Wednesday's announcement [Geoffrey York, The Globe and Mail] that the Dalai Lama will be barred from visiting South Africa until after the 2010 World Cup was rather interesting. After all, as the Globe pointed out in their editorial on the matter, this is a country famous for producing civil-rights advocates like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. This move seemed a step back from the recent success of South Africa, and more in tune with the country's ugly past under apartheid.
Government spokesman Thabo Masebe told the Globe the move “would not be in South Africa's best interests.” That depends on the interests you're considering. There's a good reason "Follow the money" is one of the most memorable lines from the film version of All The President's Men, one of my favourite journalism books of all time. You can often learn quite a bit from the greenback trail. Let's try and apply that methodology here and see where it takes us.
South Africa, of course, is hosting the 2010 World Cup, a massive multibillion-dollar event. The World Cup is organized by FIFA, known for shady financial dealings and influence-peddling in the past (see this excellent story by Andrew Jennings on the Swiss bribery trial where FIFA head Sepp Blatter has been named; there are plenty of other examples in his book, Foul). FIFA gets the money to put on lavish World Cups through TV rights deals and sponsorship agreements with global companies such as adidas, Coke, Visa and McDonalds.
Those global companies are always looking to expand their brands into new and emerging markets. One of the most crucial markets for expansion is the People's Republic of China, which boasts over 1.3 billion people and an emerging middle class with significant buying power. The PRC has had significant problems with the Dalai Lama for some time due to his credentials as a Tibetan exile leader, and accused him of orchestrating riots [The Associated Press via MSNBC] in the lead-up to last summer's Olympics. Given the power of the PRC government, it could make either life very difficult or very easy for those companies if it felt like it. That doesn't mean that they're involved with this ban, but it does suggest that they would have strong motivations to help the PRC if asked.
Of course, the sponsors needn't necessarily be involved at all. China is also a key target market for FIFA: 1.3 billion people with substantial purchasing power in an area where soccer has not yet become the dominant game. Given the PRC government's control of the country's media, they have tremendous power to either aid FIFA in their marketing or make it very difficult for anyone in China to watch or follow soccer. FIFA has also been known to exercise substantial political influence before [one example from Andrew Jennings, in the Sunday Herald], so it's not like meddling in international relations would be anything new for them.
There are also options for China to put substantial pressure on South Africa without involving soccer or corporate intermediaries. As York wrote, "The ban is the latest signal of Beijing's growing power and influence in Africa. China has become the top trading partner of many African countries, and China's ruling Communist Party is reported to be one of the biggest financial contributors to the African National Congress, South Africa's ruling party." Yeah, that probably didn't hurt their case.
It's not a secret that the PRC is at the back of this. From York's story, we learn that "The Chinese embassy in South Africa has confirmed that it opposed the Dalai Lama's visit. In Beijing, a foreign ministry spokesman said yesterday that China appreciates any country that takes "measures" against the Dalai Lama." They may or may not have invoked the help of those looking for Chinese support in the soccer and corporate worlds; that's not for me to say without evidence. However, as pointed out above, exerting pressure on South Africa to keep the Dalai Lama out is in line with the key goals of the PRC government. Thus, FIFA and the global companies involved certainly can't oppose this easily without annoying a key government ally they need on their side, and the PRC may have even persuaded them to go along with it. If they felt like it, they could add their voices to those of the PRC and make life even tougher for the Dalai Lama to pick up a few brownie points with the Chinese government. It's business as usual in the world of soccer, but it's a depressing day for humanity and civil rights.
Update: 9:43 P.M. Found some other good takes on the situation. Sam of The Canadian Stretford End calls it "a disgusting move", while Cesar Benoit sees it as a "huge PR blunder".
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Physician, heal thy organization
I was glad to hear that International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge decided to take a stand for the good of the Olympics. However, I wondered which of the many available targets he would shoot at. Would it be China's failure to live up to its promises of democratic reforms [Amnesty International]? Perhaps the arrest and sentencing to "re-education through labour" of those people who dared to apply for permits to protest [Deadspin]? The censorship of the Internet [MSNBC] sites available to journalists who had been promised open access? The massive cheat-at-all-costs campaign the Chinese have employed to win the gymnastic events with underage athletes[Juliet Macur, The New York Times]? The rounding-up [Jay Nordlinger, National Review Online] of Falun Gong practioners, disaffected minorities and Chinese writers who dare criticize the regime, probably to be shipped off to secret forced-labour camps [Geoffrey Clarfeld, National Post], where they might even have their organs harvested [The Canadian Press via CTV News]? The forced closure [Richard Spencer, The Telegraph] of air-quality monitoring units? The lingering effects of Andre Guelfi and the ISL types who bribed their way into control of the IOC's corridors of power [Andrew Jennings, All Sports magazine] ?
The felons, fascists, dictators and corrupt officials who currently fill Rogge's own organization [Andrew Jennings, Transparency In Sport]? Nope, all those are trivial. Rogge found a much more significant target than those minor annoyances: the post-race celebrations of Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt[National Post].
It's tough to describe just how out of whack Rogge's priorities are, but Yahoo! Sports columnist Dan Wetzel makes a vailiant effort. "Jacques Rogge is so bought, so compromised, the president of the IOC doesn’t have the courage to criticize China for telling a decade of lies to land itself these Olympic Games," he writes. "All the promises made to get these Games — on Tibet, Darfur, pollution, worker safety, freedom of expression, dissident rights — turned out to be phony, perhaps as phony as the Chinese gymnasts’ birthdates Rogge was way too scared to investigate. One of the most powerful men in sports turned the world away from his complicity. Instead, he has flexed his muscles by unloading on a powerless sprinter from a small island nation. Rogge’s ripping of Usain Bolt’s supposed showboating in two of the most electrifying gold-medal performances of these Games has to be one of the most ill-timed and gutless acts in the modern history of the Olympics."
