(本文选自《经济学人》20210605期)
背景介绍：
在推迟一年后，2020东京奥运会终于开幕在即。据日本共同社4月发布的民调显示，有超过七成的人表示应取消奥运会或再次推迟（表示应取消的占39.2%，表示再次推迟的占32.8%），只有24.5%的人希望奥运会如期开幕，换言之，仅有不到四分之一的民众希望如期举办奥运会。为什么在人们普遍反对的情况下，日本政府仍要坚持举办奥运会？
The impulse behind Japan’s decision to go on with the Olympic games
日本执意举办奥运会背后的原因
Nationalism explains what rationality cannot
理性解释不了的事情可以用民族主义来解释
Fewer than 50 days remain before the apparently unstoppable opening of the 2020 summer Olympic games in Tokyo. The pandemic led to their postponement last year.
距铁定要举办的2020东京奥运会开幕还有不到50天的时间。去年，新冠肺炎疫情的爆发导致了奥运会的推迟。
Today the clock is ticking down against a backdrop of resurgent infections of covid-19 in Japan, a state of emergency in Tokyo and nine other prefectures, hospitals filling up and widespread opposition to the games from the public, businessfolk and medical experts.
如今，奥运会开幕在即，而日本疫情却再度告急，东京和其他九个县宣布进入紧急状态，医院也人满为患，公众、商界人士和医疗专家普遍反对举办奥运会。
All this counts for little in the eyes of the government and the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The games are a go “barring Armageddon”, as one IOC member unhelpfully put it.
在日本政府和国际奥委会看来，这些状况没什么大不了的。正如一位国际奥委会委员所说的那样，“除非世界末日到来”，否则奥运会非办不可。
Yet Armageddon is the real fear. The pace of vaccination in Japan has been snail-slow. Many foreign athletes will arrive unjabbed. The games risk going down in history as a massive superspreader event.
然而，怕的就是世界末日真的到来。日本的疫苗接种工作进展缓慢。许多外国运动员将在尚未接种疫苗的情况下来到日本。这届奥运会或将成为一次大规模超级传播事件而被载入史册。
One reason for Japan’s obduracy lies in its contractual obligations to the IOC. Another is the personal concern of the prime minister, Suga Yoshihide, not to lose face—and possibly support within the ruling party.
日本之所以执意要举办奥运会，原因之一在于其对国际奥委会负有合同义务。另外还有日本首相菅义伟的个人考量中创网，他不想丢面子，甚至可能会丢掉执政党内部的支持。
But the establishment’s sense of the Olympic games as serving a patriotic purpose should not be underestimated. Tokyo’s Olympics were intended to banish a sense of being overtaken—“Japan passing”, in the anglicised phrase—by a rising China and others following years of stagnation and the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
但不应低估当局将奥运会视为一次为爱国主义服务的机会。在经历了多年的经济停滞和福岛核灾难后，举办东京奥运会旨在消除一种日本被正在崛起的中国和其他国家超越的感觉——在英语表达中意为“日本成为了过去式”。
Bad enough was 2020 passing. The games’ total abandonment, in the herd thinking of the establishment, does not count as a blow for common sense. Rather, it could shatter the very notion that, as Mr Suga’s predecessor put it, “Japan is back.”
2020年没能举办已经很糟糕了。出于从众的考虑奥运会多久举办一次，彻底放弃举办奥运会不是一次一般意义上的打击。相反，它将彻底粉碎菅义伟的前任安倍晋三所说的“日本重新崛起”的愿景。
The country has been somewhere near here before. In the 1930s Japan lobbied hard to host the 1940 Olympic games in Tokyo. It was to be Japan’s moment to establish itself as a first-rate power. But like the pandemic today, war—Japan’s own invasion of China in 1937 and a looming global conflict—overshadowed everything. The games were cancelled.
日本过去曾发生过类似的事情。上世纪30年代，日本大力游说以争取1940年东京奥运会的主办权。那本将成为日本确立其一流强国地位的时刻。但就像今天的疫情一样，战争（1937年，日本发动了侵华战争，同时世界大战也一触即发）给一切蒙上了阴影。那届奥运会最终被取消了。
Japan’s military adventurism contributed to the cancellation. Yet seeking to put a gloss on things, Kido Koichi, an adviser to Emperor Hirohito, declared that when peace reigned again, Tokyo would be ready to host the games and show the people of the world “the true Japanese spirit”.
日本的军事冒险主义导致了1940年东京奥运会的取消。但为了挽回颜面，裕仁天皇的顾问木户幸一宣称，东京已经做好准备，只待和平重现便可举办奥运会奥运会多久举办一次，向世界人民展示“真正的日本精神”。
After the war, Kido was condemned as a war criminal, but Tokyo was true to his word. In 1964 it put on a splendid games, which served as a modern, democratic coming-out party for Japan.
战后，木户幸一被判为战犯，但东京兑现了他所说的话。1964年，东京举办了一届盛大的奥运会，这场奥运会成为了日本作为一个现代化民主国家的亮相派对。
Ever since, Asia’s hostings of the summer games have carried a broader significance for the host nation and even its neighbours. The 1988 games in Seoul, the South Korean capital, were a catalyst for democracy, helping to end decades of authoritarian rule.
自那以后，在亚洲举办夏季奥运会对主办国乃至其邻国都具有更广泛的意义。1988年在韩国首都首尔举行的奥运会成为了民主催化剂，推动韩国结束了几十年的独裁统治。
In 2022 Beijing hosts the winter Olympics, as the Japanese government is all too aware. As Jeff Kingston of Temple University in Tokyo points out, not holding the games would hand a propaganda coup to China.
北京将在2022年举办冬奥会，日本政府绝不会忘了这件事。正如天普大学东京分校的杰夫·金斯顿指出的那样，如果日本取消了东京奥运会，那就相当于将绝佳的政治宣传机会拱手让给了中国。
(红色标注词为重难点词汇)
本文翻译：Vinnie
校核：Vinnie
