to cede his countrymen’s freedom of speech, the ambassadors decided to take the matter to international Muslim organizations, such as the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

In January 2006, after both the newspaper and the Danish government refused Muslim demands for an apology, a wave of violence ensued during which several Danish embassies were set alight.

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