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Beijing Olympics Boycott

Posted April 9, 2008

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by J. Christoph Amberger, TodaysFinancialNews.com

Baltimore — (TFN): The following was taken from the Amberger’s Smackdown on TFN. Watch this video.

Welcome to Amberger’s Smackdown on TodaysFinancialNews.com.

When visiting my hometown of Berlin over Easter, I couldn’t help but notice the changes that had occurred since I left in 1989, three months before the Wall came down.

The Wall, of course, is long gone. All you can find of it these days are tiny concrete chips glued to postcards or encased in little plastic boxes, retailing for between ten and twenty bucks a pop.

Almost nineteen years after, it’s difficult to tell the former East from the former West. In fact, the roads tend to be better now in the East… although my West Berliner father swears he’d never park his precious car anywhere near them.

Half a generation after Socialism collapsed, the memories of life in what was called Realsozialismus have faded. In many cases, they have turned into pink nostalgia. Eastalgia, as they call it in Germany. Communists now govern all of Berlin in a happy alliance with the Social Democrats.

Representatives of the new Left party were actually just calling for a return of the Stasi, the East German thought police. These days, that may still cost them their mandate. But give it another ten years and people will buy in again.

Maybe they’ll add climate scepticism to the long list of thought crimes then.

Rather just watch the financial video? Click here.

Since my kids post-date the Cold War, I made it a point to take them to the Mauermuseum, the Museum of the Berlin Wall, at the former Checkpoint Charlie.
The desperation that drove people to flee the Workers’ and Farmer’s Paradise becomes almost palpable. The ingenuity required to construct tunnels, miniature submarines and improvised scuba equipment, the hidden compartments in cars or even welding apparatus is impressive. The daring required to face the Baltic Sea in winter in an inflatable kayak, or is teering a home-made hot air balloon through the night skies is nothing short of stunning.

I think everyone proclaiming to be a socialist should visit the museum.

It wasn’t all bad, the Eastalgians like to say. There was the Television Ballet…

But in a day and age when even the American presidential candidates are warming up the failed socialist policies of the 20th century, and the Cold War is a vague and somehow comfortable memory to people in their 30s and 40s, it is reassuring that some heads of state still seem to remember.

The other day, East German-born Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly decided not to attend the Olympics in Beijing in view of the brutal suppression of dissent in Tibet. Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced a boycott. He was promptly joined by President Václav Klaus of the Czech Republic, who had previously promised to travel to Beijing.

They may still remember the German uprising of 17th June 1953, the Hungarian Rebellion of 1956, or Tiananmen Square back in 1989.

Not attending the Beijing Olympics may be no more than a gesture. But it’s nice to see that some people do, indeed, remember — and chose to act accordingly.

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Posted by J. Christoph Amberger · Filed Under Politics 

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