Wetzel is right on the money. Neate's already pointed out how ridiculous the criticisms of Bolt are [Out of Left Field], so I won't spend too much time on that. Globe and Mail reporter Matt Sekeres added a great point on Vancouver's Team 1040 radio station this morning, mentioning how Rogge used to be involved in sailing, a sport not exactly known for its excessive celebrations. Bolt's celebration was about the joy of winning and also about promoting himself, two concepts that have no place under Rogge's watch, where everything must be for the commercial expansion of the Games themselves instead of the welfare of the athletes who compete in them.
What really boggles my mind is that Rogge sees Bolt's celebrations as the most pressing and problematic issue around these Olympics and decides to take a firm stance against them, but completely ignores and sloughs off the more relevant and important issues listed above. It's the modern-day equivalent of Nero fiddling while Rome burned. Yes, there have been many great moments in these Olympics, but they have also revealed the true flaws of the Olympic movement to a wider audience, including the overzealous nationalism the Games have promoted in China, the lengths a totalitarian state will go to to win and the political gambits and manueverings the IOC heads have used to legitimize a state of repression in favour of expanding their moment's commercial appeal to a massive untapped market. Now is the time for Dr. Rogge, an orthopedic surgeon by profession, to investigate the internal cancers that plague his organization, rather than attempting to trim one of its toenails that probably isn't even too long. Physician, heal thy organization!
The felons, fascists, dictators and corrupt officials who currently fill Rogge's own organization [Andrew Jennings, Transparency In Sport]? Nope, all those are trivial. Rogge found a much more significant target than those minor annoyances: the post-race celebrations of Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt[National Post].
It's tough to describe just how out of whack Rogge's priorities are, but Yahoo! Sports columnist Dan Wetzel makes a vailiant effort. "Jacques Rogge is so bought, so compromised, the president of the IOC doesn’t have the courage to criticize China for telling a decade of lies to land itself these Olympic Games," he writes. "All the promises made to get these Games — on Tibet, Darfur, pollution, worker safety, freedom of expression, dissident rights — turned out to be phony, perhaps as phony as the Chinese gymnasts’ birthdates Rogge was way too scared to investigate. One of the most powerful men in sports turned the world away from his complicity. Instead, he has flexed his muscles by unloading on a powerless sprinter from a small island nation. Rogge’s ripping of Usain Bolt’s supposed showboating in two of the most electrifying gold-medal performances of these Games has to be one of the most ill-timed and gutless acts in the modern history of the Olympics."
Wetzel is right on the money. Neate's already pointed out how ridiculous the criticisms of Bolt are [Out of Left Field], so I won't spend too much time on that. Globe and Mail reporter Matt Sekeres added a great point on Vancouver's Team 1040 radio station this morning, mentioning how Rogge used to be involved in sailing, a sport not exactly known for its excessive celebrations. Bolt's celebration was about the joy of winning and also about promoting himself, two concepts that have no place under Rogge's watch, where everything must be for the commercial expansion of the Games themselves instead of the welfare of the athletes who compete in them.
What really boggles my mind is that Rogge sees Bolt's celebrations as the most pressing and problematic issue around these Olympics and decides to take a firm stance against them, but completely ignores and sloughs off the more relevant and important issues listed above. It's the modern-day equivalent of Nero fiddling while Rome burned. Yes, there have been many great moments in these Olympics, but they have also revealed the true flaws of the Olympic movement to a wider audience, including the overzealous nationalism the Games have promoted in China, the lengths a totalitarian state will go to to win and the political gambits and manueverings the IOC heads have used to legitimize a state of repression in favour of expanding their moment's commercial appeal to a massive untapped market. Now is the time for Dr. Rogge, an orthopedic surgeon by profession, to investigate the internal cancers that plague his organization, rather than attempting to trim one of its toenails that probably isn't even too long. Physician, heal thy organization!
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Manufacturing the Olympics
The whole kerfuffle around the Olympics' lip-synching switch, pre-taped fireworks and "volunteer fans"–which got a nice front-page expose from Bruce Arthur in the National Post this morning-better reveals the true nature of the Beijing Olympics and China than most of the coverage so far. If you're one of the five people living under a rock somewhere who hasn't yet heard about this, here's the basic run-down. During the opening ceremonies, the Chinese featured a song entitled "Ode to the Motherland" that was sung by seven-year-old Yang Peiyi, but lip-synched live by nine-year-old Lin Miaoke because Yang's face was apparently too round and her teeth were too crooked. Not content with this masterpiece of propaganda, they then inserted pre-taped fireworks footage into the montage of live fireworks to add to the event and sent in volunteer cheer squads to fill some of the empty seats.
This trifecta of deceptive maneuverings shows us plenty about China. If they just let things happen as they may, this wouldn't get a ton of attention: no one cares if a seven-year-old has perfect teeth, or how long a fireworks montage is, or even if not every Olympic venue is perfectly full. Instead, they've created a firestorm of negative press out of their attempts to spin things just right. The whole censoring-the-Internet bit is right up the same alley, and it shows just how badly the Chinese understand the Western media: by trying to keep reporters from writing about Amnesty International and Tibet, which might have just been brief subplots in the vast array of Olympic coverage, they created a boatload of stories on how the government was trying to limit the media's access.
