03:55 pm
Controlympics: Brave Gadfly or Self-Absorbed Twit?
As you may have heard, American pastor Eddie Romero checked into a hotel room, painted a bunch of slogans on its walls, and checked out without paying.
That’s courage? Compare his actions to the folks who climbed light poles outside the Olympic Stadium and hung Free Tibet banners. Even better, compare him to the thousands of Chinese, Tibetan, and Uighur activists who risk their freedom and their lives every day.
Pastor Romero did post his ramblings on YouTube, and part one has become quite the sensation in the West (YouTube is blocked regularly in China, so I’m not sure whether anyone there is seeing it — and even if they are, chances are that most viewers are not going to like it).
And for heaven’s sake, parts one and two are each ten freaking minutes long, and the first seven minutes of part one involve him rambling on and on about supposed close calls with state security. Do yourself a favor and jump to the 7:22 mark:
Part two is a little better — he shows what he painted. You can pretty much stop at the 4:20 mark. The rest is some audio of him traveling between rooms and then his painting pretty much the same slogans in the second room.
In case you still can’t read it, the first wall calls on the Chinese to release a number of human rights and religious activists:
- Zhang Rongliang, a house church leader sentenced in 2006 to seven years in prison;
- Xu Na, a Beijing-based Falung Gong practitioner;
- Hu Jia, a human rights activist detained in February of this year;
- Shi Tao, who was arrested in 2004 and charged with illegally sending state secrets to a foreign entity” after he emailed a U.S.-based pro-democracy website; and
- Guo Feixiong, an attorney and human rights activist who was prosecuted for illegal business activity but whose prosecution is widely believed to have been a response to his activism.
The second wall says “Beijing 2008: Our World, Our Nightmare” and “Ratify the ICCPR.” The third wall quotes a bible verse: “Speak out for those who have no voice –Proverbs 31:8-9.”
I appreciate the sentiment, but who is going to see this? According to news reports, they’ve already repainted the room. Oh, and I know this is splitting hairs given the ChiComs’ actual practices, but they did ratify the ICCPR (International Convention on Civil and Political Rights) in 1998.
But more importantly, the activists he names are likely to face further persecution because of his act of vandalism — because let’s face it, that’s what it was. In addition, Western news stories have used an AP photo that conspicuously avoids showing the wall with the prisoners’ names on it. The end result is that he looks like a nut, not a principled human rights defender. That’s not entirely his fault, but it does show just how ineffective and naïve his protest was.
Even his friends appear to get that. Here’s what one had to say:
The protest is heartfelt, said Bob Fu, leader of the Texas-based China Aid Association who is among a group of Romero supporters monitoring the protest from California. “This is not like middle-age crisis, craziness,” Fu said. “He’s very genuine, a caring, loving pastor. And very creative.”
When your defenders compare your protest to a mid-life crisis, chances are that your message is not getting out there.
Pastor Romero says that he will turn himself in after the Olympics. I don’t know what other stunts he has up his sleeve, but given that he allowed his face to be seen in the two videos, I doubt that he’ll last that long.