The journey of the Chinese Olympic torch across the world needs to be understood not as a gesture of sportsmanship and goodwill, but as a mythical gesture of political power. If the journey had gone unimpeded through its gigantic course it would demonstrate to the world China’s growing economic supremacy and right to traverse a physical object through the sovereign territory of countries spread across six continents.

Myth One: “We’re trying to remind you of The Silk Road”. This is what China is trying to say to the world on the surface, that “remember the good old days when we gave you silk, and you gave us opium in return?”. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just do business and get along, and by the way, why don’t we forget about Tibet for a while. Lets have tea instead.

Myth Two: The west sees the flame as the fire that Prometheus stole from the Gods and gave it to man. The continuation of the Olympian spirit is also the continuation of Western supremacy over the globe. Even I was surprised to find though, on the Wikipedia this little nugget; “The modern torch relay was introduced by Joseph Goebbels (Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in Nazi Germany) as a part of an effort to turn the games into a glorification of the Third Reich”. It is no wonder that the 2008 Summer Olympics will be the most political Olympics since Berlin hosted them in 1936. Wikipedia goes on to say that, “Hitler saw the link with the ancient Games as the perfect way to illustrate his belief that classical Greece was an Aryan forerunner of the modern German Reich.”

Myth Three: The Ashwamedha Yajna is an ancient vedic ritual where a king releases a sacred horse upon the land, and his messengers follow wherever the horse chooses to go. Sometimes the horse enters other kingdoms, and the ruler of that kingdom must either surrender or fight. You can learn more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashvamedha

There are many possibilities now:

1. The flame returns to China, albiet having aroused significant interest in Tibet and the Tibetan cause.

2. The flame is stolen. I think it would be a good time to bet where and when this will happen. On the other hand, knowing the Chinese, they have probably arranged for at least 5 replicas in case they have to save face. Failure to do so would be a great embarrassment, and the country where it happens will be answerable to China. What happens after that is going to be really ugly, but not entirely without funny moments.

3. It rains so hard, precisely where the flame is at any given moment, that the extinguishing of the flame is seen as the Will of God. The world goes bonkers in throes of techgnosis, and the Olympics are cancelled, and the Crusades begin all over again.

4. “Nothing happened, for technical reasons,” says Xinhua, the state-owned Chinese news agency.

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