ノーベル平和賞をもらったマララさんの授賞式でのスピーチが先日の朝日新聞に掲載されていたので読みました。私が最も強い印象を受けたのは次の個所です。
Why is it that countries which we call "strong" are so powerful in creating wars but are so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving books is so hard? Why is it that making tanks is so easy, but building schools in so hard?
戦争を作り出しているのは強い国だけではなく、国民が貧困に喘ぎ、子供に満足な教育を与えていないのに核兵器の獲得に熱をあげている為政者のいる国もその元凶です。国とは言えないイスラム国やアルカイダの組織の人間たちもこのマララさんの言葉に耳を傾けて欲しいのですが、いつになったらマララさんの声は彼らに届くのでしょうか?
難しい問題はさておき、マララさんのスピーチに一つだけ私の知らない単語がありました。
When I was in Swat, which was a place of tourism and beaty, suddenly changed into a place of destroyed. Women were flogged. People were killed. And our beautiful dreams turned into nightmares.
Education went from being a right to being a crime. Girls were stopped from going to school.
When my world suddenly changed, my priorities changed too.
I had two options, one was to remain silent and wait to be killed. And the second was to speak up and then be killed. I chose the second one. I decided to speak up.
"flog" がその単語です。 辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Beat (someone) with a whip or stick as punishment or torture: the stolen horses will be returned and the thieves flogged
・Vocabulary.com: To flog is to beat or hit, especially with a tool like a stick or rod. A cruel trainer might flog an unruly horse with a whip.
When you flog someone, you beat them as a way of punishing or controlling them. In the old days, teachers were allowed to flog misbehaving students, and it wasn't uncommon for parents to flog their children as punishment. In fact, the word flog first appeared as school slang in the late 1600s — it's thought to be a shortened form of the Latin word flagellare, "flagellate," or "whip."
マララさんの故国や世界中から "flog" などと言う単語は、映画やTVのドラマでしか必要のない言葉になると良いのですが。