Pall of mourning falls over the Olympics
By Kent Ewing
HONG KONG - Less than two weeks ago, China was awash in zealous patriotism and
pride after the Olympic torch relay ended its torturous, protest-laden
international tour and finally arrived home. But the country's mood - and even
the Summer Olympic Games themselves - have changed dramatically in the wake of
the devastating Sichuan earthquake.
The torch relay can no longer be a nationalistic romp to the August 8 Opening
Ceremony for the Games in Beijing. And the Games can no longer be the unbridled
celebration of China's arrival on the world stage that Chinese leaders had been
hoping for. The death and destruction in Sichuan (and, to a lesser extent, in
several other provinces) has cast a great pall over China's Olympic dream.
While the Games can still be a triumph and
China can still shine, the celebratory mood has been deflated by an official
three-day period of national mourning, which started Monday, for the estimated
50,000 people who died in the country's worst natural disaster in 32 years.
It is strange now to recall how the torch was greeted by fervent crowds waving
red flags and shouting patriotic slogans as it wended its way from city to
city. Even Hong Kong, which has had an uneasy relationship with its masters in
Beijing since the handover from British rule in 1997, became caught up in the
frenzied nationalism prompted by what many Chinese saw as the insults and
indignities their nation suffered during the torch's global journey. Now the
relay has been suspended during the three-day mourning period, with some
commentators saying it should be canceled altogether.
Chinese pride seemed to peak on May 8 when a 23-year-old Tibetan, Tsering
Wangmo, carried the flame to the 8,850-meter summit of Mount Everest. She was
one of five climbers - three Tibetans and two Han Chinese - to take part in the
relay to the "top of the world", where the air is so thin that the
torch-bearers donned oxygen masks, which they briefly removed for the summit
photo-op.
And what about the physics of keeping the flame alive at that altitude? Credit
rocket scientists at China's space agency for that remarkable engineering feat.
And, of course, the symbolism of three Tibetans taking part in the Everest
relay was the perfect riposte to raucous protests over the crackdown in Tibet
in March.
All that seems a distant memory since the 7.9-magnitude earthquake shook
Sichuan, China and the world. The tremendous scale of the tragedy alone is a
Games-changer. But the central government's speedy and compassionate response
to the disaster, along with state media's exemplary coverage of it, is
supplanting Tibet in the international media and showing China in much
different light ahead of the Games.
The last time an earthquake approaching this magnitude struck China - on July
28, 1976, in the city of Tangshan in Hebei province - Beijing's response was
quite different. While the city was flattened and more than 242,000 people left
dead, the Chinese leadership, still under the ultimate authority of a dying Mao
Zedong, did its best to keep the true extent of the disaster hidden from the
outside world. By September, Mao was dead, but Beijing continued to refuse
international assistance, insisting on self-reliance. Because of dubious
official records at the time, the debate continues over the final death tally
in Tangshan, with some estimates as high as 700,000.
By contrast, the central government's response to the Sichuan tragedy, with
Premier Wen Jiabao leading out, has been vigorous, speedy, compassionate and
transparent. A few visa hitches aside, Beijing has also been open to
international assistance. Meanwhile, regional neighbor Myanmar has become the
target of international condemnation after its refusal to open up to most
outside aid agencies in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, which struck the country's
Irrawaddy Delta region on May 2.
While Myanmar's military junta dithers with international offers of relief,
133,000 people are either dead or missing and, according to the United Nations,
up to 2.5 million more remain at risk. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has
called the junta "inhuman" because of its callous disregard for the welfare of
people living in the delta.
Myanmar's egregious example has served to underscore China's open and
expeditious response to the Sichuan tragedy. By comparison, Beijing looks like
a model of compassion and efficiency in the search-and-rescue stage of the
disaster. Tens of thousands of People's Liberation Army soldiers were quickly
mobilized to lead the rescue effort and, within hours of the first reports of
the quake, Wen made a point of visiting some of the worst-hit areas to comfort
injured and grieving survivors and to promise a full-on response to save those
who were still trapped in the rubble. (Myanmar's junta leader, Than Shwe, just
recently got around to visiting a refugee camp, two weeks after the cyclone
struck.)
In Sichuan's devastated Wenchuan county, the epicenter of the quake, the
premier told survivors: "The central government will not forget this place. We
must rescue the injured people. If the roads are still blocked, we will deploy
aircraft to transport people out."
Wen further cemented his reputation as the "people's premier" after state media
reported that, crouching amid the rubble of a collapsed elementary school, he
assured a trapped student: "This is Grandpa Wen Jiabao. Hang on child; we will
rescue you!"
After Wen showed the way, President Hu Jintao also visited hard-hit areas in
Sichuan, although belatedly in the eyes of many and without the premier's flair
for connecting with the people.
Despite Hu's late appearance, however, overall the Chinese leadership can only
be commended for its immediate and massive response to the Sichuan disaster.
But this crucible is far from over. With the search-and-rescue mission coming
to a close, it is time to focus on survivors, especially the 200,000 who were
injured and the 4.8 million left homeless by the quake.
Most immediately, engineers are trying to avoid the further calamity of
flooding that may occur because rockfalls from the quake have dammed rivers,
forming lakes that threaten to burst as aftershocks strike the region. One such
lake, located in Qingchuan county, now holds more than 10 million tons of
water. If this lake were to overflow, state media reported, 1.2 million people
could be affected. Thousands in Beichuan county have already been evacuated to
higher ground because of another lake on the verge of overflowing.
In addition, there is the danger of disease spreading because of a shortage of
clean water, not to mention the challenge of the psychological counseling that
may be required for millions of traumatized survivors of the quake - a concept
still mostly foreign to China.
Finally, there is the disturbing question of why so many students died in this
catastrophe. Housing and Urban-Rural Development Minister Jiang Weixin has
promised to conduct a probe into the high number of schools that collapsed,
saying, "At this stage, we cannot rule out the possibility there has been
shoddy work and inferior materials."
Building standards vary widely in China. Modern industrial plants and office
blocks often meet high standards while schools and other public works,
especially in rural areas like those struck by the quake in Sichuan, tend to
get short shrift. Add rampant official corruption to the equation and the
thousands of children who were in school when the quake struck at 2:38 pm on
May 12 didn't have much of a chance. Witnesses described school buildings
falling like "pancakes" as, within seconds, floors collapsed on top of one
another, leaving students no time to get out.
So, while Beijing deserves high praise for its initial response to the
disaster, the hardest part may not be burying the dead but, rather, caring for
the survivors and rebuilding so that the gap between living standards in rural
and urban China is not so great. If this healing and reconstruction phase of
the disaster is handled well, however, then China will not need all the
pre-Olympic flag-waving and jingoism on display before the quake. Tibet will be
largely forgotten, and the world will look on with admiration as a proud but
still-grieving nation opens the Games.
Kent Ewing is a teacher and writer at Hong Kong International School. He
can be reached at kewing@hkis.edu.hk.
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