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Kr. Valdemara str. 33
Office 11 (entrance from courtyard)
Phone: +371 67218043
Fax: +371 67218045
info@bccl.lv |
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| July 22 |
| Anita Kalēja at the BCCL Monthly Dinner at the Caviar Club Restaurant |
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Honoured guests of the BCCL,
Dear members and friends,
With the coming Olympics it is apt, I believe, to pay some attention to a long neglected topic of national pride. Amongst us today we have officials from the Latvian Olympic committee - people who have the job to cultivate occasions for a display of national pride and to create moments in sports history that help shape our national identity. The olympic games is the ultimate event upon which Latvia along with the rest of the world is looking with anticipation. Let us be honest - we want to have our heroes.
The emotion of pride is complex. On the one hand, we want to dwell in success if it is well-deserved. Everyone can picture the beauty of a moment of glory when ones achievement is celebrated after a display of a special effort, ability or great courage. This special emotion even has its own ritual raising your eyes to the sky and throwing your arms up in the air with an amazing sense of victory. Along with the rest of you I can picture this moment so vividly. I long to enjoy it because it binds together society and creates a lasting memory. It is fair to say, I guess, that the emotion of pride serves an important social function. Pride is an emotion of accomplishments. Pride is an emotion of social inclusion.
On the other hand, there is a dark side to individual pride. Pride has been listed for a long time as one of the seven deadly sins. Indeed, if associated with vanity and hatred of others, pride becomes a way of tricking people into paying respect that is not deserved. We have seen a good share of social tricksters here in Latvia. Pride can serve as an exaggerated show of dignity or self-importance because many know that they cannot succeed otherwise.
There we have two faces of pride. It contributes in important ways to the survival of the community. And yet, we are all people and nothing human is foreign to us.
How can we distinguish social tricksters from heroes? Well, someone has to tell the story of hard work, special effort, good luck and courage. Today, our guests are in the best position to convince us that our future heroes deserve our respect and gratitude.
This evening as our guest speakers we have Mr. Aldonis Vrublevskis, the President of the Latvian Olympic Committee, Mr Yang (Jianzhong), Counsellor from the Chinese Embassy and Ms. Oksana Sivokobilska, Board Member from Hansabanka one of the main sponsors of the Latvian Olympic team.
Without any further ado, I give the floor to the President of the Latvian Olympic Committee.
Anita Kalēja
BCCL Chairman
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