India and Ireland: examples of British barbarism.
The “fun” Games have begun and Indians are watching with major glee and awe (with their unbroken world record of one Olympic medal at the rate of every one billion people)! Here in USA where I live, people are watching with supreme patriotism and pride American media’s supremacist, Orwellian propaganda. But I am not. I am boycotting London Olympics of 2012.
To voice my strong protest against the British tyranny, violent occupation, colonization, artificial famines, pauperization and bloody partitioning of India (and countless “other” deaths by prison, torture, hanging and shooting)– which caused me, my family, my ancestors and my people lifelong misery, hopelessness and trauma, I am boycotting the global, athletic theater of corporate media and billionaire establishments — now known as the Olympics.
I am boycotting the Summer Olympics of London, 2012. Read my reasons below. Thank you.
(For those who might say: “Big deal!” Or, “So what?” Or, “Who cares?” You might read it too. Thank you.)
If you know me, this IS a big deal. For the first time in my sports-loving life that included religiously following decades of Olympic athletes and their superhuman feats — starting from Bob Beamon, Larisa Latynina, Mark Spitz, Olga Korbut, Nadia Comaneci, Carl Lewis, Teófilo Stevenson, Dick Fosbury, Usain Bolt and Abebe Bikila (even including our lone Indian gold medalists the field hockey team) — I shall not be watching the games or the opening ceremonies on TV, reading news on the progress of the games and medal tally, or getting sucked into the massively profiteering corporations’ 24/7 commercial blitz, continued under the guise of a not-for-profit, global sports movement.
(And I could never afford to watch the games sitting in a stadium, ever in my life.)
Today’s Olympic games are anything but not-for-profit, and they are anything but a movement. Michael Jordan and his so-called Dream Team, with help from global corporations and their media, have destroyed once and for all the pristine athletic camaraderie.
I offer my profound apologies to Bob, Larisa, Mark, Olga, Nadia, and everybody else. Sorry, I had to outgrow it, my lifelong idols.
A noted observer named Helen Jefferson Lenskyj said this.
“Olympism is more about profiteering, exploitation, and cynicism than sport.” Read more about what the Olympic games are really all about. Click on this link here.
She is absolutely right! But for now, I want to concentrate on the London and British part of it.
My childhood hero: Bob Beamon and his 29ft-plus historic long jump.
Because this is perhaps going to be the last Olympic assembly in London before my death, my boycotting is even more significant. I invite you to join this cause. I have no other power to protest on behalf of myself and the generations of suffering of people I mentioned above. This is my personal political poster.
I say, “Down with British barbarism!” I say, “Down with Downing Street!”
I demand an official apology for the two-hundred-year-long, violent British occupation of the Indian subcontinent and the bloody 1947 partition, and I demand reparation from the British government (just the same way South Africa demanded apartheid apology and reparation)– to the ordinary people of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Burma. No, this is not an academic debate. For me, this is real! I shall keep demanding until my death — Olympics or not!
There is a good chance that some conscientious and thinking people from many countries will read what I have to say, and share it with their family, friends and colleagues. Given the healthy size of blog readership I somehow managed to create over the past few months, I am optimistic that some ripple-effect actions will take place. I pin my hopes on that synergy of activism.
The Irish blog from where I took the the “British Mafia” photo above, however sharp in its language, actually finds reassurance for me that I am not the only one protesting the London Olympics. This is what the blog says:
Lifelong Prisoners of British Greed, Exploitation, Violence and Lies.
“The British Government are political hypocrites and war criminals waffling on about human rights overseas, while being found guilty of torture and human rights abuses in British Occupied Ireland and interning political prisoners of conscience, even in their own Olympic city of London 2012, which all non-infiltrated human rights activists worldwide, are calling to boycott !”
Given where you are from, if you are from a country that once went through the horrific, bloody British occupation, rights and justice abuse and economic destruction, you can replace Ireland in the above paragraph with your country, and get the same, sharp message! I am doing just that for India and Bangladesh and Pakistan.
It’s about time we sent that message of protest across the globe. “Down with Downing Street!” (Just the same way we recently said, “Down with Wall Street!”)
Karl Marx wrote about the British occupation of India many years ago. I am not a Marxist in my beliefs; but you don’t have to be a Marxist per se to admire and appreciate what Marx wrote to expose the tyranny of corporate capitalism and global aggression of powers such as the British Empire. In the twenty-first century, U.S. corporate powers have taken over the mantle the British powers left behind; the modus operandi and results have, however, remained the same. I wrote about it elsewhere in this blog.
