The greatest show on earth?

The Olympic opening ceremony impressed the world. But what lay behind it was a coercion only possible in China
    • Jump to comments ()

The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games was fantastic, most foreign observers say. But if asked how London can learn lessons for in 2012, the answer should be "Don't compete".

In fact, there's no way that London, or any other countries or cities around the globe, can compete with Beijing in hosting the Olympic games. Seven years before, when Beijing secured the hosting rights for the games, the city officials claimed it would be a "'best-ever' event". What does "best-ever" mean? It means the city would make the games a brilliant success at any cost.

No country or city has China or Beijing's ability to mobilise millions of volunteers to patrol the city to ensure safety, to ask millions of people to accept security scanning before taking a train or subway, to demand residents to stop driving in order to improve the air quality, to stop working and leave the city to make room for the coming visitors, and to say nothing negative in the press and even on the internet to ensure the appearance of harmony.

Furthermore, no country or city has the power to ask tens of thousands of school children to participate in the rehearsals, which were usually held at 3am to keep it secret, or to order thousands of soldiers to take part in a civil event.

The opening ceremony was really beautiful. According to government propaganda, 4 billion people watched around the world on TV, and most overseas commentators were impressed by the show. But such state-of-the-art celebration failed to inspire in us any national pride. People estimated the event would cost at least £50m. I started to calculate how many new school buildings could be built in the earthquake-hit province of Sichuan with such an amount of money. Even the £50m estimate is conservative. What if the labour costs for the students and soldiers were included? They don't get paid for performing in those official events.

A friend sent me a message via mobile phone explaining why other cities can't compete with Beijing in hosting the Olympic games. The message said:

Those cities that have enough money would not have enough people to take part in the ceremony. Those cities that have enough population would not have unlimited cash to spend on it. Those cities that have both enough money and enough population would not have the ability to keep their people as obedient as Beijingers.

And remember, mobile phone messages are one of the very few areas of communication not covered by censorship.

Latest posts

Today's best video

Today in pictures