No doubt many Western pundits would have thought of the Nazi analogy, though no one, as far as I know, has dared to say it out loud, yet. I could be wrong, however, by the time you read this. After all, Godwin’s Law of Nazi analogies says that the longer a heated online debate goes on, the higher the probability someone will cite Hitler or the Nazis. As soon as Dinigeer appeared on stage, pundits knew they would have to exercise some brain power to spin it in a negative light.

Slate just grabbed the first chance it had, when the televised opening was barely over, and applied the most obvious Nazi trope. But isn’t the Slate piece inadvertently proving Beijing’s point? However politically useful or convenient using a Jew or a concentration camp inmate to light the cauldron, the Nazis would never have allowed it because someone of an “inferior” race could not possibly represent Germans at the most prestigious sports event of the world.

And yet, here it was, a Uygur representing the Chinese!

Everyone in the Western press points out the obvious, that it was a deliberate political statement. So say the same people who have politicised and criticised Beijing’s Winter Olympics at every turn.

China has serious human rights problems; the same with many countries, including some democracies. It is the way such issues have been opportunistically weaponised against the Chinese that makes it distasteful. Ultimately, that’s why no Muslim-majority country has ended up joining the hypocritical call of Western countries to boycott the Beijing Games.