Obituary;Brian Haw

讣告；布莱恩·霍

Brian Haw, peace campaigner, died on June 18th, aged 62

布莱恩·霍——和平活动家，于六月十八日逝世，享年六十二岁

When Brian Haw sat in his old canvas chair in front of his banner-hung tent in Parliament Square, people kept coming by. Tourists with their cameras. Teenagers drinking beer. Commuters on their way to work. Taxis, vans, bicycles. Bloody big black cars with lying politicians in them. Buses with passengers all on their phones or buried in their papers. Drivers who wound down the car window, not stopping, and shouted “Get a job!”

国会广场上悬挂着标语的帐篷前，布莱恩·霍坐在他那老旧的帆布椅子上，过往路人川流不息。有带相机的游客，喝啤酒的少年，还有往返于工作路上的人群。的士、货车、自行车，还有说谎的政客们乘坐的超长黑色轿车都从此经过。公交车上乘客都忙着打电话或埋头于报纸。司机放下车窗，但没有停车，冲他喊道：“找份工作吧！”

Wasn't that nice. But he had a job. He had it for ten years in sun, rain, sleet, snow. Never left the square. And his job was this. Get the people to wake up. Get them to realise that the USA and the UK were killing babies. Hundreds were dying every day in this place called Iraq and this place called Afghanistan. He had their photographs on his wall of shame. Bloated, pathetic, missing limbs. Sanctions were killing them. Sanctions and bombs. And especially, check out depleted uranium munitions. That poison was everywhere, in the air, in the water, even between the grains of sand. There wasn't a Hoover in the world big enough to suck up all that shit. And everyone was responsible. Everyone. Raping and pillaging and murdering the world. Just to get that stuff called oil. FOOD YES, BOMBS NO, his banners said. COLAT DAMAGE, NO. A GENOCIDE TOO FAR. STOP KILLING MY KIDS.

司机是出于好意。但他是有工作的。十年来不管是晴是雨，是霰是雪，他都坚守岗位，从未离开过广场。他的工作就是唤醒大家。让人们意识到美国和英国政府在杀害婴孩。在一个叫伊拉克和一个叫阿富汗的地方每天都有成百上千的婴孩死去。他把他们的照片贴在他的羞耻墙上。这些孩子或身体浮肿，或悲惨可怜，或缺胳膊少腿。制裁害死了他们。制裁和炸弹。特别地，看看贫铀弹的威力吧。有毒物质散发到了各个角落，空气中，水中，甚至沙土中。世界上可没有足够大的真空吸尘器能把那些毒物吸光。而且，每一个人都要负责。无一例外，人人都在榨取、掠夺地球的资源，使地球活力渐失。这一切都只是为了得到那个叫石油的东西。他的标语上书：“食物，可以，炸弹，不可以 ，蓄意破坏，不可以。这是大规模种族屠杀。停止杀害我的孩子们。”

People from the whole wide world filmed him on a regular basis. They liked to photograph his old corduroy hat—more badges than hat—which said THE WAR IS THE ENEMY OF THE POOR and SUPPORT US TROOPS—BRING EM HOME! They asked him how he slept. (Badly. How would you sleep if 200 babies were dying every day?) They fussed over how he ate. (Mostly chips people brought him and coffee with five sugars. He was lean as a twig. But you know what? People in Calcutta would think he was a king to have so much pavement to live on.) They asked about the mice. They had nested in his sheepskin coat once. He was far more worried about the rats across the road.

来自世界各地的人们经常拍摄他。他们喜欢拍他那顶旧灯芯绒帽子，更主要是为了拍上面的徽章，徽章上写着：战争是穷人的克星，帮助美军——让他们回家！他们问他是怎么睡觉的。（很难入眠。如果每天有200个婴孩死去，你还睡得着吗？）他们对他的饮食大为惊异。（大部分来自人们给他带的薯条和加五种糖的咖啡。他骨瘦如柴。但你知道吗？印度加尔各答市的人们会觉得他有这么宽的人行道可以住，是国王般的待遇了。）他们问老鼠怎么处理。有一次老鼠在他的羊皮大衣上做窝。相比他更担心马路对面的老鼠们。
When he talked, he sounded tired. He was. Tired of the bollocks. Tired of people not taking responsibility for their inhumaneness to their fellow man. He probably smoked too much, too. Breathed in too much exhaust. Between sentences he would work his stubbly chin as if chewing on unpalatable facts. Then he'd sing:
他说话间透着疲倦。确实，他受够了政客的谎言。也因人们的没人性，不为自己的同胞承担责任而深感无力。也有可能是他吸烟太多，吸进了太多废气。说话间他会扬起他那胡子拉碴的下巴，似乎在沉思那些令他不快的事实。接着他会歌唱：

Last night I had the strangest dream, I'd ever dreamed before;

昨晚我做了一个奇特无比的梦，一个从未做过的梦；

I dreamed the world had all agreed, to put an end to war.

