Thus, the Canadian government followed in the footsteps of other Western countries (with the exception of France) in supporting the boycott of the Winter Olympics organized by China by refusing to be represented by their heads of state or their representatives. high-level diplomats. This gesture aims, among other things, to denounce the fate of the Uighur minority by the Chinese government. Human rights oblige.
Only athletes will participate. We can understand it. After having prepared for it for many years, these young women and men live only for this magical moment in their career.
The diplomatic spectacle of the empty chair will have little short-term influence on Beijing’s intolerant and invasive behavior on the international stage.
In this context, it should be remembered that the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal had been boycotted by 22 African nations (by the absence of their athletes) to protest against the presence of New Zealand, for which they blamed for sending his rugby team on a tour of South Africa, a country which practiced apartheid. All the same, it took 16 years, or 1992, for apartheid to be officially wiped off the political map of South Africa.
To recognize the black South African population the same rights as those of the whites, and to recognize the Uighurs of their rights to exist within present-day China seems naive and illusory. The Uighur minority does not have the power that the black majority in South Africa had.
What if, as was the case in the case of the two Canadian Michaeles, we found a trick by which we would manage to negotiate a way out of the crisis where the Chinese would not have the impression of losing face?
We can always dream.
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