抵制索契冬奧會有些不近情理

Western critics of Russia’s Sochi Winter Olympics have picked up too much speed and risk skidding off piste. A justifiable attempt to scrutinise the government of President Vladimir Putin has degenerated into an exercise in schadenfreude and ill will. Politicians who have decided to attend the games (including China’s Xi Jinping, Japan’s Shinzo Abe and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan) have been level-headed. Those who have ostentatiously stayed away – the UK’s David Cameron, Barack Obama of the US and France’s François Hollande – are following what the critic Harold Rosenberg once called “the herd of independent minds”.

俄羅斯索契冬奧會的西方批評者有點過火，有超出合理程度的危險。審視弗拉基米爾•普京(Vladimir Putin)政府行爲的正當努力，已淪爲幸災樂禍和不懷好意的舉動。決定出席開幕式的政治人物（包括中國的習近平、日本的安倍晉三(Shinzo Abe)，以及土耳其的雷傑普•塔伊普•埃爾多安(Recep Tayyip Erdogan)）是頭腦冷靜的人，而那些故意缺席的領導人——英國的戴維•卡梅倫(David Cameron)、美國的巴拉克•奧巴馬(Barack Obama)和法國的弗朗索瓦•奧朗德(François Hollande)——則是在追隨評論家哈羅德•羅森堡(Harold Rosenberg)所說的“獨立思想的羊羣”。

Media interest in the alleged corruption around Olympic construction has been obsessive. The Washington Post describes the various projects as “Stalinist excess”. At a January press conference, Mr Putin set the cost of the games at Rbs214bn ($6.2bn) and said related infrastructure ran far higher. Western sources estimate the whole project at $51bn, with some claiming a third of it was improperly diverted. That is a lot. But it is a local story: a Moody’s report this week described the credit impact on Russia’s companies as “mixed” and on its sovereign debt as “neutral”. Nor is Sochi a unique moral blot. The Salt Lake City Winter Olympics of 2002 were marred by a major corruption scandal and the Beijing summer games of 2008 were a more appropriate venue for protests about human rights.

媒體對奧運建設中據稱存在的腐敗問題念念不忘。《華盛頓郵報》(Washington Post)形容相關項目是“斯大林式的鋪張浪費”。在1月的新聞發佈會上，普京稱本次冬奧會的成本爲2140億盧布（合62億美元），並表示相關基礎設施的建設成本遠遠高於這個數字。西方消息人士估計，整個項目的成本達到510億美元，一些人稱其中的三分之一被不當挪用。這筆數目確實不小。但這是一件局部的事情：穆迪(Moody’s)最近一份報告將俄羅斯公司所受的信用影響評定爲“有好有壞”，將俄羅斯主權債務所受的影響評定爲“中性”。況且有道德污點的並非只有索契冬奧會。2002年美國鹽湖城冬奧會也被一樁重大的腐敗醜聞蒙上陰影，而2008年北京夏季奧運會是人權抗議活動的更合適場合。

Certainly Mr Putin’s respect for the democratic process has been fitful at best. Political opponents have been arrested and jailed throughout his time in office, even if several were released in December. He cracked down on a peaceful demonstration in May 2012, and eight of those arrested are still facing trial. Such conduct merits scrutiny, even

當然，普京對民主進程的尊重，即使往好裏說，也是斷斷續續的。在他掌權期間，政治對手被逮捕和監禁，儘管其中數人已於去年12月被釋放。他鎮壓了2012年5月的一場和平示威，其中8名被捕的示威者仍然面臨審判。對這些行爲可以密切關注，可奧運會不是最好的場合。亞歷山大•索爾仁尼琴(Alexander Solzhenitsyn)在2000年（此前俄羅斯用了10年時間遵循西方的建議）寫道：“葉利欽時代的結果是，我們的政治、經濟、文化和道德生活等所有基礎領域都被摧毀或洗劫……我們還要繼續洗劫和摧毀俄羅斯，直到一切蕩然無存嗎？”那一年，普京贏得大選，那是俄羅斯在說“不”。

if an Olympics is not the best forum. Of course, Mr Putin did not come out of nowhere. “As a result of the Yeltsin era, all the fundamental sectors of our political, economic, cultural and moral life have been destroyed or looted,” wrote Alexander Solzhenitsyn in 2000, after Russia spent a decade following western advice. “Will we continue looting and destroying Russia until nothing is left?” Mr Putin, who won an election that year, was Russia’s way of answering no.

