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Lexington
莱克星顿
Wright's wrongs
都是牧师惹的祸
May 1st 2008
2008年5月1日
From The Economist print edition
经济学人印刷版
Will no one rid the airwaves of this turbulent priest?
是不是真的没有人能将这位牧师的狂暴之声从电波中消除？
AFTER he became notorious as the man who urged God to damn America, Jeremiah Wright claims he wrestled with two impulses. The first was to heed the proverb: “It is better to be quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” The second was to “come across the room” and fight back. Mr Wright's decision to come across the room with his mouth wide open is proving a disaster for all concerned.
在杰里迈亚赖特（Jeremiah Wright）因敦促上帝诅咒美国而变得臭名远扬之后，他声称自己一直在与内心深处的两种冲动搏斗。其一就是遵信谚语：与其开口说话，消除种种猜忌，不如保持沉默，哪怕被他人当作傻子一个。第二个冲动就是恨不得立刻“气势汹汹冲到房间另一边”，进行绝地大反击。赖特终于打破了沉默，信口开河，他的这一决定对于所有的攸关方来说，都是一场灾难。
Mr Wright, who was Barack Obama's pastor for 20 years, has reason to be angry about the way he has been caricatured. The video clips that made him famous represent mere seconds of the thousands of hours he has spent preaching (207,792 minutes on Sunday mornings alone, according to his church, the Trinity United Church of Christ). Mr Wright volunteered to serve in Vietnam and spent six years in the armed forces. That, as he pointed out, is six years longer than Dick Cheney.
赖特当了巴拉克奥巴马20年的牧师，对于自己被滑稽模仿成如许模样，他是有理由气愤不平的。那些让他名声大震的视频不过短短数秒钟，而他花在布道上的时间则长达数千个小时（根据其所在教堂——三一联合基督教会的资料显示，光是在星期天早上他布道的时间就有207,792分钟。）。赖特曾自告奋勇去打越战，在军队他呆了六年，正如他指出的那样，他服役的时间可要比迪克切尼多六年啊！（注1）
Mr Wright's appearance at the National Press Club on April 28th before a massed throng of reporters provided him with the perfect opportunity to set those seconds in context. But he chose to do exactly the opposite. He surrounded himself with some of the most divisive figures in black America: Marion Barry, Washington's disgraced former mayor, Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party, Cornel West of Princeton University and a posse of security guards supplied by the Nation of Islam. And he hurled a succession of rhetorical bombs.
4月28日，当赖特出现在全国新闻俱乐部，面对一群蜂拥而至的记者的时候，他本有一个绝好的机会解释视屏上那数秒钟的言论，使其不要被断章取义的理解。但是他做的恰恰与之相反。他周围坐的都是一些在美国黑人中最有争议性的人物：臭名昭著的华盛顿市前任市长Marion Barry，来自普林斯顿大学的新黑豹党人（注2）Malik Zulu Shabazz以及由伊斯兰国家派（the Nation of Islam）提供的一队安保人员。在会上赖特牧师投掷出一连串的“语言炸弹”。
He defended his remark about “chickens coming home to roost”. He called Louis Farrakhan “one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century”. He talked about whites worshipping in church in the morning and putting on white Klan sheets at night. He defended his assertion that the American government invented the HIV virus to decimate blacks (“Our government is capable of doing anything.”). He even argued that blacks and whites have different learning styles, further proof that he endorses the racist theory that blacks and white have differently wired brains.
他为他那番“作恶者必自毙“的言论进行辩护。他将Louis Farrakhan称为：20世纪和21世纪最重要的声音之一。他说那些白人早上在教堂祈祷，而一到晚上就会穿上三K党人的白外套（注3）。他曾断言艾滋病病毒是美国政府发明的，目的就是为了将黑人彻底毁灭（“我们的政府有什么事不能做？”），在会上他也为他的这一见解辩护。他甚至声称黑人和白人连学习风格都不一样，这进一步证明了赖特赞同那套种族主义理论，即黑人脑电波的连接方式与白人是不一样的。
This is both a personal and a political tragedy for Mr Obama. Mr Wright was clearly a father-figure to a fatherless man who was confused about his identity. He introduced him to Christianity, and later conducted his wedding and baptised his children. In his speech on race relations in Philadelphia Mr Obama resisted incredible pressure to throw Mr Wright under a bus.