Marx said: “There cannot, however, remain any doubt but that the misery inflicted by the British on Hindostan [i.e., Hindu land of India] is of an essentially different and infinitely more intensive kind than all Hindostan had to suffer before. I do not allude to European despotism, planted upon Asiatic despotism, by the British East India Company, forming a more monstrous combination than any of the divine monsters…
British hanged a rebel Bengali boy named Khudiram Bose. That was just the beginning!
All the civil wars, invasions, revolutions, conquests, famines, strangely complex, rapid, and destructive as the successive action in Hindostan may appear, did not go deeper than its surface. England has broken down the entire framework of Indian society, without any symptoms of reconstitution yet appearing. This loss of his old world, with no gain of a new one, imparts a particular kind of melancholy to the present misery of the Hindoo, and separates Hindostan, ruled by Britain, from all its ancient traditions, and from the whole of its past history.”
[Quoted from http://sabhlokcity.com]
Nobody in Golden Bengal ever knew starvation before the British came and created famine.
I want to talk about the British government’s and East India Company’s destruction of Indian farmers and forcible, rapacious plantation of indigo, accompanied by barbaric torture of the farmers and their families. I want to talk about British government’s solitary confinement in the horrific Andaman Cellular Jail and hanging of thousands of Indian young men and women who fought back against the occupation. I want to talk about British police’s brutality against Bengali, Punjabi, Telugu or Marathi revolutionaries of 1920’s and ’30s as well as North Indian peasants who revolted in 1857. I want talk about British government’s blanket press censorship and absolute suppression of freedom of speech to quell rebellion.
This is how they decimated our precious wildlife.
I could write about the British rulers’ destruction of forests, farm land and environment in India. I could talk about their massive, forced conversion. I could talk about their total derision and belittling of an ancient civilization. I could write about their sinister divide and conquer policies creating permanent rift between Hindus and Muslims.
I don’t bother with sport, I think it engenders competitiveness and antagonism to other teams and countries, not to mention wasting money that could be otherwise much more helpfully spent. So I effectively boycott it anyway. Having said that, I appreciate your having pointed out the effects of colonialism in India, of which I wasn’t specifically aware.
Thank you for taking the time to read what I had to say. I am not even talking about how the modern Olympics organizers have selectively used a particular type of games and created global conformity in the name of diversity. That’s a separate story altogether. I hope you share my two cents with your family and friends.
I am glad that an American Citizen is boycotting Londin Olympics to protest agaonst the barbaric British Rukr in India for two centuries eding in 1946. I wish most American citizens did the same and stopped americal athltes from participating at London Olympicsin an endeavour to win the largest mefals in favour of thr US.
However, I am not going to boycott the London Olympics for several reasons:
(a) because the advise comes from an American citizen and I do not like American citizens trying to act as big brothers of Indian citizens,
(b) Boycotting merely Londion Olympics and not Olympics altogether does not appar to be consistent for an Indian like me: recorded plundering of India started in the hands of Greek army led by Alexander.(before that the Aryans in vaded India) and were followed by barbarians referred to as Shak, Hun, Pathan and Moghuls – we cannot just pick and choose to protest.
(c) I do not like hatred against some foreign races/ people currently living on the ground that their forefathers or ancestors looted and imposed barbaric rule on my fotrfathrrs or ancestors, Hietory is useful in various ways to human society but spreadind hatred based on history lacks sensible logic.(d) I like the Tagorian thought.that the invaders who came to India to plunder and opressed has already merged in me in ‘ei bharater mahamanber saroro teeray’. .
I regret my inability to support American call for boycotting Olympics being held in London this year. In any case, I am not going to London Olympic Events and may as well feel good if I read that Indians hapeen to pick up a medal here and there, even as the Indian team learns that they are an inferior sporting quality people.
I am sharing.
Thank you so much, Betsy. Each share helps spread the word.
Other than the first quote from Prof. Noam Chomsky that I now included on top of the blog, he also wrote this to me, and I quote it here with his kind permission.
“[About the Porter review] It’s a review of several books, including one by Richard Gott. The crucial quote is: `One day, he predicts, “the rulers of the British Empire will … be perceived to rank with the dictators of the twentieth century as the authors of crimes against humanity on an infamous scale”. With the evidence piled up like this – and Gott stops in 1858, so missing the chance of much more – it looks almost plausible.’ ”
Thank you, Prof. Chomsky. Your word of support means a lot.
You did not include Sri Lanka… We are part of the subcontinent AND a victim of the British too.
Absolutely. Apologize greatly for this omission. I’ll include it. Thanks for pointing out and thanks for sharing.
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Thank you for your global solidarity and support. I am deeply touched that so many people read this blog. Please share.