相比這段歷史，普京的批評者更關注西方精英所熱衷的一份簡短清單：歐盟、自由貿易、同性戀權利，以及米哈伊爾•霍多爾科夫斯基(Mikhail Khodorkovsky)——這位石油大亨10年前被普京投入監獄，去年12月被赦免。最近，包括薩曼•拉什迪(Salman Rushdie)在內的幾百名作家在英國《衛報》發表了一封公開信，譴責俄羅斯出臺的一項禁止“所謂同性戀‘宣傳’”的法律（第6.21條的準確措辭是，禁止向兒童宣傳“非傳統的性關係”），還有一條禁止褻瀆神明。公開信稱：“作爲作家和藝術家，我們不能沉默地坐視不管，看着同行作家和記者被禁言，或是面對公訴和往往嚴厲的懲處……一個健康的民主國家必須傾聽所有公民的獨立聲音。”

Mr Putin’s detractors have paid less attention to this history than to a short list of causes beloved of western elites: the EU, free trade, gay rights and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oil tycoon Mr Putin jailed a decade ago and pardoned in December. This week hundreds of writers, including Salman Rushdie, published an open letter in the UK’s Guardian newspaper deploring a Russian law against “so-called gay ‘propaganda’” (the actual text of Article 6.21 forbids promoting “non-traditional sexual relations” to children) and another against blasphemy. “As writers and artists,” the petition ran, “we cannot stand quietly by as we watch our fellow writers and journalists pressed into silence or risking prosecution and often drastic punishment  . . . A healthy democracy must hear the independent voices of all its citizens.”

然而僅在8年前，英國工黨政府通過一部禁止蔑視神明的法律的時候，“沉默地坐視不管”恰恰是這些作家中許多人的作爲。2006年英國的《種族和宗教仇恨法》(Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006)聽從了英國伊斯蘭事務行動委員會(UK Action Committee on Islamic Affairs)等一些極端組織的建議；這些組織曾在1989年試圖封殺拉什迪的小說《撒旦詩篇》(The Satanic Verses)。英國上議院雖然增加了一些修正條款，限制該法的適用範圍，但這並沒有改變審查制度的立法精神。

But “stand quietly by” is what many of these writers did when the UK’s Labour government passed a blasphemy law just eight years ago (the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006), at the behest of some of the very groups (including the UK Action Committee on Islamic Affairs) that tried to ban Mr Rushdie’s novel, The Satanic Verses, in 1989. That the UK

最近在美國巡迴演出的俄國表演藝術家團體“暴動小貓”(Pussy Riot)曾因擾亂莫斯科一宗教場所而被捕入獄，西方評論家對此頗有微詞——《紐約時報》將她們那次演唱的內容稱作“反普京的歌曲”，而樂隊成員稱之爲“一首好玩的歌”。遺憾的是，她們沒有好好利用自由的氛圍，而是在美國電視上表演了兩年前她們站在聖壇上對着禮拜者演唱的歌曲（“大糞，大糞，上帝是大糞。”）。

House of Lords added amendments limiting the law’s reach does not change the spirit of censorship in which the bill was advanced.

在詆譭者的一片盛怒中，也許夾雜着不經意間給予普京的肯定。那些用拉什迪等人所謂“健康的民主國家”對普京說教的國家，近年卻將權力從立法機構轉移到行政機構，從選民轉移到官僚。在歐洲，此舉是通過將權力交給歐盟實現的。在美國，這種權力轉移體現在對民主選舉結果實行司法撤銷（包括在同性戀婚姻問題上的司法裁決），以及國會（在貿易、戰爭、醫療保健和情報蒐集等事務上）讓出決定權。

Western commentators complain that performance artists Pussy Riot, touring the US this week, were arrested for disrupting a religious service in Moscow with what The New York Times calls an “anti-Putin song” and the band members call “a fun song”. Too bad they did not take advantage of the air of freedom to sing on US TV what they sang on an altar in front of worshippers two years ago. (“S**t, s**t, the Lord’s s**t.”)

普京將自己視爲一名主權捍衛者，以及反美抗歐陣營的榜樣。如今西方社會還是比俄羅斯更加自由和民主，但這種差別已經沒有10年前那麼明顯了。