China needs a chill pill

Behind the razzle-dazzle, there’s a paranoia that might take away the shine from the most advanced Olympics ever

The celebration of sport is the coming together of them all. It is meant to be the great equaliser across the spectrum of race and faith that man’s narrowness keeps on adding different hues to.

More than anything else, the Olympics is about participation - the movement’s very charter looks to the inclusive aspect of spread over pointed acumen alone.

China’s reported 22 billion pound Games have stadiums one could eat off the floor of, they are agleam with the promise of the technologically most advanced Olympics ever. The shine, however, cannot bedazzle enough to mask the paranoia that threatens to choke the all-encompassing embrace of the greatest show on Earth.

From the moment Air China was given instructions to screen all passengers and their baggage boarding from Delhi early Tuesday, the Peoples Republic of China just went a bit berserk on the terror front. There has never been anything normal about this coming-of-age of the Asian giant, standing on the airstrip tarmac for about an hour as the plane’s crew fumbled through their procedure made it all the more surreal.

The structures in the Olympic Park are from Star Wars - they have the force and they don’t give a damn about which side you interpret it to be on. With a billion Euros set aside for security, the whole area is sheathed with swathes of men in uniform standing grim-faced and at attention in orderly lines thronging from the most important of venues to the very basic subway station.

Contrast this rigid-looking posture with the genuine warmth and care that the common Chinese shows for the comfort of the visitor and the government’s posture begins to look all the more phoney. China is one of the few places in the world where a wayfarer will make time from his own way to ensure his lack of English does not hinder your ease of being.

There is no doubt that organisationally the Chinese are doing a good job. They have laid out precise systems for traffic to flow, cleaned out the city of any eye sores and there is little doubt that the Games will flow seamless. What the power-that-be here desperately require is a really, really cold chill pill. The security borders on hysteria and smacks of bureaucrats in their narrow offices dreaming up conspiracies.

If China has any desire to make these a fun Games, then it has to stop blowing hot. The best of security is always the least obvious and a searing blast from the dragon is not mandatory to fry flies.