Really, they should have hired some Western PR specialists. The best way to get a reporter to write a story is not to provide him with information on it, but rather to tell him "there's nothing to see here": anyone with even a smattering of journalistic instincts knows when someone's trying to hide something. Cover-ups usually make the best stories as well, and often lead to effects far greater in magnitude than just telling the truth in the first place would have caused: just ask Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein or Richard Milhous Nixon.
It's the whole authoritarian spirit of the Chinese Olympics that is so disturbing, though. Clearly, good is not good enough. A seven-year-old girl can have a beautiful voice, but crooked teeth? She's got no place in their Olympics. Cheering and other expressions of fandom? Not unless they're state-approved [Deadspin]. Tibetan bartenders? Better expel them, as well as question their black employers, discriminate against black bar patrons, approve the lyrics of foreign entertainers and prevent local residents from inviting foreigners to their apartments [The Washington Post]. Chatting with foreigners? Only allowed if you don't ask about age, marriage, health, home, personal experience, religion, political views or occupation. While you're at it, you'd better be careful with how you walk around foreigners and how you speak with handicapped athletes [Gawker]. Reading Fire Joe Morgan or Joe Posnanski's blog? Nope, no sabermetrics here [Joe Posnanski]. Planning to protest? Make sure you check with the police first [Charles Hutzler, The Associated Press].
As Arthur writes, these Olympics are certainly impressive, but the deception and the image-management makes you wonder what's real.
"What China has built here is incredible. The architecture, the machinery, the armies of volunteers and an Opening Ceremony with images that were surely seared into the soul of every Chinese citizen, and not a few citizens of the world, who watched. These are the Superpower Olympics, damn the costs. As Thomas Boswell of The Washington Post put it, the four billion people who will see these Olympics will witness "the behemoth that is being born."
But they are the Hollywood Olympics, too, complete with false fronts and lead actors and a cast of thousands, or millions. At its heart, this is a bright, shining, $40-billion lie. If the whole thing is being staged in Cambodia, don't be surprised."
What the Chinese government fails to realize is that their own efforts at control are only making things worse. The protests in Tibet earlier this year would have been less of a story if the government hadn't tried to keep the word from getting out. The smog would have been reported on, for sure, but in a less-embarrassing and less-frequent fashion if they didn't keep trying to tell us that everything's fine. Amnesty International probably would have been a bit player at most in these Olympics if the government hadn't blocked their website. No one would have criticized Yang Peiyi's appearance if she had sang, but by using a double, they touched off a firestorm of controversy. Normal, spontaneous cheering isn't a negative story, and might even be a positive one, but telling your fans how to cheer isn't going to earn you rave reviews.
The control, the censorship and the stage-managing make it easy to be cynical and skeptical even during moments that should be great promotional pieces. Even China's gold medal in team gymnastics is largely discredited due to the controversy about the gymnasts' ages [Ann Killion, San Jose Mercury News]. Open the country and the Games up, play by the rules of the rest of the world, let the press do their job, and you'll be surprised at the praise you'll get. If you try and keep the lid on for too long, it will eventually blow off in your face in a shower of hot steam.
This trifecta of deceptive maneuverings shows us plenty about China. If they just let things happen as they may, this wouldn't get a ton of attention: no one cares if a seven-year-old has perfect teeth, or how long a fireworks montage is, or even if not every Olympic venue is perfectly full. Instead, they've created a firestorm of negative press out of their attempts to spin things just right. The whole censoring-the-Internet bit is right up the same alley, and it shows just how badly the Chinese understand the Western media: by trying to keep reporters from writing about Amnesty International and Tibet, which might have just been brief subplots in the vast array of Olympic coverage, they created a boatload of stories on how the government was trying to limit the media's access.
Really, they should have hired some Western PR specialists. The best way to get a reporter to write a story is not to provide him with information on it, but rather to tell him "there's nothing to see here": anyone with even a smattering of journalistic instincts knows when someone's trying to hide something. Cover-ups usually make the best stories as well, and often lead to effects far greater in magnitude than just telling the truth in the first place would have caused: just ask Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein or Richard Milhous Nixon.
It's the whole authoritarian spirit of the Chinese Olympics that is so disturbing, though. Clearly, good is not good enough. A seven-year-old girl can have a beautiful voice, but crooked teeth? She's got no place in their Olympics. Cheering and other expressions of fandom? Not unless they're state-approved [Deadspin]. Tibetan bartenders? Better expel them, as well as question their black employers, discriminate against black bar patrons, approve the lyrics of foreign entertainers and prevent local residents from inviting foreigners to their apartments [The Washington Post]. Chatting with foreigners? Only allowed if you don't ask about age, marriage, health, home, personal experience, religion, political views or occupation. While you're at it, you'd better be careful with how you walk around foreigners and how you speak with handicapped athletes [Gawker]. Reading Fire Joe Morgan or Joe Posnanski's blog? Nope, no sabermetrics here [Joe Posnanski]. Planning to protest? Make sure you check with the police first [Charles Hutzler, The Associated Press].
As Arthur writes, these Olympics are certainly impressive, but the deception and the image-management makes you wonder what's real.
"What China has built here is incredible. The architecture, the machinery, the armies of volunteers and an Opening Ceremony with images that were surely seared into the soul of every Chinese citizen, and not a few citizens of the world, who watched. These are the Superpower Olympics, damn the costs. As Thomas Boswell of The Washington Post put it, the four billion people who will see these Olympics will witness "the behemoth that is being born."
But they are the Hollywood Olympics, too, complete with false fronts and lead actors and a cast of thousands, or millions. At its heart, this is a bright, shining, $40-billion lie. If the whole thing is being staged in Cambodia, don't be surprised."
