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Holding The Torch
Guard of dishonour?
The Olympic flame makes a troubled voyage through London... Paris today
When you're walking through the streets of London, it's usually the home-grown thugs in hideous sportswear you need to look out for. However, this weekend a gang of Chinese heavies dressed in blue-and-white "shell suits" - the favoured garment of Britain's "feral youth" became the centre of press attention as the Olympic torch made its journey through central London.
Latest: Torch extinguished three times in Paris; Mayor cancels welcome ceremony.
The 13-strong Chinese "security detail" formed a phalanx around the torch as various British athletes and celebrities carried it through the city on its way to Beijing, where it will light the flame at the beginning of the Olympic Games this summer.
China is very keen that the Olympics do not become a focus for protest against the suppression of human rights within its borders, or its handling of demonstrations against its presence in Tibet.
Nevertheless, Tibetan protesters and British sympathisers had other ideas, and the voyage of the torch became something of a farce.
The Guardian has a good round up of the events of the day, beginning with the passing of the torch in London's Wembley stadium. A video shows the Olympic cortege jeered by protestors, who buzzed the jogging flame-carrier and his or her security by running ahead with Tibet flags (until British cops bundled them offside). At one stage, someone tries to extinguish the flame with a fire extinguisher; later, British TV hotty Konnie Huq (who herself has expressed concern about human rights in China) almost has the torch wrestled from her hands by a protestor.
The Guardian's man says there was "precious little harmony" on the route, as Tibet protestors and Chinese students vied to boo and cheer the torch, and 37 people were arrested by police, who had also reportedly confiscated Tibetan flags from protestors on the route. Some protestors claim they had merely chanted slogans, but police arrested them anyway.
In the clips we've seen, the Chinese guards were careful not to lay a finger on any of the protestors, leaving that task to the British cops who made the first and second line of protection for the torch carrier. However, some newspapers claim that they shoved bystanders out of the way, even on Downing Street. Their grim appearance and the activities of the British police didn't exactly inspire passion for Beijing's Olympics.
Moreover, who can doubt following yesterday's events that if some protestor had made his or her way to the Chinese security detail, and the Chinese had neutralised the "threat' in their own idiosyncratic manner, the protestor would be facing arrest today, rather than the foreign "security detail?" Britons, and Londoners in particular, have become all-too-familiar with the "private armies" some overseas visitors bring with them, whether the Somalian warlords turned gangsters who have set up shop in South London or the Russian businessmen and their armed goons who reside in the capital's better neighbourhoods.
Strange how the government tolerates this: Is it anything to do with the Foreign Office's hopes of turning Britain into a "foreign affairs hub" - it has made London resemble a medieval court, where dukes discuss affairs while their armies camp outside.
The torch arrives in Paris this morning, where protestors have vowed to make even more of a fuss about China. While the head of the Paris police force has said that the torch will be defended "as if it was a head of state," the left-wing Mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, will unveil a banner on the city hall claiming that "Paris defends human rights everywhere in the world."
Reporters sans frontières chief Robert Menard, who has drawn attention to increased censorship of the press in China, says that his organisation's protest will be peaceful, but that something "spectacular" is planned. We'll keep you posted.
UPDATE: The Paris mayor has cancelled a ceremony to mark the arrival of the Olympic torch in the French capital after anti-China protests.
Reports say the torch was extinguished by officials three times "for safety reasons" and at one stage had to be brought on board a bus for protection.
Demonstrations were centred on the Tour Eiffel and the Trocadero across the Seine, where the relay began; however, Mayor Bertrand Delanoe has cancelled a ceremony at the Paris Mairie (City Hall). A protestor is reported to have raised a Tibet flag in the building.
