Chinese Political Theatre

Olympics Extravaganza Was Political Theater

Commentary by Martin Gayford


We saw an astounding piece of political theater last weekend, or at least billions of us did. I'm talking about the Beijing opening of the Olympic Games.

Given the level of coverage of this event, it's scarcely necessary to recount the details -- the 2,008 percussionists with illuminated drums, the 29 separate sets of fireworks, the 14,000 musicians, acrobats and trapeze artists performing pageants representing 5,000 years of Chinese history, the dramatic lighting of the Olympic torch by a gymnast suspended from a wire.

It all underlined, as Kevin Garside of London's Daily Telegraph put it, the fact that Beijing ``stood at the center of a universe at least as influential as Greece or Rome.'' Most significantly for the future, the lighting of that flame perhaps symbolized ``the transfer of geopolitical dominance eastwards.'' Maybe, though it's important to remember that all we saw were fireworks and acrobats. That is, a performance.

Garside was not quite right in saying the world witnessed the death of an ideal, ``the separation of sport and politics.'' Surely, one parallel for the scenes at the Bird's Nest Stadium was the Wagnerian drama of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, as documented in Leni Riefenstahl's famous (or infamous) film, ``Olympia.'' (Riefenstahl was a prominent figure in the Third Reich and a friend of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels.)

Sport and politics have been mixed up for a long time. In the days of the original, all-Greek, Olympics the chariot race was regularly won by contestants from the nouveau riche dictatorships of colonial Sicily. Political theater has been around for a long time too. In fact, it may be one thing, unlike gunpowder, paper, etc., that the Chinese did not invent.

Baroque Politics

The politics of the baroque courts of Europe were literally choreographed -- and danced out to music. Louis XIV of France owed his nickname, ``The Sun King'' to a ballet performed in 1653 in which he took the part of Apollo, the sun god, wearing a sumptuous costume and with gilded braids of hair to symbolize solar rays.

It's hard, though diverting, to imagine George W. Bush, Gordon Brown or even Nicolas Sarkozy capering about like that today. Yet the tradition of political theater continues. The point to remember is that it is just that: tinsel and grease paint. It doesn't necessarily predict what happens next.

In the case of Louis XIV it did. He became the most powerful monarch in Europe, like a sun in the political sky. But the fate of Charles I of England was different. Throughout the 1630s, the Royal Court in London put on a series of magnificent shows, with words often by Ben Jonson and sets by Inigo Jones. The king and his queen, Henrietta Maria took starring roles.

The theme of these performances was the divine right of kings and glories of absolute rule by the Stuart Dynasty. A few years later came the Civil War and the execution of the monarch.

Of course, the lighting of that flame in Beijing may precede the passing of political power from West to East. On the other hand, it might not. We all remember what happened to Hitler's Germany after the Berlin Olympics. It's important not to confuse political theater with political reality.