As far as I can gather, from paying next to no attention, the olympic torch is lit in Greece, by sunlight no less (symbolises purity apparently), and then paraded round the world being extinguished and relit many times by the same 'flame' kept safe in the modern day equivalents of miner's lamps.
This year, China are hosting the olympics. China have made a few dodgy foreign and internal policy decisions in the past. Some people think that protesting during the torch ceremony will change those policies.
There, for me anyway, is the disconnect. Exactly how do those protesting think this affects the Chinese government? How is a banner, or a bit of pointless violence, 15 minutes of (in)fame(y), going to influence Chinese policy? Internally the Chinese control all the media; television, internet, newspapers, all controlled. There may be some activists that get some external access; but for 99.9% of people, they have no idea what's going on except for what the government tells them. Externally, why do the Chinese care? Their market and economy go from strength to strength whilst the western ones crumble. They make and export a huge percentage of goods the western world wants, they import very little.
Given that we, both as a people, country, nation, and demographic, can't influence the Chinese government as we have nothing to influence them with (are we ALL going to stop buying Chinese goods?), and the only people who can influence the Chinese government, the Chinese people, can't hear our message, what is the point of disrupting an event that is meant to symolise world unity?
I feel it's important, at this point, to state that I disagree with Chinese policies both foreign and internal. The attrocities in Tibet shouldn't be allowed to go unpunished, and the human rights violations the Chinese are reported to have committed demand reproach. I just don't believe that hanging some banners, argueing with policemen, and disrupting the passing of the Olympic flame will achieve anything.
Change can only come from within. External factors, especially when backed by nothing more than empty threats, won't do anything at all. Throughout history it has been shown that the ordinary people of a nation won't stand by and let attrocities be carried out in their name. Information is the only weapon the west has, and in these days of all pervasive access we forget that not everyone has access to that information.
I don't have a total solution, nor an answer, but I do know that running encrypted proxies and gateway servers, investing the time and energy to create as many holes in the wall of misinformation, allowing ordinary people access to the same information we have will achieve far more than hanging a banner from a bridge.
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