The article above holds the view that the Olympic Spirit still remains and that it continues to be the greatest sporting event. I however hold a contrary viewpoint to this and I aim to write an opposing argument in this blog post. I do agree that the Olympics have been the epitome of sporting competition since the end of the 19th century. However, can we still describe the Olympics in this way today? The Olympics has evolved greatly together with the times and much of the sporting spirit has been lost.
Firstly, The Olympics today cannot even be considered an accurate gauge of a country’s sporting ability. This is a result of the buying over of athletes and foreigners. This capitalization of foreign talent allows richer nations to assemble a team of the world’s best in a particular sport. One example of this is the 1992 Italian Hockey team which consisted of players with very little connection to Italy. An example closer to home would be that of Li Jiawei, the silver-winning table-tennis player. Having spent less than half her life in Singapore, how can we feel that Singapore deserves the silver medal?
It is this “robbing” of talent which turns the Olympics into a competition measuring a country’s wealth.
Secondly, the Olympics are turning into yet another platform for companies to advertise, just like radios and televisions. The Olympics seems to be losing its focus as a sporting competition, with companies sponsoring everything timers to the athletes themselves. One example of this commercialism dominating is in the highly suspicious case of Liu Xiang. Liu Xiang the Chinese Hurdle Star backed out of the race at the last minute, seems to have done so for ulterior motives. Many rumors claim that his sponsor Nike planned for him to back out, so as to save his reputation and not to lose their consumers. His reason also seemed flawed. Why had he not mentioned his 7-year old injury anytime before the race itself? In the future, sponsorship and advertising deals such as this could become an even greater factor in influencing the performance of sportsman. Thus the Olympics will become a farce for the sake of advertising instead of a sporting competition.
Thirdly, many athletes have resorted to underhand tactics to win the Olympics. As a result of their great desire to win, many athletes take a variety of drugs to boost their performance. This makes the competition unfair as it would no longer be a test of the power of the human body. In the year 2000, during the Sydney Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had to remove a shocking total of 35 athletes for doping scandals. Such scandals reduce the sportsmanship of the Olympic athletes.
These three points all go against the vision of Pierre Coubertin, the originator of the modern Olympics. He had wanted for athletes from different nations to engage each other in friendly competition while still representing their country’s pride. The over-competitiveness of the Olympics compounded by the want to win at all costs makes it virtually impossible for the games to be a friendly event. Also, we must ask ourselves how can an athlete possibly represent his country’s pride if he holds a dual citizenship, like many of the “bought-over” athletes?
The sporting spirit is dying. It is up to us to restore it. We must strive for an Olympics which is about nothing but testing the sheer power of the human body.
The time has come for us to move the Olympics away from drug tests and doping scandals to test of human capability.
Article Used
1) http://www.sportingo.com/olympic-games/a9939_despite-politics-nationalism-commercialism-olympics-still-great-sporting-event
Friday, August 29, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
Democracy creates stability in a society
As Abraham Lincoln once said, “Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people”, meaning that democracy is centered around the “people” of a country. Through democracy, the power to make decisions for a country is invested in its people. However, this does not always result in stability. Three arguments are presented in the rest of this post.
In a democratic society, the approach would be to follow the vote of the majority. However, this leaves the minority in the lurch. When people within a country are marginalized, it creates resentment among them. This can result in them organizing protests or even committing hate crimes against the majority in a bid to get their way. This broadens rifts between the majority and minority and results in a divided country. Usually people of similar ethnic or religious groups tend to have similar values and beliefs resulting in them having similar viewpoints. The divide then ends up becoming a racial or religious one. With a lack of racial harmony, a country would no longer be considered peaceful and stable.
It could even result in a situation similar to that in Malaysia today, where the Indians are being marginalized economically while the majority, the Malays, are given numerous monetary benefits because they are indigenous to the land.
The second major problem with democracy is that not everyone is capable of making an altruistic decision for the whole nation. An example of this is in the case of Indonesia which wants to increase its petrol prices by reducing government subsidies. This has been faced with public outcry. Although it is the majority vote to keep the price down, it will certainly affect the nation’s stability if all its money is put into subsidies. Indonesia would be left with less money to spare for development and other essential areas. This would result in further unhappiness among the people, resulting in an unpeaceful, unhappy and unstable environment.
