Anything new in Zimbabwe? I'm sure the results of the presidental election have been announced and he's well on his way to some dank prison for his crimes. No? Really? We tolerate this? Good thing the media is all over it.
Nope. Instead we got coverage of the Olympic touch relay. What's funny is China's assertion that protesters shouldn't policise the Olympics. Oh boo-hoo, China's a sensitive boy and we'll hurt his feelings. Grow up. Part of becoming a mature society is tolerating criticism (Tiananman Square anyone?). Besides, the Olympics have always been political.
The Olympic torch relay begin as a propaganda stunt by Adolf Hilter for the 1936 Berlin games (sidenote; he also gave us the Volkswagen, aka The People's Car). At the time there was a jaunty debate over whether America should boycott the games for Hitler's anti-semitism. We competed anyway and Jesse Owens, an African American, won four gold medals. Owen's victory was then used as American propaganda in the leadup to WWII, despite the fact that Owens enjoyed better treatment in Nazi Germany than he did in segregated America. Or how about the 1976 Munich games that brought the PLO to the world stage and inaugurated the first (largely forgotten) era of global terrorism. Not to mention the 1980 Moscow games that the US boycotted. Nazis good, commies bad? Point being, the Olympics are fair game for political theater and China should take their lumps and hire a PR firm like everyone else. Just don't jump onstage and expect the audience to be free of critics.
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This is the blog of Richard Conn, Oxford MBA. I'm originally from Vancouver, Washington, but have lived in LA for the past ten years. So far, I've traveled to 26 countries and have a passion for digital marketing.
