A Tale of Two Torches -Kenneth Cole

As the Olympic torch continues its tortured trip around the world, it's hard to tell who is getting burned by all of the demonstrations - the Olympics themselves, the Chinese government, or the protesters?

There's no doubt that while South Park may have introduced us to the concept of "Blame Canada," today's refrain is clearly to "Blame China."

As we settle into a recession, and our economy appears to be going from bad to worse, China's exports continue to grow, as does their GNP. They continue to outperform us economically (with continued job growth, and improvement in the standard of living), so one can only conclude that the playing field can't be level, and that they must have compromised basic safety and other standards to have accomplished such.

Clearly, there need to be better health and safety standards on Chinese exports, but whether it's dangerous dog food or toys with lead paint, the companies that import goods made in China have as much responsibility for the safety of their products as the Chinese do. (I can no more blame the country of China -- or Italy for that matter -- if I import bad quality or ill-fitting shoes then I can my own quality control department.) And clearly, what's happening in Tibet is wrong. But the fight for Tibetan autonomy has been going on for 1,300 years.

So if we really want to see progress in the area of consumer safety, or the freedom of the Tibetan people, the answer isn't to try to extinguish their torch as much as it is to look to our own - the one held aloft by Lady Liberty in New York Harbor.

That torch supposedly symbolizes certain principles that our nation has had a hard time living up to. We still have "huddled masses" of homeless. We still have prisoners held without being charged at Guantanamo "yearning to breathe free." We somehow feel entitled to sit in judgment of others for some of the very standards up to which we are unlikely to be able to hold ourselves.

That said, if we lived up to our own standards, it would at least give us some slightly higher moral ground to stand on. And to the degree we have issues, (whether their human rights policies are up to our questionably high standards, or if we feel they aren't competing fairly in the world of commerce) those should be independent. The Olympics shouldn't be held hostage and used as an amplifier for our, or anyone else's, personal ideals or politics.

Whatever the Olympic torch's modern symbolism, the original Greek torchbearers used the torch as a symbol of truce, carrying it from city to city to announce the date of the games under a banner of peace. Today, the Olympics may be one of the only global non-political initiatives that truly allows all people to put aside all of their differences so as to be able to compete on a literal level playing field, and ultimately to transcend that which divides us in order to focus on that which doesn't.

It seems to me that the right thing to do is leave the torch alone, be gracious guests in Beijing, honor the Olympic spirit and tradition, and seek to strengthen the bonds of civility and appropriateness by example.

And, as goes the old Chinese proverb (envisioning a blogging American designer); "Let he who is without sin extinguish the passing torch."

That's my story and I'm sticking to it (for now).

Post a comment