The third problem with democracies is that it is hard for the government to make unpopular policies. The majority and most popular vote is not necessarily the best choice in terms of stability of the whole country. This can be seen in the example of India, the world’s largest democracy in terms of population. The government does not dare to make policies which the majority will not agree with as this will result in them being removed from office earlier. As a result, these policies are not always very effective. As compared to countries like China, in which the government is not as afraid to implement unpopular policies. In more authoritarian states, the peoples’ view does not matter as much and this allows the government to make changes in the country’s best interests.
For instance, both India and China face the problem of overpopulation. In India, the government policies merely encouraged its people on voluntary family planning. This was a policy which obviously failed miserably, because the total population has doubled in the last 40 years. While in China, a different approach was taken. A strict one-child policy was enforced. Despite some of the negative repercussions of this policy, looking at China today, we can conclude that it has worked as the population has definitely decreased. In this sense, India (a democracy) is unstable in terms of population while China (more authoritarian) has their population under control
Democracy thus can bring about marginalization. In such cases resentment builds up with undesirable consequences. For developing nations, this cannot be good in the name of progress. With progress, comes stability.
Democracy makes an assumption that people are able to decide on a policy for the stability of the whole nation, without being influenced by their own selfish desires. This assumption can be proven false through the given example of Indonesia.
The solution to a stable country probably lies somewhere in between democracy and authoritarianism. Once a balance can be struck between these two extremes, a country would be able to prosper. If people were allowed to express their opinions to some extent while the government still held some authority over the nation, intervening where necessary, progress would come easily. Such countries already exist today and a similar political scene can be observed in countries like Singapore. If other nations were to follow this political model, there will be greater peace in the world.
Sources
1) http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2006/issue3/0306p29.htm
In a democratic society, the approach would be to follow the vote of the majority. However, this leaves the minority in the lurch. When people within a country are marginalized, it creates resentment among them. This can result in them organizing protests or even committing hate crimes against the majority in a bid to get their way. This broadens rifts between the majority and minority and results in a divided country. Usually people of similar ethnic or religious groups tend to have similar values and beliefs resulting in them having similar viewpoints. The divide then ends up becoming a racial or religious one. With a lack of racial harmony, a country would no longer be considered peaceful and stable.
It could even result in a situation similar to that in Malaysia today, where the Indians are being marginalized economically while the majority, the Malays, are given numerous monetary benefits because they are indigenous to the land.
The second major problem with democracy is that not everyone is capable of making an altruistic decision for the whole nation. An example of this is in the case of Indonesia which wants to increase its petrol prices by reducing government subsidies. This has been faced with public outcry. Although it is the majority vote to keep the price down, it will certainly affect the nation’s stability if all its money is put into subsidies. Indonesia would be left with less money to spare for development and other essential areas. This would result in further unhappiness among the people, resulting in an unpeaceful, unhappy and unstable environment.
The third problem with democracies is that it is hard for the government to make unpopular policies. The majority and most popular vote is not necessarily the best choice in terms of stability of the whole country. This can be seen in the example of India, the world’s largest democracy in terms of population. The government does not dare to make policies which the majority will not agree with as this will result in them being removed from office earlier. As a result, these policies are not always very effective. As compared to countries like China, in which the government is not as afraid to implement unpopular policies. In more authoritarian states, the peoples’ view does not matter as much and this allows the government to make changes in the country’s best interests.
For instance, both India and China face the problem of overpopulation. In India, the government policies merely encouraged its people on voluntary family planning. This was a policy which obviously failed miserably, because the total population has doubled in the last 40 years. While in China, a different approach was taken. A strict one-child policy was enforced. Despite some of the negative repercussions of this policy, looking at China today, we can conclude that it has worked as the population has definitely decreased. In this sense, India (a democracy) is unstable in terms of population while China (more authoritarian) has their population under control
Democracy thus can bring about marginalization. In such cases resentment builds up with undesirable consequences. For developing nations, this cannot be good in the name of progress. With progress, comes stability.
Democracy makes an assumption that people are able to decide on a policy for the stability of the whole nation, without being influenced by their own selfish desires. This assumption can be proven false through the given example of Indonesia.
