本帖最后由 酸枣树310 于 2009-4-13 17:16 编辑
【原文标题】China's burden
【来源地址】http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/08/tibet-china
【译者】aha
【翻译方式】人工
【声明】本翻译供Anti-CNN使用,未经AC或译者许可,不得转载。
【译文】中国的负担
引言:
如果说西藏人受到压迫,那所有的中国人都一样。这不是民族主义或种族歧视的问题,而是缺乏民主的问题。
作者:Ian Buruma
guardian.co.uk, Friday 10 April 2009 17.00 BST
上个月是1959年西藏人在拉萨反抗中国共产党统治的日子五十周年,西藏活动分子称之为西藏民族起义日。当年的反抗遭到镇压,达赖喇嘛逃往印度,而那之后至少十年时间情况更加恶化。许多藏族人,可能超过一百万,在毛主席的大跃进运动中饿死。文革期间,庙宇被毁坏,有时是藏族红卫兵所为,并有许多人死于暴力。
人们注意到,今年种种的纪念日让中国官员们头疼(天安门之后二十年)。上个月,我在四川成都,那里居住着很多藏族人。警察警惕任何叛乱的迹象,连对纪念日一无所知的外国游客也当街被拦下。五颜六色的藏族社区被隔离。不仅拍照被禁止,甚至不允许进入。
然而,为庆祝纪念日,中国媒体上充满了描绘藏族人民摆脱数百年来封建奴隶社会的喜悦的报道。如果在这些媒体中,中国日报是可信的,那么解放前的西藏就是人间地狱,藏族人民对于成为中华人民共和国的公民充满感激。
或许有人感激,很多却并不。但如果中国的宣传机器将西藏的过去描绘的太过黑暗,那些同情西藏的西方人往往会更加感情用事。
达赖喇嘛的人格魅力已经使人们相信了这样一副漫画:一群神秘的聪明的爱好和平的人民被一个残暴的帝国碾碎。然而这并不是无端的。事实上在1950年,有不少受过良好教育的藏族人是欢迎中国共产党的。僧侣集团在当时是不无原因的死板和专制。而中国共产党承诺要实现现代化。
现代化正是过去几十年中国政府在付诸实施的。仅仅三十年前,拉萨还是一片破败不堪,如今已五脏俱全,巨大的公共广场,购物中心,以及高层建筑物,还有一条连接中国内地的高速铁路线。的确,藏族人(稀疏的安插的地方政府中)或许并不及汉族从中受益更多。在拉萨这样的城市里,汉族士兵、商贩和**随处可见以致人们担心藏族文化除了作为一个旅游目的地之外正走向灭亡。
必须承认,在电气化、教育、医疗和其他公共设施方面,西藏无疑比过去现代的多。这一点,不仅常常被官方拿来当做论据,甚至所有中国人都借此表达西藏融入中国的合理性。
这种辩护早已有之。二十世纪,西方(当然,还有日本)帝国主义者就以此为自己的“使命”开脱,声称要为土著人带去“文明”或“现代化”。日本统治下的台湾其实就比中国其他地区要更现代。而英国人不仅给印度带去了铁路、大学、医院,甚至还带去了现代化的行政部门。
然而,除去一小撮保守的盲目的爱国主义者外,大多数的欧洲人和日本人都不再那么坚信现代化可以作为充足的接口去侵略别国。现代化应该由自己人民自己的政府来实施,而不是由外来力量强加。
不过中国人手里还有一张王牌,这张王牌更加言之凿凿(更加现代)。他们为中国的民族多样化感到骄傲,这骄傲合情合理。为什么国籍要建立在语言和民族的基础上?如果允许西藏从中国独立,那威尔士为什么不从英国独立?巴斯克为什么不从西班牙独立?库尔德为什么不从土耳其独立?克什米尔为什么不从印度独立?
