Madam, - The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was a technological marvel. But it also showed a controlled people, and a barely concealed underlying militarism little different from a Stalinist Mayday parade, more sinister than Nuremberg, more kitsch than Disneyland. It was a forced, false, thoroughly disturbing event, full of portentous pomp and ceremony, distorted history, crude nationalist pride, with thousands of individuals turned to marionettes and hypocritical references to minorities. It lacked only a Riefenstahl to record it.
I feel I cannot be the only person who is missing something here. Is this the future or are we back to the past? Is Beijing 2008 a rerun of Berlin 1936? And why are we appeasing this regime by being there? - Yours, etc,
PIARAS MAC EINRI,
Model Farm Road,
Cork.
Madam, - I have been unhappy for some years about the West's courtship of China. I was unhappy when the 2008 Olympic Games were awarded to Beijing.
I am aware that the best way to change China may be to work with rather than against its government. However, I decided about two years ago that I could not follow the coverage of the Beijing Olympics, and I am staying with that decision. - Yours, etc,
N.R. JESSOP,
Hillside Drive,
Dublin 14.