It was a masterstroke of propaganda, created by the master propagandists of the Chinese Communist government.
The most dramatic moment of the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics is the lighting of the Olympic cauldron, with the same flame used during the torch relay. Although this year’s relay was shortened considerably because of the pandemic, the torch still symbolizes the game’s continuity going back to ancient Greece.
The person chosen to light the cauldron at the Olympic games is usually someone emblematic of the values and virtues of the host country. For the 2022 Olympics, China chose two athletes — including a female cross-country skier who the government says is of Uyghur heritage.
Dinigeer Yilamujiang, a Uyghur cross-country skiier from Xinjiang, delivered the main Olympic flame. So CPC genocide Uyghur by asking them lit Olympic flames? pic.twitter.com/F0QlDlRVfs
— Meng Zhe (@SXiaochuan258) February 4, 2022
The Uyghurs are being systematically oppressed by the Chinese government. For China to have Dinigeer Yilamujiang light the torch is eerily similar to a stunt pulled by Adolf Hitler in 1936, where Helen Mayer — a German fencing champion who happened to be Jewish — was pushed forward by the Nazis to show that German Jews weren’t being mistreated. And it was done back then — as it is today — with the full support of the International Olympic establishment.
There is no way to see her participation for Germany in 1936 as anything but a sham, manipulated by International Olympic Committee officials who ignored the horrors of Hitler’s regime and American Olympic Committee head Avery Brundage who was fending off a surging American movement to boycott the Games. She was the “token Jew” placed on Germany’s team as a public relations facade to fool the world into thinking Jewish people still had rights in Hitler’s Germany.
What’s more, Mayer’s reasons for competing in those genocide games in 1936 are eerily similar to how American athletes justify their participation today.
Most historians have rejected the idea she was protecting her mother and brothers in Germany by participating. The general conclusion is that she was no more than an athlete trapped in the single-minded pursuit of her sport who wanted desperately to compete in the Olympics even if she had to do it for Adolf Hitler.
We get it. These athletes are mostly kids who get one shot at glory for a lifetime of work. But what price is paid for that glory and who pays it?
The opening ceremonies will feature thousands of smiling athletes marching behind their national flags. Meanwhile, a few hundred miles away, more than a million Uyghurs are being detained for “re-education.” Many thousands more are undergoing forced sterilization. Tens of thousands are employed in factories under conditions that can only be characterized as “slave labor.”
Related: Let the Genocide Games Begin!
And yet, instead of warning China about continued atrocities against the Uyghurs, American authorities are warning American athletes they better keep their mouths shut because the Chinese can be unpredictable.
“If we do not speak out against human rights violations in China, because of commercial interests, we lose all moral authority to speak out against human rights violations anywhere.”
But [Nancy Pelosi] said athletes should focus on competing in Beijing and resist the temptation to speak out. “Do not risk incurring the anger of the Chinese government because they are ruthless.”
In fact, no one is sure what the Chinese government will do if American athletes start making gestures of support for the Uyghurs.
This year the attraction of Chinese wealth and power are gone. The striking message of the games so far is that the FBI has advised Americans to leave their iPhones and computers at home and carry burner phones instead. The burners will be harder for China’s extensive system of surveillance to track and listen in on unacceptable thoughts.
A member of China’s Olympic organizing committee has warned visiting athletes that they could be punished if they offer any political gesture or criticism. The Games that were conceived to forge international understanding have become an exercise in enforcing China’s authoritarian values.
We welcome our new overseers, the Chinese Communist government, to this celebration of peace and brotherhood.
For most of us, anyway.
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