Choate is a haven for young people from all over the world with big dreams and even bigger potentials to learn and develop the necessary skills for life beyond high school. That said, I think we tend to forget that we’re not the only ones at this school with goals and aims for everything that goes on around here. Based on this school’s mission statement, it’s safe to say that, regardless of what they specialize in, the adults of the community hope to instill certain qualities in everyone who walks across the stage to receive a diploma. The one pillar of character that I believe the whole Choate experience seeks to build above all is the ability to think outside of oneself and adopt new perspectives on how to impact the world.
This capacity of the student body to be open-minded and see the bigger picture was recently put to the test through a school-wide opportunity for international outreach. Following the request of a group of international students from Taft, the Student Council spearheaded the signing of a Choate banner for a project called Wishes From Abroad. Students and faculty were informed that the banner was to be hung in the Olympic Stadium in Beijing, China, to promote international bonding among students over a common interest.
Many students simply walked over to the banner, saw handprints and signatures, and began rolling up sleeves and putting down sandwiches to grab a marker and sign. Some were a bit more parsimonious with their signatures and hand outlines, demanding of the Student Council reps overseeing the process a reason why they should so cheaply give their hands to the sea of hands already on the banner. Still others looked contemptuously at their peers signing the banner and either walked away without signing or lingered a moment to display their disapproval vocally to anyone who was willing to listen.
This latter group of students carried on in such a manner because they believed that they were echoing the concerns of a nation facing a large dilemma in the form of the Beijing Olympics of 2008. How can a nation that has promised to devote itself to freedom in the world send its best athletes to compete in a country oppressing another? Doesn’t America have a moral obligation to oppose enhancing the Chinese government’s international standing by participating in the Olympics? The students who actively refused to sign were completely justified in saying that the Tibet crisis is nothing to show support for. Anyone who’s been following current news could have told you that. But in arguing against the Beijing Olympics, these students seem to have completely missed the whole point of the banner. The long, white piece of cloth was decorated with a simple insignia that neutrally captured the mood of the Olympics and Choate.
There was no mention of any other goal on the banner, and there were certainly no indications, blatant or implied, of support for China’s foreign policies in Tibet. The project sought nothing more than to harness the collective enthusiasm and energy of high school and college students everywhere for the ultimate celebration of human achievement and athletic prowess – the Olympic Games. As Student Council President Katie DeFusco ’09 so aptly stated when confronted on the issue, “We would have done this banner regardless of the location.”
I personally believe that the banner will go a lot farther in promoting the case for Tibet than protests and boycotting can do. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” We cannot be led to believe that China is so stubborn that it will receive the worldwide controversy surrounding the Beijing Olympics without reconsidering its tyrannical foothold in Tibet. When this happens, tokens of diplomacy like the banners from American students will pay off enormously in the long run for international affairs.
Furthermore, I think it’s a terrible shame that the world has come to the point where the location of the Olympics can do so much in dampening the spirit of the Games. As in the past with the Olympic Games, it seems that political affairs will once again cloud the bright skies of athleticism, sportsmanship, and pride in national heritage.
In the much simpler world of the Ancient Greeks—the founding fathers of the long-standing Olympic tradition—whole wars were temporarily put off so that the athletes could travel safely to and from Olympia to take part in the festivities and competition. This quadrennial celebration of the human body transcended the political, cultural, and economic circumstances of the times as people put aside their differences and came together under one common cause. Today, when global conflict is an aspect of daily life that becomesincreasingly difficult to ignore, I think it’s fair to say that the Greeks got it absolutely right.
