hubris #2
ロシアで初めての冬季五輪、ソチオリンピックが開幕しました。しかしながら人権問題をはじめとするさまざまな問題を抱えるロシアにとってはhopeとhubrisの入り交じった複雑な幕開けとなりました。
スポーツに政治を持ち込むのはタブーかもしれませんが、そんな冷めた見方が国際社会にはあることを知っておきましょう。以下はAP通信の論調です。
hubrisは以前、先生もふれておられるようにかなり形式的な言葉で、"too much pride"（LDOCE）と定義されます。日本語でいう「傲慢、思い上がり」がぴたりとはまります。ここは/h/で韻を踏んでいます。（Shou-VR*）
Russia kicks off Sochi Games with hope and hubris
The Associated Press
SOCHI (AP)—A Russia in search of global vindication kicked off the Sochi Olympics looking more like a Russia that likes to party, with a pulse-raising opening ceremony about fun and sports instead of terrorism, coddling despots and gay rights.
And that’s just the way Vladimir Putin wants these Winter Games to be.
But watch out for those Russians on their home turf. A raucous group of Russian athletes had a message for their nearly 3,000 rivals in Sochi, marching through Fisht Stadium singing that they’re “not gonna get us!”
Superlatives abounded and the mood soared as Tchaikovsky met pseudo-lesbian pop duo Tatu. Russian TV presenter Yana Churikova shouted: “Welcome to the center of the universe!”
Yet no amount of cheering could drown out the real world.
Fears of terrorism, which have dogged these games since Putin won them amid controversy seven years ago, were stoked during the ceremony itself. A passenger aboard a flight bound for Istanbul said there was a bomb on board and tried to divert the plane to Sochi. Authorities said the plane landed safely in Turkey.
The show opened with an embarrassing hiccup, as one of five snowflakes failed to unfurl as planned into the Olympic rings, forcing organizers to jettison a fireworks display and disrupting one of the most symbolic moments in an opening ceremony.
Also missing from the show: Putin’s repression of dissent, and inconsistent security measures at the Olympics, which will take place just a few hundred kilometers away from the sites of a long-running insurgency and routine militant violence.
And the poorly paid migrant workers who helped build up the Sochi site from scratch, the disregard for local residents, the environmental abuse during construction, the pressure on activists, and the huge amounts of Sochi construction money that disappeared to corruption.
Some world leaders purposely stayed away, but U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and dozens of others were in Sochi for the ceremony. He didn’t mention the very real anger over a Russian law banning gay “propaganda” aimed at minors that is being used to discriminate against gay people.