What the Chinese government fails to realize is that their own efforts at control are only making things worse. The protests in Tibet earlier this year would have been less of a story if the government hadn't tried to keep the word from getting out. The smog would have been reported on, for sure, but in a less-embarrassing and less-frequent fashion if they didn't keep trying to tell us that everything's fine. Amnesty International probably would have been a bit player at most in these Olympics if the government hadn't blocked their website. No one would have criticized Yang Peiyi's appearance if she had sang, but by using a double, they touched off a firestorm of controversy. Normal, spontaneous cheering isn't a negative story, and might even be a positive one, but telling your fans how to cheer isn't going to earn you rave reviews.
The control, the censorship and the stage-managing make it easy to be cynical and skeptical even during moments that should be great promotional pieces. Even China's gold medal in team gymnastics is largely discredited due to the controversy about the gymnasts' ages [Ann Killion, San Jose Mercury News]. Open the country and the Games up, play by the rules of the rest of the world, let the press do their job, and you'll be surprised at the praise you'll get. If you try and keep the lid on for too long, it will eventually blow off in your face in a shower of hot steam.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Live-blog of Canada-Argentina coming up
A quick note that I'll be staying up to live-blog the opening game of the Canadian women's soccer team's quest for Olympic gold (yes, they start before Friday's opening ceremonies). Kick-off is at 4:45 ET (1:45 PT) this coming morning, and the game can be seen live on CBC. I'll also have notes from the Brazil-Germany match, which will be streaming live on CBCsports.ca. For background on the team and the competition, check out this excellent Ed Willes piece in the Vancouver Province, striker Kara Lang's blog on the Province's website, Gary Ahuja's excellent piece on defender Randee Hermus in the Langley Times or Duane's preview over at Out of Left Field. Hope to see you in the live-blog comment thread!
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Irony, thy name is Stern
I was perusing the Sports Illustrated Vault (greatest way to kill time ever) and came across this great profile of David Stern, written in November 2006 by Jack McCallum. It features some great unintentional comedy, as many things written about Stern then seem hilarious in retrospect. Consider the following examples:
"Over the past months the NBA drafted a mission statement of which Stern is exceedingly proud. It talks about values and social responsibility, and it pledges that NBA employees will "conduct ourselves in accordance with the highest standards of honesty, truthfulness, ethics and fair dealing."
Commentary: Guess that was before Clay Bennett joined the club.
"Now, there is plenty of room for cynicism when bottom-liners start talking altruism. And the many NBA haters in the U.S. would suggest that players such as Stephen Jackson are living repudiations of the league's mission statement. But Stern holds that the document has had a 'profound effect' on him and on those who work for him. He hardly gets through a day without mentioning the NBA's Basketball Without Borders program, which each summer sends dozens of players to conduct clinics in far-flung and often impoverished parts of the world, and he fumes when the league is criticized for too often airing its NBA Cares spots. 'We're going to keep right on showing them," the commissioner says pugnaciously, "because social responsibility is extremely important to us.'"
Commentary: Apparently, social responsibility permits stealing deeply-entrenched franchises away from fans who have loyally supported the league for generations while falling over backwards to help sleazeball corporate raiders.
"It troubles him, then, that the league is increasingly doing business in countries with abhorrent or at least questionable government policies." ... "China presents an even greater conflict for Stern because it has both colossal business potential and a terrible human rights record. The commissioner has traveled throughout the country, both for business and to satisfy his intellectual curiosity, and there is no doubt that China is critical to the global future of the NBA. Yet its repressive policies fly in the face of the league's mission statement."
Commentary: Yeah, that hasn't stopped him from seeing "more of a need for new pro basketball teams in China than in North America."
"'Believe me, the China situation bothers me,' Stern says one day, traveling between Paris and Cologne. 'And a voice at home [he means (his wife) Dianne, who is more outspoken about politics than he is] reminds me about it all the time.' He sighs heavily. 'But at the end of the day I have a responsibility to my owners to make money," he says. "I can never forget that, no matter what my personal feelings might be.'
Commentary: Stern can play the self-effacing political martyr all he wants, but I've got a feeling the cash is more important to him than he lets on here. We do get a bit of truth here though: Stern lets out that it is the bottom line behind every NBA decision.
There is one image from the piece, though, that makes it possible that Stern has merely been played as a pawn by Bennett, who, after all, considers him "just one of my favorite people on earth." "Though Stern's inner compass in leading the NBA has been largely unerring, he has trouble finding his way back from somewhere if his wife is not along," McCallum writes. "As he enters hotels, for example, he invariably makes the wrong turn to get to the elevator, though he makes it decisively. 'He has no sense of direction,' says Dianne, 'yet he always knows where he's going.'" That damn-the-torpedoes attitude that doesn't allow for admitting that you're wrong may have doomed Stern to the wrong side in the Sonics situation: enticed by Bennett's flattery, he jumped onto the Oklahoma bandwagon and promptly refused to entertain the notion that Clay and co. could be lying out of the sides of their faces, going so far as to say that he hadn't even studied the e-mails in question before the crucial relocation vote.
However, that kind of naivety doesn't seem to fit with the workaholic, obsessive, detail-oriented character McCallum describes.
