The Olympic Flame in Crete
With all the current fuss about the progress of the olympic flame toward China I was reminded of 2004 when the flame came to Kavros, Apokaronos; less laden with political overtones and more joyful.
Thankfully the good old BBC carried a report today on the deeply political origins of the flame procession. Very little these days is free of politics and it would seem that it has been thus for some time. Symbols are seldom univalent and the flame is no exception.
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ReplyDeleteCiao Derek,
ReplyDeleteWell, the Olympic media circus came & went yesterday. Thanks to San Francisco's mayor, it was all rather anticlimactic: at the last minute the torch runners were secretly re-routed away from the demonstrators. In other words, the mayor lied to the people "for their own good".
I've always been supportive of Tibetan liberation, yet the recent hoopla reveals how Westerners are highly selective about which oppressed peoples deserve our attention. As I told Julie, the Tibetans are like the human version of baby seals. Contrast that with how we regard Palestinians, when we notice them at all.
Now that the American Empire commits torture with impunity, we in the U.S. have no moral authority to tell other nations how to behave. Perhaps we only persist in doing so because it feels safer to bash foreign countries than one's own government.
Ciao,
Wayne
Wayne - thanks for the reply - in response to your despair read the
ReplyDeletefollowing: http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/16101
Good stuff and helps with the understanding