As we approach the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, we are witnessing a phenomenon which happened 40 years ago, which raises the question: whom does the Olympics serve? And to what lengths can states go to ensure their success?

The 1968 Summer Olympics were hosted by Mexico City, the first developing country to hold such an honor. This was Mexico’s grand curtain opening, their inauguration ball, as they entered the industrialized world. Mexico had been experiencing rapid–albeit unequal–industrialization and economic growth beginning around the 1930s, and continuing steadily into 1968. However, the economy was not the only thing being publicized.

In the summer of 1968, several conflicts within Mexico City high schools and police overreaction jump-started a national student movement on par with those happening simultaneously in Paris and the United States. The students were influenced by the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the other student movements, and prior labor and agrarian movements within Mexico. Mobilizations on the part of students were met with repression: beatings, jailings, and occasional murders. Each wave of repression led to a larger march or rally, which in turn led to a more forceful response from the state. Approaching the Olympic Games, a number of the main student organizers had been thrown into military jails, and Mexican special forces had invaded the UNAM, Mexico’s national university.

Students marched with the slogan: ¡No queremos Olimpiadas, queremos revolución! We don’t want the Olympics, we want revolution! The Olympics were to bring in more international capital investment; but students and their supporters did not want the games to obscure the human rights violations and authoritarianism of the Mexican federal government. Reporters from all over the world had already descended upon Mexico City, and many had become sympathetic to the protests. Sound familiar yet?

October 2, 1968, just a few days before the Olympic opening ceremony, a rally and meeting was planned in the Tlatelolco housing complex. Tlatelolco is a very poor housing development just outside the downtown area of Mexico City, between the main government offices and the Instituto Politécnico, where many of the poorer students went to school. Tlatelolco is known as the Plaza of the Three Cultures: it is the site of Moctezuma’s defeat by Cortés, where indigenous met hispanic, and the mestizo Mexican nation was born. It also features a ruins, a Catholic church, and a newer housing project, all next to each other. The analogy of the three cultures can be extended to what was to happen here.

What is the role of the Olympics in society? It is a time when we can band together as nations, put apart our differences, and all become enthralled in the races and games. Ceasefires have been declared to permit the games. The games have also highlighted some of the most glaring contradictions in our society. In 1936, in games hosted by Nazi Germany, Jesse Owens won four gold medals in one day. His victories over white competitors put to shame Hitler’s notion of the aryan race; however, as Owens later said, “When I passed the Chancellor he arose, waved his hand at me, and I waved back at him…. Hitler didn’t snub me—it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.” For even in America, accomplishment still could not escape racism. Then, in the same 1968 Olympics as the Tlatelolco massacre, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who placed 1st and 3rd in the 200m, gave the black power salute from the podium as the American national anthem played. Australian Peter Norman wore a badge for the Olympic Project for Human Rights, to protest apartheid in the United States and South Africa and support Smith and Carlos.

This latter protest shows that the Olympics has been a stage for demands for human rights and equality. This hasn’t stopped some from stating that human rights debates and protest have no place at the Olympics; this line of thinking only further legitimates the campaigns of policide and mass murder which happened in Mexico City and which happen now in China and Tibet. Such organizations as the OPHR no longer exist, but serve as a connection between the protests and athletes who would be affected by a boycott. There is never an excuse for the limitation of human rights and freedom, and it is morally reprehensible to use the Olympics–an event with such humanitarian and fraternal intentions–as an excuse. We have already seen the commercialization of the ancient event, but the potential for profit may not take precedence over human life and liberty.

We already know that China has the audacity to kill: We have Tian’anman Square as evidence, and we can currently observe the killing and beating that is occurring now. The only question remains is, will our own governments have the audacity to permit this?