在某些情况下,答案或许是:好吧,它们可能应该独立。但是用民族来划分国籍确是含糊不清甚至危险的,不仅仅因为这会让所有的少数民族孤立无援。
所以说那些支持西藏事业的人就错了吗?是不是该给这些感情用事的行为喊卡?那倒不必。其实这事不是藏文化的事,不是精神领域的事,甚至不是民族独立的事,而是政治。
在这方面,藏族人并不比中华人民共和国的其他公民情况更遭。以发展前进的名义,中国到处都在拆毁古迹。文化被消毒,被同化,被剥除自主性,这些在所有中国城市都同步发生着,不仅仅是西藏。没有一个中国公民,不管是汉族、藏族、维族还是蒙古族,可以在权力以外投票。
所以,问题主要不是民族主义或歧视的问题,而是政治问题。中国政府宣称藏族人是幸福的。但没有媒体自由,没有选举权,这一切无从得知。不过偶发的集体暴力事件,和紧随其后的同样的暴力镇压显示,很多人并不幸福。
没有民主改革,这个恶性循环就无法终止,因为在没有言论自由的情况下诉诸暴力是人们的普遍选择。对西藏是这样,对中国的其他地区也是这样。只有当所有中国人都自由的时候,藏族人才能自由。从这个角度来说,所有的中国公民都绑在同一条船上。
作者的上一本书是《爱上中国的人》(The China Lover)
【原文】
China's burden
Tibetans are only as oppressed as all Chinese are. Theirs is not a problem of nationality or discrimination, but lack of democracy
Ian Buruma
guardian.co.uk, Friday 10 April 2009 17.00 BST
Last month saw the 50th anniversary of what Tibetan activists like to call Tibetan National Uprising Day, the day in 1959 when Tibetans in Lhasa revolted against Chinese Communist party rule. The rebellion was crushed. The Dalai Lama fled to India, and for at least a decade things became a lot worse. Many Tibetans, possibly more than a million, starved to death during Chairman Mao's Great Leap Forward campaign. Temples and monasteries were smashed, sometimes by Tibetan Red Guards, during the Cultural Revolution, and a large number of people died in the violence.
Chinese officials are noticeably jumpy in this year of anniversaries (20 years after the Tiananmen Square protests). Last month I was in Chengdu, in Sichuan province, where many Tibetans live. Even foreign tourists who had no clue about the anniversary were stopped in the streets by police looking for signs of rebellion. The colourful Tibetan district was cordoned off. Not only was it forbidden to take pictures there; one couldn't even walk through.
The Chinese press, however, marked the anniversary with effusive articles describing Tibetan joy at being liberated from centuries of feudalism and slavery. If the China Daily, among other publications, is to be believed, "pre-Liberation" Tibet was a living hell, and Tibetans are now grateful to be citizens of the People's Republic of China.
Some probably are. Many are not. But if Chinese propaganda paints too dark a picture of the Tibetan past, westerners who sympathise with the Tibetan cause are often too sentimental.
The personal charm of the Dalai Lama has promoted a caricature of a mystical, wise and peace-loving people being crushed by a brutal empire. It was not for nothing, however, that quite a few educated Tibetans actually welcomed the Chinese communists in 1950. The Buddhist clergy was seen, not without reason, as hidebound and oppressive. Chinese communism promised modernisation.
And that is what China's government has delivered in the past few decades. Lhasa, a sleepy, rather grubby backwater only 30 years ago, is now a city of huge public squares, shopping centres, and high-rise buildings, connected to the rest of China by a high-speed railway line. It is true that Tibetans, sparsely represented in local government, may not have benefited as much as the Han Chinese, whose presence in cities such as Lhasa as soldiers, traders and prostitutes is so overwhelming that people worry about the extinction of Tibetan culture, except as a tourist attraction.
Still, there is no question that Tibetan towns are now more modern – in terms of electrification, education, hospitals, and other public facilities – than they were before. This is one of the arguments used not only by Chinese officials, but by almost all Chinese, to justify Tibet's absorption into greater China.
This argument has a long history. Western (and, indeed, Japanese) imperialists used it in the early 20th century to justify their "missions" to "civilise" or "modernise" the natives. Taiwan, under Japanese rule, was in fact more modern than other parts of China. And the British brought modern administration, as well as railways, universities, and hospitals, to India.
Outside a fringe of nostalgic chauvinists, however, most Europeans and Japanese are no longer so convinced that modernisation is sufficient validation of imperial rule. Modernisation should be carried out by self-governing people, not imposed by foreign force.
But the Chinese have another argument up their sleeve, which seems more plausible (and more modern). They are justly proud of the ethnic diversity of China. Why should nationality be defined by language or ethnicity? If Tibetans should be allowed to break away from China, why not the Welsh from Britain, the Basques from Spain, the Kurds from Turkey, or the Kashmiris from India?
In some cases, the answer might be: well, perhaps they should. But ethnicity as the main marker of nationality is a vague and dangerous concept, not least because it leaves all minorities out in the cold.
So are people wrong to support the Tibetan cause? Should we dismiss it as sentimental nonsense? Not necessarily. The issue is not so much Tibetan culture, or spirituality, or even national independence, but political consent.
In this respect, the Tibetans are no worse off than other citizens of the People's Republic of China. Historic monuments are being bulldozed everywhere in China in the name of development. Culture is being sterilised, homogenised and deprived of independence and spontaneity in all Chinese cities, not just in Tibet. No Chinese citizen, regardless of whether he or she is Han, Tibetan, Uighur or Mongolian, can vote the ruling party out of power.
