A wrong theme for the Beijing Olympics

17 August 2008
By Taban Abel Aguek

August 16, 2008 — "One World, One Dream" as the theme for the Beijing Olympics, though only in words, is as beautiful as the Bird’s Nest Stadium where the ceremony for the world sports was officially opened; but ironically it reflects exactly the opposite of what China portrays in the world.

Unless the theme is confined to suit sports only, there is no way one would believe that China could both be a perpetrator of love and peace and at the same time the mentor behind the war and genocide in Darfur. This proved beyond all doubt that China has opened its doors for the world’s Olympics not in beautiful colors but also in forms of an attractive wording to make up a theme that will put a curtain on the face of the world.

In terms of sports Beijing Olympics bring joy to hearts of many people around the world. However, sports are a little fraction of total humanness. For the world to be driven to Olympics with one dream, with China as the driver is not worthy. It has been clear that the world has never been one for China and is not one even as it hosts Olympics and enticing the world with a nice theme, to many people, is only one of the coloring flavors added to the Olympics. It is a paradox that one China cheers up athletes in Beijing and at the same time, cheers up the killing of the innocent people of Darfur. So how can the world be one for people in Darfur and what dream do they have?

Thicker than the Beijing wall, China is the main country that the Sudan Government uses to lean on as it commits all atrocities against human rights. Sudanese oil finds it way to China only to flow in rivers of blood in several parts of Sudan. When the President of Sudan went to China in the year 2006 for the Africa-China summit, he stood up and stated so ignorantly that the number of deaths in Darfur was a mere 10,000 people, not 200,000 as claimed by the media. Surprisingly, the government of China could not question Al Beshir, the president of Sudan, if it was not a disaster for a government to kill 10,000 people in a space of three years when they are the same people whose lives are entrusted to it to secure and manage with utmost care. Instead, China felt that was far too little than it articulated for the guns it sent to Sudan. If that is the meaning of one world, then the dreams are very many and parallel.

Today there is talk of all niceties between China and Sudan of a relationship that was long in the grave, recently resurrected 50 years after the discovery of oil in the South of the Sudan. There was no such relation before, and the most genuine thing about such affair is that the two countries, China and Sudan, needed a story to explain the revival of their intimate friendship because oil alone portrays more of a bloody deal than a mere economic affair. Sudan lost friends in the West and Europe, and another, not only as a substitute but also a defender in mistakes it may commit or have already committed was more presented in China as a rising super power and a rival to the West. The arms and veto that are both possessed by China are important aspects that make the value of the Sudanese oil something that is less than a business commodity, though Chinese relation is akin to a Chinese spare part, usually, that can not complete a round of a journey.

During the UN Security Council resolution 1607 that demanded the deployment of about 23,000 strong peace keeping mission in Darfur, it was China that first raised a hand against it and the main barrier against all the sanctions that Sudan was suppose to shoulder. In June 2006, after having secured assurance of protection from the China, the president of the Republic of the Sudan announced that he would lead war against the international peace keepers than be a head of state of a nation that was falling under what he described as a new colonization. He warned that because of this neocolonialism, Sudan, if it went to war with the West, would have been another Iraq in Africa; but again forgot to declare himself another Saddam. Yet, it was the same man and his Chinese allies that colonized Sudan more than ever before. Sudanese die everyday from Darfur in the West, Kasalla in the East and the whole of the South because of China supported government in Khartoum. It is the same China that supplies this rhetoric government with arms for purpose dividing one world into so many different suffering classes, with others living in vulnerable camps and slums, that today changes not in heart but in words for mere beauty and attraction.

After the Olympics I will be one of the people that will have their ears wide open to listen to China. The war in Darfur needs the intervention of China. The world has opened its paths to China and the only way it must pay back to all the people around the world is peace in Darfur.

Still this is a big doubt. China lives in its own world and has one dream: to be the world super power – if it matters that it should be at the expense of the poor innocent Africans so much the best. There is nothing that China can not do to achieve this status and the Beijing Olympics is one of the projects set to drive them to this target. For China to be a super power counts more than gold medals and more than half the Sudan – guess which half. Skeptics are never bad people. China will have to convince the world in action, not in words at the end of the Beijing Olympics that the world is one and dream is good for the people of Darfur.

Taban Abel Aguek
email: agaj_preciouson@yahoo.com