里約奧運 巴西爲何把恐怖活動當笑料

When Brazilian police arrested 12 men last month on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack during the Olympic Games, the country reacted in the only way it knew how: by cracking jokes on Twitter.

上月，巴西警方逮捕了12名涉嫌策劃在奧運會(Olympic Games)期間發動恐怖襲擊的男子。對此，這個拉美國家以它唯一知道的方式做出反應：在Twitter網站上編段子。

“God, even terrorists in Brazil are lazy!” scoffed one student, ridiculing the group for never having met in person but using WhatsApp to communicate instead.

一名學生打趣道：“天哪，就連巴西的恐怖分子都這麼懶！”藉此取笑該團伙從未當面會晤，而是通過WhatsApp應用相互聯繫。

Others poked fun at them for being “amateurs”. According to Alexandre de Moraes, justice minister, the suspects participated in an online Isis initiation ceremony, discussed taking martial arts lessons and tried to buy an AK-47 assault rifle from Paraguay over the internet.

其他人則嘲笑他們“太業餘”。根據巴西司法部長亞歷山大•德莫賴斯(Alexandre de Moraes)的說法，嫌疑人蔘加了一個網上的“伊拉克與黎凡特伊斯蘭國”(ISIS)入會儀式，討論過參加武術方面的課程，並試圖通過互聯網從巴拉圭購買一支AK-47突擊步槍。

“Sounds more like [martial arts actor] Chuck Norris,” tweeted one Brazilian. Others mocked them for leaving their preparations for the Olympics to the last minute. “I bet you the AK-47 is still stuck in customs, along with the aftershave I ordered,” another quipped.

一名巴西人在Twitter發消息稱：“聽起來更像是（功夫明星）查克•諾里斯(Chuck Norris)。”其他人則嘲笑他們把針對奧運會的“籌備工作”拖到了最後一刻。還有一位諷刺道：“我打賭，那支AK-47仍和我訂的刮鬍水一起卡在海關呢。”

Brazilians’ light-hearted reaction to a potentially horrific attack is no surprise. Osama bin Laden masks are popular at carnival — proof that the concept of Islamist terrorism is alien to this outwardly pacifist country. The operation carried out ahead of this month’s games was Brazil’s first under its new antiterrorism laws.

對於一場原本可能十分可怕的襲擊，巴西人輕鬆的迴應方式並不讓人意外。奧薩馬•本拉登(Osama bin Laden)的面具在狂歡節上大受歡迎——證明對這個外表上和平主義的國度來說，伊斯蘭恐怖主義的概念仍然十分陌生。在本月奧運會前發起的收網行動，是巴西根據新的反恐法採取的首次反恐行動。

The ridicule aimed at Brazil’s authorities over the operation is worrying. “The whole thing doesn’t really make much sense — if you want to get hold of a rifle you can hire one in Brazil for just R$3,000 ($918),” says Rafael Alcadipani, a researcher at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo, who studies the police. The operation was, he says, a media spectacle staged by the government to show the world Brazil is taking the threat of terrorism seriously.

圍繞這次行動對巴西當局的嘲笑則令人擔憂。專門研究巴西警方的聖保羅圖利奧•瓦爾加斯基金會(Getulio Vargas Foundation)研究人員拉斐爾•阿爾卡迪帕尼(Rafael Alcadipani)表示：“整件事並不能自圓其說——如果想弄支步槍，在巴西只要3000雷亞爾（合918美元）就可以租一支。”他說，這次行動是巴西政府自導自演的一場媒體秀，以便向全球展示巴西認真對待恐怖主義威脅。

Endemic corruption and rule-breaking have left Brazilians resolutely cynical, and the recent political crisis has eroded their trust in the establishment further still. Some have suggested federal police set up the arrests to get one up on ABIN, Brazil’s intelligence agency. Others believe they invented the whole plot.

大面積的腐敗和違規現象令巴西人什麼都不信。近期的政治危機進一步侵蝕了他們對體制的信任。有人暗示，聯邦警察炮製這場收網行動，以便蓋過巴西情報局(ABIN)的風頭。其他人則相信他們虛構了整個情節。

Then there are the bloggers who say Rio de Janeiro is simply not worth attacking. In one skit that went viral on Facebook, two terrorists try to blow up the city’s Christ the Redeemer statue. After they lose their luggage — and then get robbed, stuck in traffic and caught up in a favela shootout — they give up. “They weren’t sure if destroying Rio would be an act of terrorism or charity,” concludes the post.

