Slate compiles a handy guide to potential crises that may or may not erupt in China in the coming weeks, while that nation hosts what will probably be the most interesting Olympics in recent memory even without the threats of festering political unrest ignited by dissident groups, terrorist attacks, suffocating smog, rolling blackouts... or a plague of locusts.
Slate: A Disaster Guide for the Beijing Olympics
Majora Carter '88 was involved in an incident with San Francisco authorities yesterday during the Olympic torch relay ceremony.
Carter, a notable Wesleyan alum and clearly an awesome individual, was selected as a torchbearer for part of the San Francisco relay due to her humanitarian work in New York City. AP:
At least one torchbearer decided to show her support for Tibetan independence during her moment in the spotlight. After being passed the Olympic flame, Majora Carter ['88] pulled out a small Tibetan flag that she had hidden in her shirt sleeve.From the Daily News:
"The Chinese security and cops were on me like white on rice, it was no joke," said Carter, 41, who runs a nonprofit organization in New York. "They pulled me out of the race, and then San Francisco police officers pushed me back into the crowd on the side of the street."
"Apparently, I'm not part of the Olympic torch-bearing entourage anymore," Carter quipped.
Carter's maverick move was the most successful act of defiance in the cat-and-mouse game cops played with the thousands railing against China's crackdown on dissidents in Tibet and its unwillingness to denounce genocide in Darfur.
[EDIT 5:15 pm] A video of Carter explaining her feelings about the incident:
Toxic children's toys, dangerous seafood, defective tires, poisonous medicine, incredible amounts of pollution, thousands of shady executions. They've killed your pets. They've got some weird hybrid of Communism and capitalism and a government rife with corruption. They're propping up unstable governments in Africa in exchange for their natural resources. And now they're tracking everything about you. Or, rather, everything about the Chinese in Shenzhen:
Starting this month in a port neighborhood and then spreading across Shenzhen, a city of 12.4 million people, residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips [...] will be issued to most citizens.Woohoo, civil rights! Personal freedom! Personal privacy! Communism!
Data on the chip will include not just the citizen’s name and address but also work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status and landlord’s phone number. Even personal reproductive history will be included, for enforcement of China’s controversial “one child” policy. Plans are being studied to add credit histories, subway travel payments and small purchases charged to the card.
