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Long after the Olympic flame has been extinguished at the “Bird’s Nest” Stadium in Beijing, the impact of Friday night’s Olympic ceremonies will be felt worldwide.
Yes, the opening ceremonies were spectacular, mounted on a scale never seen before in any Olympic celebration. But this was much more than a display of China’s growing economic power and its immense population. The 2,008 drummers who opened the show were carefully coached to smile in order to project a friendly face to the world. China has changed.
Much more than a bombastic national spectacle, the ceremonies were an artistic triumph. Ancient traditions were seamlessly married with dazzling technology in a cascade of unforgettable presentations. Amazingly, a survey of columnists worldwide shows that some westerners have already criticized the program as a display of excess. Not so.
What we Americans (and more than a billion Chinese) saw on 08/08/08 was pure history in the making. How quickly the cynics forget that China was a closed and secretive Communist dictatorship with a 19th century economy only three decades ago.
For a hundred years, China had been thrown into unending chaos by war, invasion, civil insurrection, foreign exploitation and mass starvation. Suddenly, China is on a path to become the largest economy in the world. The Olympic ceremonies were much more than a coming-out party; they mark the rebirth of a great nation.
As well as announcing China’s historic reemergence onto the world stage, the Beijing Olympic Games and the opening ceremony marked an opening of China’s doors to the world. In a society that venerates symbols, few could be more powerful than the artwork laid out at centerfield.
Thousands of athletes walked through trays of colored dye and, with their feet, left a permanent and beautiful record of their presence on China’s huge “welcome mat.” Instead of rejecting foreigners, the Chinese have actually turned the record of their visit into a work of art that will be treasured for centuries to come. This alone marks a sea change in China’s attitude towards the rest of the world.
Some cynics have dismissed the Olympic spectacular as an act of propaganda to impress the Chinese masses. Nothing could miss the point more completely.
More than a billion Chinese, who had only the dimmest view of any nation other than their own, suddenly saw a vast global reality. They saw the world march into their home to join China in a glorious ancient Greek spectacle…a venerated global Olympic tradition that has never before found a home in China. What a breathtaking risk the leadership took!
Ruthless dictators guard their power and hide their populace from outside influence. But, as of 08/08/08, China actually embraced the wider world. Just as Yao Ming embraced the nine-year-old hero of the Sichuan earthquake, China effectively opened its heart to the rest of the planet. This will eventually be recognized as a watershed moment in the history of a once-closed kingdom.
Fourteen thousand performers, ninety-one thousand cheering spectators, countless fireworks and the proud athletes of an increasingly globalized world have joined to demonstrate that China is reborn as a partner in our planet.
Put past controversies aside for now. Four billion people have witnessed a turning point in the world’s economic, cultural and political history. We will never see anything like it again.