The solution to a stable country probably lies somewhere in between democracy and authoritarianism. Once a balance can be struck between these two extremes, a country would be able to prosper. If people were allowed to express their opinions to some extent while the government still held some authority over the nation, intervening where necessary, progress would come easily. Such countries already exist today and a similar political scene can be observed in countries like Singapore. If other nations were to follow this political model, there will be greater peace in the world.
Sources
1) http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2006/issue3/0306p29.htm
Thursday, March 6, 2008
China's Controversial One-child Policy
On February 28th, an article titled “China plans the end of hated one-child policy” was published in The Times newspaper. This article tells us about how some Chinese government officials are suggesting putting an end to its one-child policy almost 50 years after it was started by Prime minister Deng Xiaoping.
This policy was put in place because of the great baby boom during the time of Mao Zedong, when the people of China were told to have as many children as possible “in order to bury the U.S. in a human wave”.
Although this policy might have reduced China’s population and brought it under control, its prolonged use will certainly have many far-reaching consequences for the people of China in the future. If the one child-policy is not put to an end, then it could lead China’s population to the completely opposite extreme of population - having a decreasing population.
Firstly, using some simple mathematics, we can easily deduce that China’s population is sure to decline. If the government tells each couple (2 people) to have one child each, the population will be halved after each generation. Furthermore, not everyone will decide to have children, with many urban and affluent citizens opting to stay single to have more time for their careers. Although China’s birth rate is actually 1.8 children per couple instead of the actual 1, this number is set to decrease further. The reason for it being at 1.8 is because some couples flout the rules. As China progresses, it would become easier for the government to keep track of those who flout these rules. This would only further reduce the number of children born.
This reduced economy would greatly affect China because as soon as the baby boom generation of the 1950s retires, they would need to be supported by the later and much smaller generation. This would cause this particular generation to bear responsibility of their two parents and four grandparents. This will also take a toll on China’s overall economy.
The second big impact that this policy will have is to the gender balance. The Chinese parents have a preference for sons and if their first child turns out to be a daughter, they might resort to disposing of her illegally so as to be able to have a second child which they hope to be a son. In the long run, the vast number of Chinese men will have not have sufficient Chinese women to get married to. This would also cause the population to decrease.
Also, the couples with only one child will tend to dote on and pamper their child. In the future, these spoilt children may decide not to take care of and support their parents.
However, it is not too late yet.
This policy was put in place because of the great baby boom during the time of Mao Zedong, when the people of China were told to have as many children as possible “in order to bury the U.S. in a human wave”.
Although this policy might have reduced China’s population and brought it under control, its prolonged use will certainly have many far-reaching consequences for the people of China in the future. If the one child-policy is not put to an end, then it could lead China’s population to the completely opposite extreme of population - having a decreasing population.
Firstly, using some simple mathematics, we can easily deduce that China’s population is sure to decline. If the government tells each couple (2 people) to have one child each, the population will be halved after each generation. Furthermore, not everyone will decide to have children, with many urban and affluent citizens opting to stay single to have more time for their careers. Although China’s birth rate is actually 1.8 children per couple instead of the actual 1, this number is set to decrease further. The reason for it being at 1.8 is because some couples flout the rules. As China progresses, it would become easier for the government to keep track of those who flout these rules. This would only further reduce the number of children born.
This reduced economy would greatly affect China because as soon as the baby boom generation of the 1950s retires, they would need to be supported by the later and much smaller generation. This would cause this particular generation to bear responsibility of their two parents and four grandparents. This will also take a toll on China’s overall economy.
The second big impact that this policy will have is to the gender balance. The Chinese parents have a preference for sons and if their first child turns out to be a daughter, they might resort to disposing of her illegally so as to be able to have a second child which they hope to be a son. In the long run, the vast number of Chinese men will have not have sufficient Chinese women to get married to. This would also cause the population to decrease.
Also, the couples with only one child will tend to dote on and pamper their child. In the future, these spoilt children may decide not to take care of and support their parents.
However, it is not too late yet.
If China decides to abolish this policy now, some of these disastrous effects can be alleviated. Its population can be prevented from reducing drastically.
However, the majority of the Chinese officials see this in a different light and feel that this policy should remain, for fear of overpopulation again in the future.
Do they really need to experience these consequences before they finally realize? By then it will probably be too late.
Sources
1)http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/china/article3451974.ece
2)http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3452460.ece
3)The Straits Times, Thursday 6th March, "No change to one-child policy"
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