英文自修104：打破罪恶的轮回

本系列内容英文原文取自BBC Thought for the Day节目网站，朋友们也可以下载节目录音收听。

译者：默谦

审读：武太白

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Thought for the Day - 20140616 - Rev Dr Jane Leach

It is horrifying to wake up to images of the alleged massacre in Iraq this morning. To those of us who are not Middle Eastern experts, the sudden shift in the balance of power, seems to have come out of the blue, adding to the impression that violence is random and senseless as different countries successively appear for a moment in the international spotlight and then disappear.

今早醒来看到那些被指为伊拉克大屠杀的图片，感到十分骇然。对我们这些不是中东专家的人而言，权力平衡的突然转换似乎太出乎意料，随着不同国家相继在这个国际聚焦点上短暂露面，随即消失，更给人一种暴力随意且毫无意义的印象。

We find it hard to fathom the complexity of this conflict’s causes and Britian’s role is being hotly debated. Some, though, draw attention to what they see as Prime Minister Maliki’s polarising policies, in particular, for ignoring the Sunni population who lost their power base when Saddam Hussein was ousted.

我们发现很难彻底了解那些引发冲突的复杂原因，英国在此中扮演的角色也引起热议。但是，有人将注意力引向总理马里奇的极化政策，尤其是因为在萨达姆•侯赛因被驱逐后忽略了失势的逊尼派成员。

However complex the situation in Iraq may be, a factor that many uprisings share is the fuel of the resentful experience of those on the losing side. For the temptation for the winners in any war is to exclude those they have defeated, not only from power, but also from prosperity, thus sowing the seeds of the next revolution.

不管伊拉克的局势多么复杂，造成许多暴动的一个因素是刺激了那些失势方的愤怒。因为在任何战争中胜利者的一大诱惑是驱逐败将，包括政权和经济，这样就播下了下一次革命的种子。

I have just returned from a visit to Hiroshima – the first place in the world to experience a nuclear attack. Whilst there I visited the Museum of Contemporary Art and was fascinated by a video installation by Dennis Oppenheim entitled, ‘Two stage transfer drawing’ in which an artist draws on the naked back of another artist, who semi-automatically, reproduces the same design on the page in front of him. It left me thinking how tragically easy it is for us human beings unreflectively to recycle the violence done to us, and how hard it is for us to break the cycle and find another way.

我刚从广岛游历回来——它是世界上第一个遭受核攻击的地方。我参观那里的当代艺术博物馆时，着迷于丹尼斯•欧本海默的影像装置艺术——两阶段转移图。这个作品中，一个艺术家在另一个艺术家赤裸的背上作画，另一个艺术家半自动地把图案画到面前的页面上去。它让我想起，对我们人类而言不经考虑地重复自己曾经经受的暴力是多么轻易，而打破循环，找到另一条路又是多么艰难，实在是悲剧。

By contrast, in front of the twisted metal of the A bomb dome – one of the few buildings in Hiroshima to survive the fire ball that engulfed the city killing perhaps as many as 140,000 people – there is a memorial to the dead: ‘Let all the souls here rest in peace for we shall not repeat the evil.’

相比之下，站在广岛原子弹和平纪念圆塔前——它是少数几座在吞没整个城市的大火中残存下来的建筑之一，那场大火使大约140000人遇难——那儿有一座遇难者纪念碑：“让所有灵魂在和平中安歇，因为我们不会重复罪孽。”

Strikingly, the sentiment was not ‘they’ shall not repeat the evil, but ‘we’ - the people of Hiroshima recognizing the potential for evil in their own hearts and turning away from it; the prospect of nuclear apocalypse enabling them to realise the urgency of curbing their own visceral desire for revenge.

引人注目的是，不是“他们”不会重复罪孽，而是“我们”——广岛人意识到罪恶潜藏在自己内心，并且远离它；核子末日这一前景使他们意识到迫切需要控制自己内在的复仇欲望。

This truth was made shockingly personal by Jesus who told his listeners to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them. Whether we feel that we are on the wrong side of history or that we are finally getting our way in life, this is a hard saying that runs against the grain. There are no easy answers. Yet unless we can find ways to contain and not repeat evils done to us, and, like the people of Hiroshima choose, instead, to live towards a vision of one human race, I wonder how else this terrible cycle of violence and exclusion might be broken?

令人吃惊的是，这一真理被耶稣转为个人道德准则，他吩咐信徒要爱他们的敌人，为那些迫害他们的人祈祷。无论我们是否感觉到自己在历史中处于错误一方，还是我们最终找到了自己的生活方式，这都是一句艰涩的格言，有悖常理。没有简单的回答。但是除非我们能找到办法忍耐自己经历过的邪恶，并且不去转而危害别人，并且像广岛人选择的那样，向人类的美好愿景进发，我怀疑还能怎样打破这个暴力和驱逐的循环？