无论是从个人，还是政治角度看，这对于奥巴马来说都是一场悲剧。对于这位从小就没有父亲，并且困惑于自己的身份的人来说，赖特俨然是扮演着一个父亲般的角色。是他让他皈依了基督教，是他为他主持了婚礼，是他为他的孩子作了洗礼。此前，奥巴马在费城发表关于种族关系的演讲时，他抵挡住了常人难以想象的压力，并没有宣称将与这位前任牧师断绝一切关系。
Mr Wright responded by throwing Mr Obama under the bus instead. He dismissed Mr Obama's attempt to distance himself from his former pastor as a politician doing what he had to do. He announced that, if Mr Obama becomes president, he will be “coming after him” because he will represent a government “whose policies grind under people”. Mr Obama was said to be “deeply, visibly angry” when he was shown transcripts of these remarks. He responded with a press conference, in which his tone was alternately hard-hitting and elegiac, to make it clear that “whatever relationship I had with Rev Wright has changed”. Whether that will reassure nervous white voters, time will tell.
但是赖特并不领情，他宣称将与奥巴马“恩断义绝”。对于奥巴马企图与他划清界限的举动，赖特轻蔑的称之为：作为一位政客，他做了他应该做的事情。赖特宣称一旦奥巴马成为总统，他将“不会放过他”，因为那时的奥巴马代表的是一个“压迫美国人民”的政府。据说当奥巴马见到这些言语的文稿时，“愤懑之情，溢于言表”。他立即为此召开了记者招待会，在记者会上奥巴马的语调时而铿锵有力，时而哀戚瑟瑟，他清晰无误地表明自己的观点：“不管我过去和赖特牧师是什么关系，如今这一切都改变了。”至于他的这番表白是否会让那些紧张的白人选民安下心来，或许只有时间才能给出答案。
This was also a tragedy for Mr Wright. He is far more than the blustering buffoon who was on the stage on Monday. He has presided over an increase in the size of his congregation from 87 when he arrived in 1972 to 8,000 today. Trinity is a welfare state in its own right, providing more than 70 welfare programmes for the poor, the unemployed, prisoners and HIV patients.
对于赖特牧师来说这同样是一个悲剧。本周一他在记者会上的表现犹如一个口无遮拦的跳梁小丑，但是赖特绝不止这么简单。在他的主持下，他所在教区的教徒人数现在已增加到8，000人，而他在1972年到的时候，这里的教徒只有区区80人。三一教会自身就如同一个福利国家，它为穷人，失业者以及艾滋病病毒携带者提供70多个福利项目。
He is one of the most liberal members of the black church, happy to question Scripture when he thinks that it forsakes common sense and unusually tolerant of gay couples, who can be seen holding hands in his pews. No less a figure than Martin Marty, who is probably America's most distinguished historian of religion and who happens to be white, has defended Mr Wright and said how welcome he and his family feel in his congregation. But Mr Wright could well be remembered as a race-baiter who helped to prevent one of his parishioners from becoming the first black president of the United States.
赖特是美国黑人教堂中最具自由主义精神的牧师之一。当他认为《圣经》中有摈弃常识的内容时，他乐意对此提出质疑。对于同性恋夫妇他也表现出异乎寻常的容忍性，你可以看到一些同性恋夫妇正手握手坐在他教堂的长椅上，聆听教诲。为赖特牧师辩护的不是别人，正是Martin Marty，他或许是美国最杰出的宗教史学家，而且他还是一位白人。他说他和他的家人很受赖特牧师的教徒欢迎。然而赖特牧师很有可能以一位“种族毒饵”（ race-baiter）的身份被载入史册，人们会记得是赖特阻止了他自己的一位教徒成为美国第一位黑人总统。
And finally this is a tragedy for race relations in general. Mr Wright had a chance to explain how blacks can feel ambivalent about America—how they can volunteer to fight in a war, as he did, but also feel furious about slavery and segregation. But he furnished the anger without the explanation.