還有博客文章表示，里約熱內盧根本不值得發動襲擊。在一個在Facebook網站上病毒式傳播的小品中，兩名恐怖分子試圖炸掉該市的救世基督像。兩人在行動中先是丟了行李，接着遭遇了搶劫，然後被堵在路上，最後遭遇貧民窟發生的槍戰，結果只好放棄。該貼最後聲稱：“他們無法確定，毀掉里約熱內盧是恐怖行爲還是慈善行爲。”

The problem exemplifies for some the country’s “complexo de vira-lata”, or “mongrel complex”, a term coined by writer Nelson Rodrigues to denote the feeling of inferiority that is considered a defining feature of the national psyche. Brazil, according to this belief, is not a “serious” country — in this case, not taken seriously even by terrorists.

對某些人來說，這個問題體現了巴西的“混血情結”(complexo de vira-lata)。這個表述是作家內爾送•羅德里格斯(Nelson Rodrigues)發明的，用來表示被認爲是巴西民族基本心理特徵的自卑感。按照這一觀點，巴西不是一個“認真”的國度——在這個例子裏，就連恐怖分子都不把巴西當一回事。

However, perhaps the most sinister explanation for Brazilians’ nonchalant approach to terrorism is that they face terror on a daily basis. In the state of Rio alone, 13 people are murdered each day on average. Macabre crimes fill the newspapers. Take last Thursday as an example: there were reports of a woman who crushed a baby with a quad bike, a teenager who stabbed her boyfriend to death during sex, a 15-year-old who bottled a child and dumped him in a canal, a firefighter who shot dead a teacher in her classroom and numerous violent robberies. A normal day in Brazil.

不過，就巴西人對恐怖主義的淡定態度而言，也許最陰暗的解釋是他們天天面對恐怖。僅里約一個州，每天平均就有13人被謀殺。報紙上充斥着令人毛骨悚然的犯罪。以上週四爲例：有報道稱，一名女子用一輛四輪摩托碾壓一名嬰兒，一位十幾歲的少女在做愛時將其男友捅死，一名15歲的孩子將一名幼童裝入桶內扔進運河，一名消防員在教室裏槍殺了一位女教師，還有關於大量暴力搶劫活動的報道。這是巴西的平凡一天。

“I still believe that domestic crime is a more concerning issue than the question of terrorism,” Mr de Moraes said last week about the games. Even though lone wolf terrorist acts should not be ruled out, he may have a point. In the past two weeks in Rio, the mother-in-law of Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula 1 boss, was kidnapped (and freed by police), a group of transvestites attacked an Australian television crew and a New Zealand ju-jitsu champion says he was abducted and robbed by armed police.

上週，德莫賴斯在談到奧運會時表示：“我仍然認爲國內犯罪是比恐怖主義更令人擔憂的問題。”即使不該把獨狼恐怖分子的活動排除在外，他的話也是有些道理的。過去兩週在里約熱內盧，一級方程式賽車(Formula One, F1)老闆伯尼•埃克爾斯通(Bernie Ecclestone)的岳母遭到綁架（後來被警方解救），一羣異裝癖襲擊了一個澳大利亞電視攝製組，還有一名新西蘭柔道冠軍表示他曾被武裝警察綁架和搶劫。

Rio’s gangs should leave visitors alone, at least. Grenade-wielding drug lords are feared worldwide but are likely to be focused on their core business during the Olympics. Last week, police even seized bags of cocaine bearing the Rio 2016 logo. In a sign that Brazil’s dark humour is shared by all, they came with the tongue-in-cheek warning: “Keep out of the reach of children.”

按理說，里約的黑幫至少不會打擾外來遊客。動不動就扔手榴彈的毒梟在全世界都讓人害怕，不過他們在奧運會期間很可能專注於自己的核心業務。上週，警方甚至截獲了多袋印有里約2016(Rio 2016)標識的可卡因。出於巴西人都有的黑色幽默，這些可卡因帶有搞笑的警告：“置於兒童拿不到的地方。”