我梦见世界大同，再无战争。

He spoke like an evangelist, because he was one. His parents were Christian, and he'd found Jesus too at Sunshine Corner beach school in Whitstable. After the merchant navy, he went missionising round Redditch in a minivan. He moved to Parliament Square in 2001 to express his Christian outrage about sanctions. Bush's and Blair's wars kept him there. He loved his neighbour's kids as his own because he was a Christian. Other so-called Christians bombed them. Other “believers”, also in the square, didn't care. (WESTMINSTER ABBEY, WAKE UP!) If the people who had marched in 2003 against the Iraq war had stayed, like him, the politicians would have thought again.

他说话就像一名福音传教士，因为他本来就是。他的父母都是基督教徒，呆在惠茨特布尔的阳光一角沙滩学校时他也投入了基督教门下。离开商船队以后，他驾驶一辆小型货车前往雷丁奇附近传教。2001年他来到国会广场以表达作为一名基督徒对于制裁的义愤。他留在那里是因为布什和布莱尔发起的战争。他爱其他国家的孩子就像爱自己的孩子一样，因为他是一名基督徒。而另一些所谓的基督徒则用炸弹轰炸他们。其他同样在广场上的“信徒”则漠不关心。（西敏寺，醒来吧！）如果2003年反抗伊拉克战争的游行人群像他一样坚守下去，也许政治家们会三思而后行。

Police abuse

粗鲁的警察

His megaphone helped spread the message. ARREST GEORGE BUSH, WAR CRIMINAL! HI TONY! 45 MINUTES, MR BLAIR. MR B-L-I-A-R. They could hear him even in the Commons chamber. At first Tony Blair said good old Brian, what a champion of free speech. Yes, he was. He defended the right to free expression in front of Parliament: 350 years of peaceful protest. Some rapper boys from South London came up and hugged him once. They said they totally supported him, fuck Parliament, fuck 'em all. But he wouldn't have that. He just answered Love, Peace, Justice, stop killing my kids.

他借助扩音器来传达信念。逮捕乔治·布什，战犯！你好，托尼！45分钟，布莱尔先生。布-莱-尔先生。即使在下议院会议厅里都听得到他的声音。起初，托尼·布莱尔评价他是个好老头布莱恩，言论自由的赢家。是的，他的确是。他守卫了自己在国会面前自由表达思想的权利：有着350年历史的和平抗议。曾有一次几个伦敦南部来的饶舌歌手和他拥抱。他们说完全支持他的行为，去他的国会，去他们的。但他不会说脏话。他只用爱，和平，正义，停止杀害孩子来表达。

The authorities soon got tired of him, though. Westminster Council tried to remove him because he was a nuisance and “obstructing the pavement”. It failed. By 2005 Tony decided he'd had enough of the name-calling. The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act said Mr Haw had to give six days' notice, if you please, of any demonstration within a kilometre of Parliament. How could he do that? The High Court ruled against it, and said he was legal. But the police never acted as though he was. Any morning they might wake him up with a siren, whoop, whoop, Are you there Brian, yank up his plastic, rifle through his private property right in front of Parliament. Who was abusing whom then? In 2006 78 of them came to tear down his wall of pictures, smashed it, trashed it, left it like a bomb site. Left him with one sign. He stayed, of course.

然而，当局很快就对他厌烦了。西敏寺地方政府试图把他赶走，因为他是他们的眼中钉，而且“阻塞了人行道”。行动没有成功。到了2005年，托尼声称他听够了指责。严严重有组织犯罪和警察法规定霍先生如果一定要在距国会一千米内抗议的话就将被拘留六天。他要怎么办呢？高级法院否决了这一法案，并且称他的行为合法。但警察的行为就好像他是非法的一样。每天早晨警察都用呜呜叫的警笛将他闹醒，就在国会前面拉开他的塑料帐篷，迅速搜查他的私人财产。究竟是谁在谴责谁呢？2006年，78个警察拆倒了他的照片墙，将照片撕碎、丢弃，现场就像被炸弹轰炸了一样。只给他留下了一个签名。但当然，他还是留在那里。

People asked him about his own kids, seven of them. An off-limits topic. Family was left behind when he came to the square. His wife had divorced him, he'd learned. It wasn't his fault. He hadn't wanted to stay eight bloody years away from them, with the pollution and the drunks who broke his nose and the thugs who shouted “Wanker!” at him. He stayed because he wasn't finished yet. And you know what? It was never fundamentally about free speech and the rights of Englishmen and all that stuff. It was about the dead children. And not walking by.

他有七个孩子，人们问起他自己的孩子怎么样，这是一个禁止谈论的话题。自从他到广场安家后，家庭就被抛之脑后了。他获知，他的妻子同他离婚了。这不是他的错。他也不想他妈的远离亲人八年时间，经历污染，还被几个醉汉打破了鼻子，还有暴徒冲他喊道：“蠢货！”。他留下是因为他还没有达成目标。你知道吗？从根本上说，这绝不是关于自由言论和英国人的权利或其他这类的东西。根本上说是为了那些死去的孩子，而不是为吸引路人。