最终对于美国总体上的种族关系而言，这也是一场悲剧。赖特本来有机会阐明其实黑人对美国的情绪是极其矛盾的：一方面，正如赖特本人所做的那样，黑人可能会自告奋勇，为国参战，但是对于奴隶制，对于种族隔离制度他们又感到极其的愤怒。但是他却并没有做出这番解释，只是无节制的倾泻了他满腔的愤怒。
No quiet exit
我不会安静的走开
He also had a chance to explain how blacks are über-Americans when it comes to religion. They are the most religious people in the country, and black churches are among America's greatest self-help organisations: they provided slaves with a social framework when they were denied even the right to form families, and they continue to provide support and welfare services. There were hopes that Mr Wright might have done this; he was in Washington for a conference on the black church. But he ended up doing the opposite, arguing that any criticism of him was a criticism of the black church in general.
赖特牧师也有机会阐明在宗教问题上，黑人绝对是美国人的典范。黑人是这个国家最笃信宗教的人群，黑人教堂是美国最大的自助组织之一：当黑人奴隶连组成家庭的权利都被剥夺时，是黑人教堂为他们提供了社会救助体系。而且时至今日这些教堂依然为黑人提供帮助和福利救济。当赖特出席华盛顿的一个关于黑人教堂的会议时，人们期望他或许会阐述上述观点。但最终赖特牧师做的恰恰与之相反，他声称任何对于他个人的批评都是对美国所有黑人教堂的批评。
What inspired this calamitous performance? Egomania was clearly part of it. Mr Wright responded to the applause of the amen corner in his audience with ever more outrageous assertions. There was probably a touch of jealousy too. Mr Wright has seen his former protégé rise to heights he himself could never have dreamed of, and he has been caught up in the tailwinds.
到底是什么驱使赖特做出这样极具灾难性的表现呢？极端自我主义肯定是其中的一个因素。当那些坐在虔诚教友席上的受众们为他鼓掌喝彩时，他的言论就会变得愈加的肆无忌惮。这里面或许还也有点妒忌的成分。赖特眼睁睁的看着他昔日门生的地位已经上升到了一个他自己做梦都没想过的高度上，而他自己在顺风顺水时却陷入了这样一场风波之中。
But there is also something deeper here: a generational struggle for control of black politics. Mr Wright belongs to a generation of activists—Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are other prominent members—who thrived in part by playing to the resentments of their black supporters. Mr Obama belongs to a much more pragmatic generation, people who want to get beyond racial polarisation and enter the political mainstream. Mr Wright's generation is not about to leave the stage quietly. So much the worse for America.
然而这里也有更深层次的原因：这是一场两代人为获得黑人政治控制权的争斗。赖特的那一代人多为激进主义分子（Jesse Jackson和Al Sharpton也是这代人的杰出代表。）他们成功的部分原因就是他们迎合了黑人支持者对于社会的怨恨情绪。而奥巴马这代黑人则更加的务实，他们想超越种族分化，进入美国的主流政治圈。赖特牧师这一代还没打算安安静静的离开政治舞台。对于美国来说，或许没有比这更糟糕的事情了。
注释：
1.这里赖特是讽刺美国副总统迪克切尼没服过一天兵役，却整天对他指手指脚,说三道四。
2．Black Panther Party指美国的黑豹党，创建与1966年的黑豹党由黑人组成，主张以武力获取权力。
3．美国三K党ku klux klan是美国最悠久、最庞大的恐怖主义组织。ku klux二字来源于希腊文KuKloo，意为集会。klan是种族。因三个字头都是K，故称三K党。又称白色联盟和无形帝国。党员的制服是白外套和套在头部的白色垂胸布罩，给人一种神秘恐怖感。党员只限于生在美国的新教徒中的白种人。三K党的纲领表面上是“拥护宪法”，“维持法律和秩序”，“信仰基督”，实际上提倡“人种区别”， 散布种族主义，主张剥夺黑人的基本权利。通过绑架、私刑、集体屠杀等非法恐怖手段迫害黑人或思想开明人士。
《经济学人》（The Economist ( http://www.economist.com ))
仅同意本网站翻译其杂志内容，并未对上述翻译内容进行任何审阅查对。 |
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积累
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本周之星
奖励译文
发表于 2008-5-5 21:49
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发表于 2008-5-5 22:25
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谢谢。
发表于 2008-5-6 09:43
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发表于 2008-5-6 15:36
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