Sound of global hypocrisy

World celebrates in tyrannical China while ignoring Georgia’s plight

Avi Rath|Published: 08.15.08 , 00:15

The heavy heat apparently makes the brain cells still functioning at this time evaporate. The entire world is on vacation, and air-conditioners are working nonstop. Meanwhile, the world is full of sounds. While in the east we hear sounds of medals, fraternity, reconciliation, and peace, in the north we have sounds of war. Russia is trying to regain its honor and its central place in global politics, while Georgia is somehow trying to survive and lick its wounds.

However, the most significant and prominent sound heard across the world at this time is the sound of global hypocrisy.

After all, everyone knows that China is among the world’s worst dictatorships. It is a country where tyranny, slavery, murder, and suppression of human rights reign supreme. Yet the fact that China is an anti-democratic country does not stop the world from going there, celebrating with it, and legitimizing it, even if all of us know that things will remain the same after the Olympics, and the regime will subjugate its citizens for the sake of cleaning the dirt left behind by millions of visitors. What’s worse, this regime will force its citizens to finance this entire production, which cost billions.

But come on, who really cares about human rights and other such trivialities – after all, the swimming pools and stadiums provide amusement for the masses.

Western leaders are weak

And while we’re at it, who really cares about Georgia? Indeed, everyone knows that Putin and the puppet who serves as Russia’s president are dictators; everyone knows the state of human rights, corruption, and other elements in Russia. The Free World indeed promised to protect Georgia, and it’s true that we’re in the 21st Century and we thought that the media and the world won’t let this happen – but who has the energy to defend Georgia while thousands of its citizens are being massacred and tens of thousands of others have been left homeless and bleeding?

Is there a leader in the Free World today who feels like embarking on this adventure? And if we, being so naïve, thought that tomorrow someone will come to defend us from, heaven forbid, Hizbullah, Hamas, or Iran, we just got yet another lesson about the gap between the enlightened world’s promises and its desire and ability to act on them.

The leaders of the Western world are weak. They prefer to sit at the Olympic stadium and talk about peace, freedom, and equality, instead of doing something for someone in practice.

So we’re hearing sounds of diplomatic and political hypocrisy, sounds of weak leadership, and sounds of fatigue that prevents moral and brave deeds. The world no longer has the strength for anything. Bush is at the end of his career, Putin has his own megalomaniac plans, Sarkozy is busy, Merkel is on vacation, and Obama is in Hawaii. It seems that only Tzipi Livni and Shaul Mofaz are working at full force.

In China, people are smiling and handing out medals, while in Georgia people are burying the dead. And the world just keeps moving as if everything is normal.