The Sun-Herald

The Olympics party: my highlights so far

It's not often a Pom finds cause for deep national pride at a sporting tournament, but my compatriot Lucy Fairbrother this week covered our nation in glory before the Games had even begun.

The unassuming 23-year-old was one of four demonstrators who defied draconian Chinese security to unfurl Tibetan flags and a banner from a 120 foot lighting pole at the Beijing Olympic Stadium on the eve of the opening ceremony.
They were arrested of course and subjected to an intimidating, shrill and 'surreal' interrogation by fist-thumping police officers in which Lucy was accused of 'plotting with the Dalai Lama.' These demonstrators were lucky compared to others who express dissent in China; they escaped with a scolding and swift deportation. Had they been Tibetan, the interrogation would have almost certainly have come complete with cattle prod, beatings and permanent residence in a prison cell. As Fairbrother herself pointed out on her return to England, "I was scared, but I tried to focus on the fact that whatever was happening to me was nothing compared to what some of my Tibetan friends had been through."
Quite rightly, Fairbrother has received a hero's welcome back home. It takes incredible guts to stage a stunt like that and I was reminded of this again a few days ago when I was privileged to talk to the team who carried out Australia's most dramatic pro-Tibet protest during the Olympic torch relay in April. These four covered the iconic Coke sign at Kings Cross with a banner bearing the slogan: Enjoy Compassion, Always Tibet. Images were broadcast around the world and it was one of the most powerful symbols of the relay's many protests.
Like Lucy Fairbrother, this group was arrested too but their treatment by Kings Cross police contrasted starkly with her ordeal in China. "The officers were firm but courteous and actually quite sympathetic as we had damaged nothing and hurt no-one," said one of the activists (whose identities I'm protecting). Last week, the four's charges of trespass were thrown out of court by a judge who conceded the group had merely been exercising their right to peaceful public protest. They were delighted but, like Lucy, also all too aware of how fortunate they were not to be Tibetans demonstrating in China (or Nepal, where hundreds of Tibetan protesters continue to be rounded up and beaten on a daily basis), for whom a similar act would most likely mean a long incarceration punctuated by regular bouts of torture.
I hope there are more brave Westerners out there ready to make a stand on behalf of Tibetans and I believe no athlete on the British team deserves more praise than Lucy and her plucky crew. They should receive an honorary gold medal.
And what of the opening ceremony? You'll probably be expecting me to bag it, but actually I thought it was brilliant. How could it not be, with a $300 million budget and the vision of top movie director Zhang Yimou? I enjoyed the show for the same reason I enjoy Zhang's hit films: they are spectacular, imaginative works of fiction. In my job as a party reporter I've seen no end of expensive, well-planned extravaganzas designed to showcase everything from shampoo to alcohol and I can testify more than most to the capacity of theatre to inspire. With the right budget and event planner and some clever artifice, you can convince an audience of the supremacy of just about any product you're trying to flog.
On Friday night, the product was modern China -and the glitzy, expensive movie version was certainly awe-inspiring. But once the show's over, reality remains and in China this means unsavoury everyday incidents such as the unexplained disappearance of the wife of jailed Chinese activist Zeng Jinyan the day before the Olympics began, and today's detention of Chinese Christian activist Hua Huiqi. Then there was the ugly manhandling by police of protester Christina Chan in Hong Kong on Saturday.
But the Olympics so far haven't been without a laugh or two. As always, George Bush injected a shot of unintentional farce into the proceedings by lumbering around yesterday with female beach volleyballers like a sweaty park pest. And proving that even in matters of serious protest we Poms are still the masters of daftness, British protester Matt Pearce climbed up Hong Kong's Tsing Yi bridge on Friday in a horse costume, carrying a guitar, to protest about human rights. Not quite as effective as Lucy Fairbrother's statement, but it couldn't have been easy (horse costumes are usually for two people, aren't they?) and at least his heart was in the right place.