by Dan Mason

Created on: May 13, 2008   Last Updated: August 07, 2008

I must admit, I probably will not watch a lot of the Summer Olympics this August. I enjoy the games, and will usually stop to watch an event if I pass by it on the dial, but I am not interested enough to schedule it into my day the way I am with an NFL or MLB game, or even a PGA event (well, as long as its one of the majors).

There are some, who if they had their way, would see to it that none of us would watch the Olympics this summer from Beijing. China's human rights record, and the situations unfolding in Tibet and Darfur have led to riots along the torch route (some of which, somewhat ironically, have escalated into violence), and calls for boycotts of the opening ceremony.

Thankfully, a call for an outright boycott of the games has not yet been issued. Perhaps this is a lesson learned from the 1980 Moscow games, which were boycotted due to the Soviet's invasion of Afghanistan. The boycott meant little to the Soviets, who dominated the games, and then proceeded to remain in Afghanistan until 1989. However, calls for a boycott of the opening ceremony have been heard. Notably, President Bush has received tremendous criticism for insisting that he plans to attend. French President Nikolas Sarkozy is likely to boycott the opening ceremony, and is urging other world leaders to do the same.

I support President Bush in this matter. Chinese culture is much different than ours. While Americans may think "Who cares whether people come to the opening ceremony?", this is a major concern for the Chinese. In their culture, reputation carries much greater, and much different significance than it does in the West. A boycott would serve more as a slap in the face to the Chinese than it would an indictment of human rights violations. On the other hand, if every world leader were to attend the opening ceremony, and show their support of the games, the culture, and the people of China, even in the face of all the accusations, that act of goodwill would hold much greater potential to lend itself to real change.

This becomes especially true when we step back and ask just what do we expect to accomplish from these calls to boycott, and protests along the torch route. If all we wanted to do was shed light on the human rights violations in China, this has been a partial success. It is still a mystery to many people exactly what China has done, because all the press covering the protests has centered on only the protesters and not the issue they are protesting. It still takes the

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