All for Nationalism

As long as the host focuses on dignity of its nation, it should be called a festival of nationalism. However, the Japanese welcome it as a biennial opportunity for governing its nation with nationalism.

The Olympic Games in Sochi, Republic of Russia, started on Friday. TV stations and newspapers in Japan are competing their exciting, dramatic and nationalistic reports. As far as the reports are supporting Japanese players, they would not be blamed by anyone, including the government. People are talking about gold, silver and bronze in their homes and offices.

A day before the opening ceremony, a reporter for Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) greeted to the watchers in Russian language. In the report, a Russian woman was talking about her image of a Japanese athlete, but the observers immediately would have wondered how many people the reporter asked the question until she discovered a Russian interested in Japanese player. NHK seems to be happy with shifting public eyes from the scandal its Chairman brought, in which he apologized of his speech justifying Japan’s history of hiring “comfort women.”

All newspapers brought a photo of a female mogul skier jumping in her performance in their front page on Friday. Regardless of her not-so-prominent achievement, actually the seventh in preliminary trial, the papers reported her stories, which told that it was her fifth opportunity in Olympic, she achieved seventh, sixth, fifth and fourth position in the final of previous games, she was very encouraged by her husband or she felt calm right before starting her performance. That was more than enough for readers not interested in sports.

Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, left Japan on Friday evening to attend the opening event. While some of the Western leaders, including POTUS, rejected to go to Sochi, protesting the situation of human rights in Russia, Abe was willing to show his friendship to the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, by joining the event of Russian nationalism. Although both leaders will have a meeting in Sochi, there is no expectation of any progress in territorial issue, which is mostly concerned by Japanese people in the bilateral relationship.

NHK reported that it was only Japan and China that marched into the opening ceremony with their own national flag and Russian flag. It would be a competition of obtaining Russian support in their dispute over Senkaku Islands. Considering the concentrated attention to the event, Russia must be the gold medalist of this contest of nationalism.