Carrying a Torch

Passions continue  to burn over the Olympic torch relay, as the baton snakes its way towards Australia. News today suggests that a group of up to 500 pro-Chinese students will make their way to Canberra in order to defend the flame  from protesters who may attempt to extinguish it.

Amid rising security concerns, acting PM Julia Gillard says that Australia definitely won’t be skipping out on its time with the Olympic torch, which is set to arrive here on April 24. The announcement follows a very muted Los Angeles leg of the relay, where the torch was barely in public view and rerouted at the last moment.

 Pro-Tibet activists are using the relay to protest over recent Chinese crackdowns in Tibet, in which the Tibetan Government in Exile reports more than 140 people have been killed and a further 2,300 arrested. China remains staunch in denying that it has violated human rights in Tibet and is attempting to lead a media blackout.

 It’s not the first time the Olympic relay has been the centre of controversy. Invented for the Berlin Olympics in 1936, the modern torch was originally intended by the Nazi propaganda machine as a means to boost Hitler’s prestige internationally. During the 1956 relay in Melbourne, a group of students wary of the torch’s murky origins presented a hoax torch (made of a burning pair of underpants and a plum pudding can attached to a chair leg) to the city Mayor.  

And it’s not the first time the flame has been extinguished. Most memorably, after the torch went out during the 1976 Montreal Olympics, it was casually relit by an official with his cigarette lighter – before being doused and relit with the ‘proper’ fire.  Flame on.