Not that I disagree entirely with his stance, no I do think it more ideal to use home-grown athletes of course. But before the rest, firstly... one extremely irritating point is how he blatantly manipulates the 'ideal' of the Olympics like a religious extremist. WHO THE FUCK TOLD YOU WHAT WAS THE 'ULTIMATE IDEAL' OF THE OLYMPICS? K sorry couldn't keep up the formal, academic tone. I'm guessing, (myself ironically, presuming and being judge-mental) he just 'thought' that was what the Olympics was about without actually reading it up or listening to the President during the Opening Ceremony.
I didn't want to re-type too much so I'll post my reply to his reply here.
"A fair point, in light of how our players became citizens close to the Olympics in 08', and to add as well, they may compete with our local, hard working athletes for Olympic sports and beat them. Some may call it injustice. But two other points of contention, firstly is that 'citizen' is a highly subjective term which you use loosely conservative here. How would you say if a person is a 'citizen' of a country? Taking Feng as an example, she did choose to fight for us, she did not choose to be born in China, and I think you ignore the fact that countries are no longer defined by race, because nearly all sovereign, open states are multicultural. If you still believe in ancestry, that you should be a person from this land, than only Malays should be representing Singapore. As for cynical reasons such as 'for money' or 'for selfish glory' which I think local authorities are careful enough not to allow such players to represent us. The true test will probably be what she does in the long term. Will she stay on to coach here after the Olympics? Will she go back to China and renounce citizenship here? Grouping all of the 'imported players' together is not helpful."
And more of course.
Firstly, if you were to assume that this sporting event, like most, was a test of 'which country is better', in a matter of speech, than wouldn't it already be unfair that bigger countries have a larger genetic pool/talent? Training methods are slowly homogenizing and thus will become less important, so how do you expect smaller countries to compete on fair grounds? Then should it not be 'the Olympic Games for countries that usually win'? The flip-side to that of course, is to change it to 'the Olympic Games for rich countries who can buy imported players'. However, I do think the latter is a stance adopted by the more cynical, who likely take cues from the English Premier League and other soccer leagues, which YES, do require tons of money to win (more money). But no, the Olympics is not like that.
I'm fairly certain Feng will invite criticism at home, saying she 'betrayed' them. Do you think money is the only thing people go for? I don't think it's easy for people to just take money and go against their principles like we see on TV (the fake kind). Why do you think she fought Ding Ning so hard? Personal glory? Would you ignore the symbolism of representing a country for that? I believe it good to allow athletes to choose their allegiance, but of course loyally and responsibly. (meaning to say after careful consideration, after settling in the country and learning to love it, etc.) Feng is proud to play for Singapore, so there. I say we give her support instead of turning on auto-xenophobia, anti-foreigner mode. In a globalized world, nations are not bound by race but by choice, as I'm sure you've heard of many citizens who've learnt to love their new countries more than their old. Our country is open (and hopefully, welcoming and hospitable), as I'm sure the first Chinese immigrants here who first identified themselves with this island as their home, why should we deny modern immigrants from doing the same? Because we were here first? WRONG. MALAYS WERE.
Am I the only person who noticed the retarded phone logic in the Opening Ceremony?
No comments:
Post a Comment