Letter to the New York Times

To the Editor

Serge Schmemann (Olympic Protests, Then and Now, April 28, 2008) compares the proposed boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games with the actual boycott led by the Americans of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games. There is a big difference: China did not invade a sovereign country. What she did was police work against violent rioters in Tibet who engaged in assaults, arson and murder.

Right now, it is the United States that has invaded and is still occupying not one but two sovereign Moslem countries, resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and the displacement of millions.

Schmemann talks about connecting a country’s human rights record and hosting the games. He mentions the protests over Darfur, Tibet, but keeps mum about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, not to mention the IDF’s “targeted assassination” and mass murder of Palestinian women and children. He and Western media in general also did not condemn the thug (or “goon” as Schmemann prefers) in Paris, who pulled the hair of a handicapped young athlete in a wheelchair, trying to grab the Olympic torch. Instead, they reported the violent “protests” with great satisfaction. It should be noted that the torch relay was violently disrupted only in the major Western cities, especially in London and Paris, and went smoothly in third world countries.

Schmemann and his like should know the days of Western arrogance and condescension are over.

Sincerely,

Jinglun Zhao

Chief editorial writer, Asian-American Times

Columnist, the Hong Kong Economic Journal

Nieman Fellow, class of 1981

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