"He has been traveling abroad for so long that he knows not only the names of international basketball officials and TV executives, but also their kids' names. Stern's attention to detail is astonishing. As he greets Coca-Cola officials in Barcelona, his first question is, 'How's Sprite Zero doing?' Perusing a notebook full of bar graphs and sales-figure charts during a meeting in Rome, he stops and points to one. 'You left a percent sign out here,' he says to Umberto Pieraccioni, Adidas Italy's managing director. Before the tour's final doubleheader, in Cologne on Oct. 11, the commissioner's eyes run over the seating chart. 'How about if you move George Bodenheimer over here?' he says. The ABC Sports/ESPN honcho is duly moved. On planes and in cars Stern usually decides who sits where, calling for a reporter to sit near him on occasion and, on others, exiling the scribe to a different seat or different vehicle, depending on whether or not he feels like answering questions."
It sounds like a disservice to that sort of man to suggest that he's unaware of what each and every one of his owners is up to, and he's clearly paid some attention to what's going on in Seattle, as evidenced by his fine of Aubrey McClendon for telling the truth. That leaves two possibilities. The first is that he was deceived by his first impression of Bennett, is loath to change his mind, and thus conveniently blames everything negative on the others in the group.
The second possibility is that this shifting of blame is merely a PR tactic to appease the factions calling for Bennett's head, and that Stern has secretly been backing the move all along. As I pointed out earlier today, the NBA may lose a large media market, but all of their owners gain substantial leverage in negotiating with local governments. They can threaten to move elsewhere if the pursestrings aren't loosened, and use the Sonics as a key example: "Look what happened to Seattle."
It's the old extortion tactic, but it makes perfect sense for a sports league: no one wants to be known as the politician who let the local team walk, so you can bet that there will be a considerable amount of enthusiasm for publically-funded arenas in NBA or soon-to-be-NBA markets. As TrueHoop's Henry Abbott wrote, "The more I see the situation play out in Seattle, the more I see that David Stern is really good at his job. His current assignment: getting as many dollars as possible from taxpayers and to NBA owners. Oklahoma City stepped up to the plate, with public dollars to remodel the public building they built some time ago."
That kind of Machiavellian manipulation sounds like a project worthy of a brilliant workaholic like Stern. Perhaps his comments about social responsibility, honesty, truthfulness and the like are merely spin. What would be even worse, though, is if he actually believes in those laudable goals and somehow thinks he's serving them. At the end of the day, he's sold his soul and his ethics to the almighty bottom line. It may be ironic, but after further reflection, it isn't all that funny, especially if you're one of the Seattle fans he's trampled on in the process.
"Over the past months the NBA drafted a mission statement of which Stern is exceedingly proud. It talks about values and social responsibility, and it pledges that NBA employees will "conduct ourselves in accordance with the highest standards of honesty, truthfulness, ethics and fair dealing."
Commentary: Guess that was before Clay Bennett joined the club.
"Now, there is plenty of room for cynicism when bottom-liners start talking altruism. And the many NBA haters in the U.S. would suggest that players such as Stephen Jackson are living repudiations of the league's mission statement. But Stern holds that the document has had a 'profound effect' on him and on those who work for him. He hardly gets through a day without mentioning the NBA's Basketball Without Borders program, which each summer sends dozens of players to conduct clinics in far-flung and often impoverished parts of the world, and he fumes when the league is criticized for too often airing its NBA Cares spots. 'We're going to keep right on showing them," the commissioner says pugnaciously, "because social responsibility is extremely important to us.'"
Commentary: Apparently, social responsibility permits stealing deeply-entrenched franchises away from fans who have loyally supported the league for generations while falling over backwards to help sleazeball corporate raiders.
"It troubles him, then, that the league is increasingly doing business in countries with abhorrent or at least questionable government policies." ... "China presents an even greater conflict for Stern because it has both colossal business potential and a terrible human rights record. The commissioner has traveled throughout the country, both for business and to satisfy his intellectual curiosity, and there is no doubt that China is critical to the global future of the NBA. Yet its repressive policies fly in the face of the league's mission statement."
Commentary: Yeah, that hasn't stopped him from seeing "more of a need for new pro basketball teams in China than in North America."
"'Believe me, the China situation bothers me,' Stern says one day, traveling between Paris and Cologne. 'And a voice at home [he means (his wife) Dianne, who is more outspoken about politics than he is] reminds me about it all the time.' He sighs heavily. 'But at the end of the day I have a responsibility to my owners to make money," he says. "I can never forget that, no matter what my personal feelings might be.'
Commentary: Stern can play the self-effacing political martyr all he wants, but I've got a feeling the cash is more important to him than he lets on here. We do get a bit of truth here though: Stern lets out that it is the bottom line behind every NBA decision.
There is one image from the piece, though, that makes it possible that Stern has merely been played as a pawn by Bennett, who, after all, considers him "just one of my favorite people on earth." "Though Stern's inner compass in leading the NBA has been largely unerring, he has trouble finding his way back from somewhere if his wife is not along," McCallum writes. "As he enters hotels, for example, he invariably makes the wrong turn to get to the elevator, though he makes it decisively. 'He has no sense of direction,' says Dianne, 'yet he always knows where he's going.'" That damn-the-torpedoes attitude that doesn't allow for admitting that you're wrong may have doomed Stern to the wrong side in the Sonics situation: enticed by Bennett's flattery, he jumped onto the Oklahoma bandwagon and promptly refused to entertain the notion that Clay and co. could be lying out of the sides of their faces, going so far as to say that he hadn't even studied the e-mails in question before the crucial relocation vote.
However, that kind of naivety doesn't seem to fit with the workaholic, obsessive, detail-oriented character McCallum describes.
