The Olympic flame - Boycott would achieve little

THE Olympic torch is a contrivance invented to add atmosphere and drama to the Hitler games in Berlin in 1936.

The Nazis believed that classical Greece was a forerunner of the Third Reich.

So anyone, Chinese, Tibetan, American or Russian, who suggests that it is not a political symbol is indulging in wishful thinking of the worst kind.

The Olympics long ago ceased to be about sport. They are about national self-aggrandizement, international corporations flogging their wares and a new set of challenges for the athletics’ chemists every four years.

China is using the Games to try to find acceptance on the international stage despite a record of oppression and injustice. It is unlikely that hosting the Games will change how the rest of the world views China, and China has already shown that it cares less what the world thinks of it.

China treats some of its citizens appallingly and is likely to do so whether the Games are boycotted or not. Boycotts are unlikely to move closed minds but they will certainly preclude the kind of human contact that makes so many barriers irrelevant, so many dictatorships redundant.