The Irony Of Spectacle

I'm sitting here with my kids while the repeat of the opening ceremony from the Beijing Olympics is on. I'm reading the paper and trying not to watch as I think the Chinese government is reprehensible in some of its actions worldwide. To have given that government an event like the Olympics is proof that the IOC is the single most corrupt body in the world. Ahem...pause...breathe...but not the air in Beijing...OK, breathe again, the crisp air of Melbourne...

Then it came on. In this wonderfully staged event, the performers on the ground formed an object. White, pure, magnetic. I lifted my eyes from the paper and then was gobsmacked. It was a white dove. The dove of peace, a "typcial Olympic symbol" the sycophnatic commentators told me.

Amazing. This is a country that does not use its power for peace. Take Zimbabwe for example. A few months ago it was the Chinese trading with Zimbabwe, shipping arms to the king of B grade dictators, Robert Mugabe. A friend of peace? I'm sure that Mugabe would see the shipload of arms as a way of gaining peace, simply becuase it would have helped his forces kill more of the troublesome MDC supporters who wanted democracy and inflation under 100000%.

Then there is Darfur, in western Sudan. The US has called what is going on there genocide (twice). Not that they've done much aside from that, mind you. However, when the UN Security Council has called for sanctions and the like to be implemented against Sudan (oh, only 400,000 people have been killed and 2 million displaced, by the way), guess who has resisted? Guess who is still trading is small arms (despite this being prohibited)? Guess who is still trading with the Sudanese government, buying their oil and supplying them with funds that have been used in perpetrating atrocities against Darfuris? That's right, the Chinese government.

And do I need to say anything about Tibet? What of its struggles, its culture, its right to protest oppression? And the Uighars in Xinxang? Their rights? Where is their contribution to the opening ceremony? And the countless bloggers in China who, if they wrote what I have just written, would be arrested and imprisoned for simply voicing the plight of the voiceless?

So, the irony of a peace dove flying in Beijing (when in reality a dove would probably choke in that environment) is staggering.

The Trouble With Me

I've just finished reading Mark Sayers' book, The Trouble With Paris. Suffice to say, as anyone who has ever heard Sayers speak, this guy has a gift at examining culture and seeing where the church has bought in to it. And by the church, I mean the individuals who make up the church. Which includes me. A quote on pg 32 has got me thinking:

The ultimate authortity and religion remains the consumer culture...that which has final authority for a believer or society, both in the sense that it determines one's scale of values and in the sense that it provides the models, the basic patterns through which the believer grasps and organises his or her experience...

In other words, you may say you're a Christian or a Muslim or an aetheist. That's all well and good. But the bottom line to what I am is decided by worldview I actually follow. If that culture is consumerism, then all my decisions will be valued against that belief system, whether I am a Christian, Muslim etc etc. And that's a really challenging thought.

What if my faith is not in Jesus, but in hyperconsumerism? (Albeit with a dash of Jesus thrown in for eternal good measure). That's scary. What if my final authority is not God's word, but the latest catalogue? What if the model I base my life on is not in fact Jesus, but the models advertised in the magazines I read (which as Sayers points out, are airbrushed to within an inch of their life and, therefore, are impossible to follow?).

If I'm serious, I have to really dig deep and ask some hard questions about who - or what - is the final athority in my life.

The art of procrastination

You see, the beauty of it all is that I should be doing something else.

But I'm not, I'm adding my voice to a sea of similar voices, of others crying out their trivial concerns in epic manner and those trumpeting their rage and concern against epic events on seemingly trivial blogs. So, after retiring the rant it is back to the discipline of putting down my thoughts as though others are interested, all the while in the background I can heat the pseudo cockney tones of Jamie Oliver and a somewhat paranoid chicken. I am not sure who I feel more sorry for...

That's life, though, ain't it? A sea of noise. A sea of competing voices and events and - dare we say it - people confusing voices for events?

That is procrastination. Listening to voices and elevating them to must go to events.

Enough for now, considering that all I sat down to do was look at my fantasy footy team!