"He has been traveling abroad for so long that he knows not only the names of international basketball officials and TV executives, but also their kids' names. Stern's attention to detail is astonishing. As he greets Coca-Cola officials in Barcelona, his first question is, 'How's Sprite Zero doing?' Perusing a notebook full of bar graphs and sales-figure charts during a meeting in Rome, he stops and points to one. 'You left a percent sign out here,' he says to Umberto Pieraccioni, Adidas Italy's managing director. Before the tour's final doubleheader, in Cologne on Oct. 11, the commissioner's eyes run over the seating chart. 'How about if you move George Bodenheimer over here?' he says. The ABC Sports/ESPN honcho is duly moved. On planes and in cars Stern usually decides who sits where, calling for a reporter to sit near him on occasion and, on others, exiling the scribe to a different seat or different vehicle, depending on whether or not he feels like answering questions."
It sounds like a disservice to that sort of man to suggest that he's unaware of what each and every one of his owners is up to, and he's clearly paid some attention to what's going on in Seattle, as evidenced by his fine of Aubrey McClendon for telling the truth. That leaves two possibilities. The first is that he was deceived by his first impression of Bennett, is loath to change his mind, and thus conveniently blames everything negative on the others in the group.
The second possibility is that this shifting of blame is merely a PR tactic to appease the factions calling for Bennett's head, and that Stern has secretly been backing the move all along. As I pointed out earlier today, the NBA may lose a large media market, but all of their owners gain substantial leverage in negotiating with local governments. They can threaten to move elsewhere if the pursestrings aren't loosened, and use the Sonics as a key example: "Look what happened to Seattle."
It's the old extortion tactic, but it makes perfect sense for a sports league: no one wants to be known as the politician who let the local team walk, so you can bet that there will be a considerable amount of enthusiasm for publically-funded arenas in NBA or soon-to-be-NBA markets. As TrueHoop's Henry Abbott wrote, "The more I see the situation play out in Seattle, the more I see that David Stern is really good at his job. His current assignment: getting as many dollars as possible from taxpayers and to NBA owners. Oklahoma City stepped up to the plate, with public dollars to remodel the public building they built some time ago."
That kind of Machiavellian manipulation sounds like a project worthy of a brilliant workaholic like Stern. Perhaps his comments about social responsibility, honesty, truthfulness and the like are merely spin. What would be even worse, though, is if he actually believes in those laudable goals and somehow thinks he's serving them. At the end of the day, he's sold his soul and his ethics to the almighty bottom line. It may be ironic, but after further reflection, it isn't all that funny, especially if you're one of the Seattle fans he's trampled on in the process.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Olympics: Total boycott not the solution
I know I've written extensively before about the problems with the 2008 Olympics, but Jack Todd's column in today's Montreal Gazette begs to be addressed. I actually agree with a fair bit of what Todd wrote, which is somewhat rare: he's a skilled writer and he defends his arguments well, but his views on sports are usually a good distance from my own. We draw similar conclusions for drastically different reasons though, and in the end, he goes much farther than I would.
Todd starts off well, talking about how it's terribly disappointing that the IOC and the international community that so graciously awarded China these games as a "force for good" are now washing their hands of the whole bloody mess. "For shame. Under cover of darkness, China is once again inflicting untold horrors on Tibet while the rest of the world looks on, wringing its hands and doing little or nothing else to stop the killing," he writes. "Obviously, the IOC made a terrible, tragic mistake when it awarded the 2008 Olympics to Beijing in the first place, overlooking strong bids from Toronto and Istanbul: arguably the worst mistake since the 1936 Olympics went to Hitler's Germany."
I'm not entirely sure on that one. Yes, the "Nazi Olympics" were terrible, but there have been many others with problems, such as the 1968 Mexico City Olympics where over 200 student protesters were massacred by the army only 10 days before the opening ceremonies, or the 1980 Moscow Olympics, held shortly after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Olympics have frequently been given to countries with problematic human-rights records: this case is only the most recent in a long trend. Still, Todd makes the valuable point that awarding Beijing the games was a mistake.
Todd then brings in an interesting personal story. "I was in Moscow when the vote to award the 2008 Olympics to Beijing was taken in 2001," he writes. "The Chinese were doing their best to put on a smiling, friendly face. But when I saw Juan Antonio Samaranch and Henry Kissinger strolling away arm in arm after the vote, it set off alarm bells: those two are not exactly famous for their respect for human rights. The behaviour of 30 members of the Chinese delegation who bulled their way to the front of the customs line on the way out of Moscow confirmed my impression that Beijing had no business hosting an Olympics."
I'm not sure if this is sufficient grounds to condemn the Games on. Yes, Samaranch is a pretty terrible figure, who, among other things, was a member of Franco's fascist regime before he became a corrupt IOC head: I recommend reading Andrew Jennings' fine work The Lords of the Rings if you want more information on him. Kissinger's legacy is more debatable. The support of those two men and poor etiquette by Chinese delegates isn't the best reason to have sent the Olympics somewhere else: what about the human-rights record, the terrible pollution that caused world-record holder Halle Gebrselassie to pull out of this year's marathon, the allegations of organ-harvesting of Falun Gong practioners, the ongoing occupation of Tibet, and everything else? In my mind, those are better factors than if Samaranch and Kissinger like it. Still, even though Todd and I have different reasons, we reach the same conclusion: the Games should have been awarded elsewhere.
Todd then goes on to make the case that the situation continues to get worse. "What was ugly in 2001 is uglier now," he writes. "China in Tibet is the real China: bullying, menacing, threatening. Trying to demonize the Dalai Lama, making this man of peace out to be a terrorist in order to justify the mass slaughter that is going on in Tibet. Chinese authorities are so afraid of the scrutiny of the world that they now want to ban live broadcasts of the 2008 Olympics altogether. This is a government that knows it has something very large to hide and does not want the pitiless eye of the world's television cameras trained on the bloody manner in which those who hold power in China maintain their position."
