英文自修29：咬定真相不放松

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Thought for the Day 20140214

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Speaker: Bishop RichardHarries

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It is amazing to think that it isnearly 25 years now since the Hillsborough tragedy left 96 dead and766 injured in the worst stadium disaster in British history. As weknow the families were never happy with 对……没有满意过 the officialstory, but it was only after 23 years with the report of anindependent panel 委员会 that the real truth of what caused the crush坍塌起因 began to emerge, with evidence that the original account wasskewed 有偏差.

On Wednesday another stage wasreached when the Home Secretary reported to parliament on wherethese enquiries have now got. In addition to stating that freshinquests 验尸 on the deaths would begin next month she said around400 witnesses have made requests to the Independent PoliceComplaints Commission to see their original statements.. Inaddition, the IPCC has recovered around 2,500 police pocketnotebooks. These pocket books had not been made available toprevious investigations. It has also conducted further analysis ofthe 242 police accounts now believed to have been amended修改过. 

What happened at Hillsborough wasa terrible tragedy and what resulted afterwards, a shaming story.But also remarkable is the determination of the families over somany years to get the truth revealed, and the willingness ofsuccessive governments 接连几届政府 to respond by setting up the biggestever enquiry into the police. It is a time consuming 耗费时间的,expensive business, but it’s a strength of our society, and thepolice at their best, that we believe the truth demandsit. 

It is a mysterious, marvellousthing -- this desire for the truth, not just for the sake ofjustice, but in science, and every area of human knowledge andendeavour. “The truth will set you free”, said Jesus, and howeverunpalatable 可厌的 the truth might be, whether about an institution, asociety or ourselves, its recognition 承认 can have a liberatingeffect. 

The French philosopher and mysticSimone Weil once wrote 

Christ likes us to prefer truth to him because, before being Christ, he is truth. 

But then she added, 

If one turns aside from him to go toward the truth, one will not go far before falling into hisarms. 

 
That was her experience, but it is clearly not everyone’s. Really,for some it leads some to agnosticism 不可知论 or atheism 无神论 - butwherever it leads, truth in all its forms continues to have thisstrange, compelling effect upon us both as individuals and as asociety. Indeed public life depends on the assumption that thetruth is being told, which is why lying to parliament, orfalsifying evidence, have always rightly been regarded as suchserious offences.

想想希尔斯堡惨案已经过去25年，就觉得惊异。在惨案中96人丧生，766人受伤，这是英国历史上最惨重的体育馆灾难。我们知道受害者家庭对官方报告一直不满，但直到23年后独立调查组拿出一份报告，引起坍塌的事实真相才开始浮现，有证据显示原本的说法有偏差。

周三此事进展到一个新阶段，内政大臣向议会报告了调查的最新进展。除了说明下个月将开始新的遇难者验尸行动，她还说约400名目击者已经向独立警方投诉委员会提出请求，要验看他们最初的证言。此外，该委员会还拿到了大约2500个此前未对调查开放的警用笔记本。委员会还对242份如今认为遭到改动的警方证词进行了进一步的分析。

希尔斯堡发生的是可怕的惨案，其后的调查则令人羞耻。而令人称道的是，受害者家庭多年来坚定不移要揭露真相，而各届政府则顺从民意，成立了史上最大的调查委员会对警方进行调查。这是一项耗时、昂贵的任务，但正是我们社会的力量，加上最佳的警方配合，才使我们相信真相需要如此。

这是一件神秘、奇异之事——这种对真相的渴望，不仅是为了正义，也是对科学和人类知识和努力的每一领域的渴望。耶稣说“真相将使你自由”，而不论关于制度、社会或我们自身的真相有多么令人不快，承认事实会有一种解放身心的效用。

法国哲学家和神秘主义者西蒙妮•韦依曾经写道

基督喜欢我们追求真理胜过爱他，因为他在成为基督之前就是真理。

但她又说，

如果谁转身去追寻真理，那么走不远，就会重回他的怀抱。

那是她的体验，但显然不是大家的体验。事实上，一些人会因此陷入不可知论或无神论。但不管导向何方，真理的各种形式对我们——不管是个人还是社会——都有这种奇怪的、强迫性的效应。事实上公共生活的基础就是假定所说为真相，这也是为什么向议会说谎或做假证一直以来都被认为是大罪。