Education is all well and good. But every now and then you have to show that you have one. Prejudice and public underestimation threaten anyone who does not do this, who does not repeatedly quote half-sentences from Rilke, regularly recounts the Ides of March or raves about their favorite jazz trumpeter. Basically, it doesn’t matter what you know, the main thing is that the others know that you know. And contemporaries with a large Latinum are very much at an advantage, because of course that makes a difference if you include the fact that “ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam” and also “ut desint vires, tamen est laudanda voluntas”, isn’t true.
Great understanding for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which impressively demonstrated on Tuesday in Tokyo that it can speak Latin. His old Olympic motto “citius, altius, fortius”, faster, higher, further, was expanded to include the adjective “communis”, common. The world should have understood that the IOC’s ancient philological competence did not suffer under the careful chairmanship of President Thomas Bach. That is reassuring and shows the glorious future of dead languages in modern competitive sport. Appropriately, Thomas Bach explained: “We have to adapt the motto to our times.”
Coincident media reports say, however, that improving the motto is not at all a cleverly placed educational hoax. It is about a contribution to “solidarity in difficult times like the Covid-19 pandemic”. Sure, the word solidarity also comes from Latin. But apart from that, this information may not be entirely correct. After all, you don’t show solidarity by prettifying a motto. But by showing solidarity. And that’s not actually what the IOC is doing right now.
Correction: The IOC does, but only with selected interest groups such as IOC treasurers and members, TV rights holders, Australian Olympic applicants from Brisbane and other individuals who are currently enjoying healthy sports entertainment in front of empty stands and with canned cheers.
But if you ask people in Tokyo these days, they don’t have the impression that the IOC is showing particular solidarity. After all, in the middle of the pandemic, it brings the world’s largest sporting event to the city, which numerous medical experts interpret as a rather reckless act. And recently in his address in Hiroshima, Thomas Bach did not even make a statement against nuclear weapons. It is a matter close to the heart of the people in this city, which suffered the first atomic bomb drop in 1945. Perhaps Thomas Bach doesn’t even think that the world should be free of nuclear weapons. One can have the opinion. But then he does not show solidarity at a prominent point.
Latin and solidarity. Two difficult fields in public life. Although it is easier to show off with Latin, even if you don’t have a great Latinum, but are just a well-read Asterix connoisseur. Solidarity, on the other hand, requires an attitude that has to be filled with life. Which has to be reflected in actions and speeches. And here the IOC should actually provide proof of performance.