I agree with most of that. Interestingly, I hadn't heard of this live broadcast ban until now. The only story I could find suggested this was only for Tiannamen Square, which is still severely problematic, but hardly the "ban altogether" Todd suggests. Perhaps he only read the headline ("China may ban live broadcasts during Games)? He's quite right about the absurdity of China suggesting the Dalai Lama's a terrorist though, and he makes some good points about how the government is nervous about the scrutiny they'll get: my column on the planned "press database" speaks to similar concerns raised long before the outbreak of violence in Tibet.
Todd then makes a good point on the economic factors involved, which is perhaps why Western outcry thus far has been muted. "Once upon a time, the nations of the so-called "free world" staunchly resisted Communist China," he wrote. "But now that a brutal communist dictatorship has morphed into a brutal capitalist dictatorship, the world has opened its arms to China or more specifically, to the clout of China's increasingly dominant economy. The EU, the U.S., Canada, Brazil, all increasingly dependent on trade with China to keep their economies afloat, are afraid to confront the Chinese for fear of harming economies which, in the case of the U.S. at least, are already on shaky ground." True enough: I can't find too many bones to pick with that one. In the end, that's why China will probably get away with doing whatever they want: the rest of the world needs them too much.
However, shortly after this is where Todd jumps the shark, going from a sound premise to an illogical conclusion. "In the Beijing Olympics, the world has a big stick to force the Chinese leadership to abandon its Dark Ages approach to Tibet and to its own people: A massive, worldwide boycott, led by the EU and North America, perhaps by the athletes themselves if IOC president Jacques Rogge lacks the courage to lead the way," he writes. "This time, if the boycott is big enough, it will work."
I strongly disagree. As shown by Moscow and Los Angeles, the only thing a boycott does is to let a lot of second-tier athletes come away with gold medals, ruin the careers of many talented athletes who have been training for years for this moment, and cause a drastic oversupply of "What If" books 10 years down the road. The West needs to protest, but a boycott of the games isn't the solution. Instead, I like the idea of athletes or countries boycotting the opening ceremonies (advanced by Reporters Without Borders and Hans-Gert Poettering, the president of the European Union Parliament). By the way, Reporters Without Borders should receive kudos for their protest at the torch-lighting ceremony: it's good to see a media advocacy group taking such a bold stand. Heads of state staying away from either the opening ceremonies or the entire games would also send a powerful message that China's actions are not acceptable without destroying athletes' careers.
In addition, it would be nice to see more athletes make use of the forum the Olympics provides them with after their events, like the courageous sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos did in Mexico. Even such an establishment figure as IOC head Jacques Rogge, who's busy conducting "silent diplomacy" (the title says it all) with Beijing has said athletes will be free to express themselves outside of Olympic venues. There are plenty of opportunities for countries, leaders and athletes to express their rightful dissatisfaction with China's policies, but a total boycott is not the right action to take.
Todd starts off well, talking about how it's terribly disappointing that the IOC and the international community that so graciously awarded China these games as a "force for good" are now washing their hands of the whole bloody mess. "For shame. Under cover of darkness, China is once again inflicting untold horrors on Tibet while the rest of the world looks on, wringing its hands and doing little or nothing else to stop the killing," he writes. "Obviously, the IOC made a terrible, tragic mistake when it awarded the 2008 Olympics to Beijing in the first place, overlooking strong bids from Toronto and Istanbul: arguably the worst mistake since the 1936 Olympics went to Hitler's Germany."
I'm not entirely sure on that one. Yes, the "Nazi Olympics" were terrible, but there have been many others with problems, such as the 1968 Mexico City Olympics where over 200 student protesters were massacred by the army only 10 days before the opening ceremonies, or the 1980 Moscow Olympics, held shortly after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Olympics have frequently been given to countries with problematic human-rights records: this case is only the most recent in a long trend. Still, Todd makes the valuable point that awarding Beijing the games was a mistake.
Todd then brings in an interesting personal story. "I was in Moscow when the vote to award the 2008 Olympics to Beijing was taken in 2001," he writes. "The Chinese were doing their best to put on a smiling, friendly face. But when I saw Juan Antonio Samaranch and Henry Kissinger strolling away arm in arm after the vote, it set off alarm bells: those two are not exactly famous for their respect for human rights. The behaviour of 30 members of the Chinese delegation who bulled their way to the front of the customs line on the way out of Moscow confirmed my impression that Beijing had no business hosting an Olympics."
I'm not sure if this is sufficient grounds to condemn the Games on. Yes, Samaranch is a pretty terrible figure, who, among other things, was a member of Franco's fascist regime before he became a corrupt IOC head: I recommend reading Andrew Jennings' fine work The Lords of the Rings if you want more information on him. Kissinger's legacy is more debatable. The support of those two men and poor etiquette by Chinese delegates isn't the best reason to have sent the Olympics somewhere else: what about the human-rights record, the terrible pollution that caused world-record holder Halle Gebrselassie to pull out of this year's marathon, the allegations of organ-harvesting of Falun Gong practioners, the ongoing occupation of Tibet, and everything else? In my mind, those are better factors than if Samaranch and Kissinger like it. Still, even though Todd and I have different reasons, we reach the same conclusion: the Games should have been awarded elsewhere.
