Resisting the Torch

Abstract

When the IOC announced that Beijing was to host the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, the Tibetan cause was almost dead in France. Traditionally active organizations were quiet, demonstrations weren’t attracting protesters; neither the press nor the public authorities were showed much concern, with the only narrative being the huge economic opportunity represented by the Chinese market, in terms of available labour and potential consumers. But the expected exceptional level of media coverage for the Olympic Games, added to the involvement of a large number of political, economic and cultural actors in the organization of the Games, convinced a handful of pro-Tibet activists that the event could be instrumentalized to both mobilize supporters and raise general public awareness.

The Olympic flame relay in Paris ended in farce today when police cut the event short after protests forced officials to repeatedly extinguish the torch.

It was a second day of severe embarrassment for Beijing following similar skirmishes in London yesterday as activists demonstrated against China’s recent violent crackdown in Tibet.

The Paris stage of the relay ran into trouble immediately after leaving the Eiffel Tower at lunchtime, even though hundreds of riot police and security officials flanked the torch bearers.

With only 200 metres of the planned 17-mile journey to the Charlety stadium on the edge of the city completed, the scale of the demonstrations meant officials had to extinguish the torch and seek shelter on board a bus.

The torch was relit and handed back to the French athletes carrying it through the streets, but it soon had to be extinguished again.

After this had happened for a fourth time, and with the procession hopelessly behind schedule, police decided not to go ahead with its second section.

Instead, the torch was again loaded onto a bus and driven to the stadium, arriving at around 5.30pm local time (1630 BST).

By the time the relay was abandoned, a planned ceremony to greet the torch outside the French capital’s city hall had already been cancelled as members of the Green party hung a giant Tibetan flag from the building.

‘Olympic torch relay cut short amid Paris protests’

The Guardian, 7 April 2008