The problem, then, is not mainly one of nationality or discrimination, but of politics. The Chinese government claims that Tibetans are happy. But without a free press and the right to vote, there is no way of knowing this. Sporadic acts of collective violence, followed by equally violent oppression, suggest that many are not.
Without democratic reform there will be no end to this cycle, for violence is the typical expression of people without free speech. This is true not only for Tibet, but also for the rest of China. Tibetans will be free only when all Chinese are free. In that sense, if in no other, all citizens of China hang together.
• Ian Buruma's latest book is The China Lover.
【读者评论】
DrJohnZoidberg
10 Apr 09, 5:50pm
good god. this is just plain propaganda of the most transparent sort and insulting to the tibetan people.
i hope the guardian didn't actually have to pay for this.
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老天,这真是光天化日下明目张胆的宣传(propaganda,宣传,贬义词),完全侮辱西藏人民。
希望卫报不至于还要为此掏腰包。
MilesSmiles
10 Apr 09, 6:16pm
Tibet is a weak state between two large rival powers. If the Chinese weren't running it, then the Indians would be. I don't see the Tibetans being better off either way.
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西藏是个弱国,夹在两个敌对的强权中间。中国人不占领,印度人也会占领。不管哪样,藏人的日子都不会好过。
Britoriental
10 Apr 09, 7:11pm
Good article. This ethnocentric thinking imposed by the NGOs in the West is against the Dalai Lama's teaching, as with independence cries.
The whole of China needs to politically modernise, which will in turn help the people in Tibet. The sovereignty issue is dead and buried; no country doubted this, even when China was weak and had $0 in the bank.
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好文章。这个由西方NGO人员发表的有关种族中心论的思考挑战了达赖喇嘛的说教和那些声张独立的声音。
全中国都需要政治上的现代化,这也将帮助西藏的人民。主权问题不容侵犯;没有一个国家可以质疑,即使是在中国贫困虚弱之时。
gwale
10 Apr 09, 8:27pm
This article is a stunning example of willed ignorance of historical fact. Last I heard, the Nobel committee did not give the peace prize to a cartoon. As for the fabulous new modern Lhasa - you totally disregard the destruction of thousands of temples, torture, and genocide that preceded the inundation of the new, modern Tibet by Han people, who have starved out the Tibetans.
"Why should nationality be defined by language or ethnicity? If Tibetans should be allowed to break away from China, why not the Welsh from Britain, the Basques from Spain, the Kurds from Turkey, or the Kashmiris from India?"
Er, this kind of thinking presupposes that TIbet belonged to China in the first place. It did not and does not. Surely the English, having successfully either repelled or absorbed invaders for 1000 yrs, should have the perspective to see that Tibetans do not consider themselves part of China. Or maybe this is just the good old Colonialist view. Whether or not pre-Chinese invasion Tibet was Shangri-La or "a shabby backwater" -- an ethnocentric observation if I ever heard one - is utterly beside the point.
People like this writer assume that the takeover is a done deal so why don't the Tibetans, like, get over it and consider themselves (those of them still left) lucky to have running water - and screaming propaganda broadcast from the streetcorners. Hey, progress is good.
But you, sir, are not representing it. On the contrary.
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这篇文章是个极好的例子,关于人们如何有意识的忽略历史事实的。就我所知,诺贝尔委员会不会将他们的和平奖颁给一副漫画。当你说起绚丽的摩登的拉萨,你完全漠视数以千计的庙宇的毁坏,种族屠杀,虐待。这些都发生在汉族人民将新的摩登的西藏铺天盖地之前,而正是这些汉人让藏族人饥饿并且屈服。
“为什么国籍要建立在语言和民族的基础上?如果允许西藏从中国独立,那威尔士为什么不从英国独立?巴斯克为什么不从西班牙独立?库尔德为什么不从土耳其独立?克什米尔为什么不从印度独立?”
额,这种思考方式首先就将西藏作为中国的一部分了。但西藏过去不是,现在也不是。当然英国人(一千年的时间成功的或抵御或同化了侵略者)也该有足够的视野明白西藏人并不认为西藏是中国的一部分。或者说这只是新瓶装旧酒的殖民主义观。是否支持中国的入侵,和西藏到底是个香格里拉还是“破败不堪”——我第一次听到这种民族中心论的观点——一点关系也没有。
和这位作者一样的人认为西藏被占领已经是个既定事实,所以你们西藏人(还活着的那些),你们算了吧,你们有自来水喝应该感到幸福无比,你们还能享受大街上高声放松的宣传广播。嘿,进步多好。
不过你,先生,没有在体现这些,恰恰相反。 |