Todd then goes on to make the case that the situation continues to get worse. "What was ugly in 2001 is uglier now," he writes. "China in Tibet is the real China: bullying, menacing, threatening. Trying to demonize the Dalai Lama, making this man of peace out to be a terrorist in order to justify the mass slaughter that is going on in Tibet. Chinese authorities are so afraid of the scrutiny of the world that they now want to ban live broadcasts of the 2008 Olympics altogether. This is a government that knows it has something very large to hide and does not want the pitiless eye of the world's television cameras trained on the bloody manner in which those who hold power in China maintain their position."
I agree with most of that. Interestingly, I hadn't heard of this live broadcast ban until now. The only story I could find suggested this was only for Tiannamen Square, which is still severely problematic, but hardly the "ban altogether" Todd suggests. Perhaps he only read the headline ("China may ban live broadcasts during Games)? He's quite right about the absurdity of China suggesting the Dalai Lama's a terrorist though, and he makes some good points about how the government is nervous about the scrutiny they'll get: my column on the planned "press database" speaks to similar concerns raised long before the outbreak of violence in Tibet.
Todd then makes a good point on the economic factors involved, which is perhaps why Western outcry thus far has been muted. "Once upon a time, the nations of the so-called "free world" staunchly resisted Communist China," he wrote. "But now that a brutal communist dictatorship has morphed into a brutal capitalist dictatorship, the world has opened its arms to China or more specifically, to the clout of China's increasingly dominant economy. The EU, the U.S., Canada, Brazil, all increasingly dependent on trade with China to keep their economies afloat, are afraid to confront the Chinese for fear of harming economies which, in the case of the U.S. at least, are already on shaky ground." True enough: I can't find too many bones to pick with that one. In the end, that's why China will probably get away with doing whatever they want: the rest of the world needs them too much.
However, shortly after this is where Todd jumps the shark, going from a sound premise to an illogical conclusion. "In the Beijing Olympics, the world has a big stick to force the Chinese leadership to abandon its Dark Ages approach to Tibet and to its own people: A massive, worldwide boycott, led by the EU and North America, perhaps by the athletes themselves if IOC president Jacques Rogge lacks the courage to lead the way," he writes. "This time, if the boycott is big enough, it will work."
I strongly disagree. As shown by Moscow and Los Angeles, the only thing a boycott does is to let a lot of second-tier athletes come away with gold medals, ruin the careers of many talented athletes who have been training for years for this moment, and cause a drastic oversupply of "What If" books 10 years down the road. The West needs to protest, but a boycott of the games isn't the solution. Instead, I like the idea of athletes or countries boycotting the opening ceremonies (advanced by Reporters Without Borders and Hans-Gert Poettering, the president of the European Union Parliament). By the way, Reporters Without Borders should receive kudos for their protest at the torch-lighting ceremony: it's good to see a media advocacy group taking such a bold stand. Heads of state staying away from either the opening ceremonies or the entire games would also send a powerful message that China's actions are not acceptable without destroying athletes' careers.
In addition, it would be nice to see more athletes make use of the forum the Olympics provides them with after their events, like the courageous sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos did in Mexico. Even such an establishment figure as IOC head Jacques Rogge, who's busy conducting "silent diplomacy" (the title says it all) with Beijing has said athletes will be free to express themselves outside of Olympic venues. There are plenty of opportunities for countries, leaders and athletes to express their rightful dissatisfaction with China's policies, but a total boycott is not the right action to take.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Standing up and speaking out
Good for former Canadian Olympic swimmers Shannon Shakespeare and Nikki Dryden, who delivered an open letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Chinese Mission to the United Nations today. I've written about this before, but in my mind, politics are inextricably linked with sport, and it's far too late to pull them out now. Kudos to Shakespeare and Dryden for taking a stand on an important issue using their athletic status: I'd much rather see that than just another ad for sneakers or Gatorade.
This also shows the futility of the Belgian Olympic Committee trying to impose a "gag order" on their athletes. As James Christie's Globe and Mail story linked above points out, the IOC already has relegations to allow athletes freedom of speech while at the same time ensuring the entire games don't become about politics: attempts by individual organizations to try and clamp down even harder are over the top.
It was also nice to see Steven Spielberg back out of his involvement with these games due to China's dubious human-rights record at home and abroad. The withdrawal of such a prominent name should do a good bit to raise awareness of the very real world problems China is contributing to, and should show people that this year's Olympics cannot be viewed purely in sporting terms. Sure, the athletic achievements are still the main story, but you can't just whitewash the background.
As I've mentioned before, it's extremely unfortunate that China's doing all they can to spin these Olympics, including keeping a database on foreign journalists. However, stories like this one show that this is essentially futile: in the famous words of Leia Organa, "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." These Olympics are going to get hammered on China's rights record no matter how much the government tries to surpress the media: they'd be better off just presenting their own side of the story.
This also shows the futility of the Belgian Olympic Committee trying to impose a "gag order" on their athletes. As James Christie's Globe and Mail story linked above points out, the IOC already has relegations to allow athletes freedom of speech while at the same time ensuring the entire games don't become about politics: attempts by individual organizations to try and clamp down even harder are over the top.
It was also nice to see Steven Spielberg back out of his involvement with these games due to China's dubious human-rights record at home and abroad. The withdrawal of such a prominent name should do a good bit to raise awareness of the very real world problems China is contributing to, and should show people that this year's Olympics cannot be viewed purely in sporting terms. Sure, the athletic achievements are still the main story, but you can't just whitewash the background.
As I've mentioned before, it's extremely unfortunate that China's doing all they can to spin these Olympics, including keeping a database on foreign journalists. However, stories like this one show that this is essentially futile: in the famous words of Leia Organa, "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." These Olympics are going to get hammered on China's rights record no matter how much the government tries to surpress the media: they'd be better off just presenting their own side of the story.
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