KEY POINTS:
A LETTER TO NEW ZEALAND OLYMPIANS
We have four months until the Olympic games. New Zealand Olympians, where are you? Have you lost your voice, or just not found it yet?
Some French athletes have been trying to get the International Olympic Committee to allow them to
wear small badges that read, "For a Better World" in support of human rights. In Germany, a group of athletes are thinking about wearing blue and green armbands that read, "Sport for Human Rights".
Some Americans have launched an international group of nearly 300 athletes from 54 countries, and growing, called Team Darfur.
Their website gets thousands of hits monthly to raise awareness and funds. Yet only one New Zealand athlete has joined.
Whether you like it or not, from the moment you make it to that elite core of athletes who will take to the world stage, you carry a huge responsibility. You started because you loved the sport. But you ended up as a role model in this country with a public voice you may never have asked for, or honestly anticipated.
It's not much different from the financial whiz who finds himself in charge of a portfolio that requires him to invest in socially responsible companies. One day he's a banker and the next day he's studying about landmines in Africa. One day Angelina Jolie is a cartoon action hero come to life, and the next, she gets the world press to trail after her to Darfur.
As much as you might wish it, sport doesn't exist in a vacuum either. An entire generation of American black kids watched Jesse Owens parade his gold medal in the face of Hitler's Aryan ascendancy in 1936. Cathy Freeman carried her Aboriginal flag in a victory lap seen around the world. Sports and politics do collide.
UK athlete Michael Ditchfield told ESPN, "When you're dealing with sport and the Olympics, you've got your talent, you have your arms and legs; those are your weapons. But when you're dealing with restoring peace in the world and you've got a platform because you're an athlete, your voice becomes your weapon, and that can go so far! Far beyond the final whistle or even an Olympic medal."
You may have never asked for the choice, but now is the time to make one. The beauty of this country is that you have the freedom to do so. Ye Guozhu, doesn't. He tried to apply for permission to hold a demonstration against forced evictions to make way for building Olympic facilities.
That gesture got him, and others, thrown in prison where he is now serving a four-year sentence.
When journalists from Reuters and Channel 4 tried to cover their story, they were beaten by "thugs" who ruined their film and notes, says Amnesty International.
They're not alone. The Foreign Correspondent's Club of China reported 180 violations last year, with an additional 50 from last month alone as the games get closer. So much for China's promise of free international press access.
They're cleaning the streets of Beijing alright - cleaning them of dissent. The IOC hoped China would clean up its human rights when it awarded them the games, but in reality, rights are now being crushed because of the Olympics.
Our country isn't asking you to boycott the games to defend the rights of Tibetans that were swallowed up 50 years ago. No one wants you to break the rules within Olympic venues and talk about how China refused to use their economic muscle as the biggest buyers of Sudanese oil to make Sudan allow in UN peacekeepers to stop the killing; Or how China still continues to arm the bloody Janjaweed killers in Darfur who have now murdered hundreds of thousands in a genocide that is still flourishing.
As a New Zealander, we take for granted something that every Chinese citizen deserves too - the basic human right to speak freely. You have the possibility to make your Olympic values bigger than your singular performance.
You can join other international athletes on websites like Team Darfur to raise funds.
If standing in front of a microphone isn't your style, make a small gesture, like wearing an armband or a badge when you make public appearances in New Zealand to raise awareness.
You are incredibly lucky; You have been given a golden opportunity in more ways than one, a chance to give something back. How will you use it?
There are 30,000 international press who will descend on China in August. There is a middle path. Play by the rules. No one is asking you to do otherwise. But if you are silent now because you have not even considered your choices before and after the games - that is no choice at all.
