Globally Rational

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If you were an employer looking at resumès (let’s say that the job candidates are actually cities), would you hire Beijing? Take a look at their resumè:

• They invaded Tibet years ago and still refuse to let them have their independence; meanwhile, they continue to oppress the locals.
• They refuse to accept the independent status of Taiwan.
• They execute even more people (per capita) than states like Iran, which we blame for excessive executions. China singlehandedly accounts for 90% of the world’s executions.
• The Great Firewall of China censors the entire country from visiting a huge multitude of websites, including Google, Wikipedia, MySpace, and even NBA.com.
• Religious freedom is a joke there; Roman Catholicism, for instance, is banned.
• They rank #162 (out of 169) in the worldwide Press Freedom Index, about the same as countries like Somalia (159), Iran (166), and Cuba (165). Would we give the Olympics to Somalia, Iran, or Cuba?

Consider Beijing’s competition for the job (the other finalists)… would you hire Beijing over any of these four?

• Toronto, which is one of the most well-designed/developed cities in the world.
• Paris, which pretty much speaks for itself.
• Istanbul, which has made huge strides in the last 20 years in terms of both economic and social development (unlike Beijing, which maintains its abysmal record).
• Osaka, which has a rich history and, thanks to recent Japanese advancement, a rich present/future.

Why did we still give the Olympics to China? Well, here’s a hint: George W. Bush is still planning on attending the opening ceremonies, despite pressure from Hillary Clinton and many others. But Bush does have a record of being very interested in sports (and the prospect of developing relationships with major trading partners) but not in free speech and human rights.

When Beijing was offered the spot, VP Li Lanqing said that “The winning of the 2008 Olympic bid is an example of the the international recognition of China’s social stability, economic progress and the healthy life of the Chinese people.” Yes, it’s an example of “international recognition” of China’s progress… but just because we recognize its truth doesn’t mean that it’s true.

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Wikipedia defines “terrorism” as “violence against civilians to achieve political or ideological objectives by creating fear.” Here are some examples of accepted terrorist organizations:

• Al-Qaeda, for obvious reasons.
• The Irish Republican Army (IRA), which conducts violent attacks in an attempt to promote the independence of Northern Ireland from the UK.
• Hamas, a political party that is said to sponsor violence against Israel.
• Khmer Rouge, a violent Communist group that controlled Cambodia for part of the 1970s.
• The Ku Klux Klan, which is responsible for ethnic/racial violence in the US.

Anyway, you get the point. But what about state-sponsored terrorism? We spent a lot of time, resources, and money fighting many of the small groups: for instance, we fought al-Qaeda and the Khmer Rouge directly (with heavy casualties) and we fought Hamas by supplying money and weapons to their targets. Meanwhile, we ignore state-sponsored issues:

• China’s atrocities against Tibetans speak for themselves, but China is still hosting the Olympics and is still one of our biggest trading partners. They also don’t let the local media tell their residents about the violence, while the Great Firewall of China prevents any Chinese residents from accessing international news.
• North Korea is as dangerous as ever and, unlike al-Qaeda and Iraq, they have weapons of mass destruction. We seem to just ignore them.
• Israel still continues to kill far more Palestinian civilians than vice versa. Why do we continue to pay for them to do it?
• We ignore state-sponsored terrorism in countries like Rwanda and Ethiopia/Eritrea, but we are all over it every time it touches Yugoslavia. My guess is that it’s because it’s much easier for white America to be sympathetic with white Yugoslavia. It’s also interesting that the news never mentions that the terrorism in Yugoslavia was primarily non-Muslims killing Muslims, but they always mention religion when Muslims kill non-Muslims. The same thing happens in Israel… it’s never “Jews killing Muslims”, but you hear a lot about “Muslims killing Jews/Israelis”, even though the former is much more common than the latter.
• And, of course, there are the allegations of US sponsorship of terrorism, which seem to be irrefutable. Take a look at the link.

It’s hard to make a conclusion with such a small data set… but it’s good food for thought. This tells you a lot about how the US, as a nation, feels about various groups. We tend to ignore all evidence that is contrary to whatever issue it is that we want to support. We want to support China, so the Tibetans are irrelevant and the Olympics will continue. We want to support Yugoslavia, so we make Rwanda less important (the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was very efficient and took care of the issues… the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, on the other hand, has accomplished almost nothing). I don’t mean to suggest that we shouldn’t help Israel or Yugoslavia… but I think we should find a way to help Tibet and Rwanda at the same time instead of discriminating heavily in favor of one or the other.

Leave a comment and tell me what you think about this one. There are many possible explanations and conclusions, and I think we’d all like to see different opinions.

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