Dear Prime Minister,
Guessing your schedule is busy (to put it mildly), I’ll be brief. I am writing to invite you, in the strongest sense of the word, to join the movement courageously initiated by President Biden: boycott the 2022 Olympics! Indeed, President Biden’s announcement represents a historic opportunity for the international community, and more particularly for the North Atlantic bloc, to put pressure on the rising Chinese power. Concerted action with the states of the European community, the Commonwealth and La Francophonie could constitute a decisive turning point not only for the defense of the oppressed communities in China (the Uighurs and the Tibetans, in particular), but also for the expansion of freedoms. policies of the population as a whole, and for the destabilization of the Chinese surveillance and control regime. In the face of the Communist Party’s propaganda yoke, only a “diplomatic crisis” of such magnitude has the potential to challenge the Chinese people, and perhaps incite them to political organization and protest.
Geopolitical and economic considerations are complex (another understatement), that goes without saying; but could we not say exactly the same thing of the Sudetenland or of Rwanda? These parallels are tenuous, but no less relevant. Historical change cannot occur without upsetting.
Beyond the limitations and contradictions specific to liberal democracies, the Chinese regime floats the specter of a much darker political future, straight out of an Orwellian dystopia. Is it necessary to recall (without even having recourse to a much more damning historical corpus):
– Uyghur “re-education” camps;
– the immolations of Tibetans during the course of the Olympic flame in 2011-2012;
– the rapid development of the “social credit” program;
– the use of political hostages against Canada…
I see in you a cosmopolitan citizen who, like many Canadians, is committed to the defense and guarantee of rights and freedoms, not only for the Canadian population and that of the First Nations, but also for all the peoples of this planet. Was the Commons’ position on the genocide of the Uighurs just another parliamentary chatter? Maintaining neutrality under the pretext of non-politicization of the Games is a form of politicization, and stems from a classic political position: complicity. With that, I ask you bluntly: how do you expect posterity to remember you? Are you on the right side of history? Hoping that this letter goes safely.