Post by Adam on Aug 18, 2008 16:29:44 GMT -5
pajamasmedia.com/blog/beijing-2008-the-totalitarian-games/
During the first week of June, the Chinese Communists issued a list of 57 “special” rules for the Olympic “guests.”
This quaint little list of tourist guidelines covers everything from prohibitions on wearing political-statement clothing or sleeping outdoors, to being properly “polite” to enforcement personnel.
And, of course, the more obvious reminders:
* Those with “mental diseases” or contagious conditions will be barred.
* Some parts of the country are closed to visitors — one of them being Tibet.
* Olympic tickets are no guarantee of a visa to enter China.
Now, who would think that visiting Tibet would pose a threat to the Communists’ iron fists? Or that the possibility of bringing up Darfur could get a former Olympic champion barred from the Land of Perfect Peace and Happiness?
Just to be on the safe side, those lovers of freedom in the Party started rounding up prickly dissidents well in advance of the Games. Starting back in 2006, a systematic purging of possible troublemakers took place all over the land. It simply would not do for ordinary Chinese citizens to show up at fancy Olympic venues, begging for safe drinking water or basic human rights.
It’s even harder to keep those Jesus freaks under wraps. So, the benevolent leaders decided to play it safe and start early rounding up those underground, home church leaders and preachers.
Despite China’s formal pretense otherwise, it operates one of the most anti-religious and brutal anti-Christian dictatorships in history. Even though the Chinese Communists established and control “state” churches, they merely represent a false façade for the propagandists of the atheist Party.
As John W. Whitehead writes:
Thus, a growing underground house church movement has sprung up, numbering between 50 and 100 million Christian Protestants. This, of course, has been labeled illegal by the Chinese government. Consequently, Chinese authorities routinely swoop into home churches, dragging worshipers out in the streets in some instances and beating them. Some have even been killed.
These efforts to squelch the growing home church movement have been ramped up in anticipation of the Summer Olympic Games. The China Aid Association has reported that many house church pastors in Beijing have been “visited” and “requested” to leave the city before the Games. Others have been arrested, beaten, and tortured.
While the folks at the IOC may have thought their hearts were in the right place when they granted Communist China the prestige of the Olympic Games, one must wonder whether their heads were on the same planet at the time. Rather than worldwide attention encouraging the Communists to loosen their grip, the opposite has indeed occurred.
Real families have been split apart by the sudden roundups. Real children have lost fathers and mothers, perhaps for life. Repressed people have been dealt yet another forceful blow.
And in a couple of weeks, the rest of the free world will go back to business as usual, while Chinese citizens, without simple human rights, remain jailed.
