聖火リレーとナチス

　⇒Pageantry and Protest - washingtonpost.com

Apologists for China claim that the Olympics are not the place for political protests. That's nonsense. The Games have always had a political dimension, especially when emerging powers have used them to announce their arrival on the world stage: Japan in 1964, South Korea in 1988 -- or Nazi Germany in 1936. The torch relay was invented by Adolf Hitler, who routed it through countries he would soon invade before overseeing a final leg featuring a blond, blue-eyed runner ushering the flame into Berlin's Olympic stadium. We count it as progress of a sort that 72 years later, a police state can't celebrate itself that way without drawing a few Bronx cheers.