经济学人:安拉与女人 God-daughters
日期:2013-03-06 10:01

(单词翻译:单击)

Books and Arts; Book Review; Women and Islam;God-daughters;
文艺;书评;妇女和伊斯兰教;安拉与女人;

A biography of two women whose lives have been transformed by militant Islam;
一本关于两个被伊斯兰激进主义改变人生的女性的传记;

Wanted Women: Faith, Lies, and the War on Terror: The Lives of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Aafia Siddiqui. By Deborah Scroggins.
被通缉的妇女:信仰,谎言和反恐战争:阿雅按安·希尔西·阿里和阿菲亚·西迪基的人生。黛博拉·斯克罗金斯著。

Ayaan Hirst Ali and Aafia Siddiqui are forceful, intelligent women who were born around 40 years ago in the heart of the conservative Islamic world, into families of some prominence. Later, they moved to America. Like tens of millions of others who made similar journeys, they had to negotiate the interface between an immigrant sub-culture that harked back to the homeland and a liberal society where very different options existed. Presented with two sharply contrasting value systems, two diametrically opposed ideas about the meaning of virtue, success and fulfilment, they had to make their choices.

阿雅按安·希尔西·阿里和阿菲亚·西迪基都是性格坚强、头脑聪明的女性,40年前出生于传统伊斯兰世界心脏地带的显赫家庭,而后又移民美国。与数以千万计有相同经历的人一样,她们必须将来自其故土的移民亚文化与一个存在巨大选择差异的自由世界进行调和对接。在两种尖锐对立的价值体系,两种关于道德、成功和成就的定义完全相反的理念面前,她们不得不做出自己的选择。

There, it would seem, the resemblance ends. Somali-born Ms Hirsi Ali is an admired public intellectual who denounced Islam as an oppressor of her sex and the source of many other woes. Ms Siddiqui is serving an 86-year prison sentence in Fort Worth, Texas, after being convicted of shooting at the American officers detaining her in Afghanistan. A Pakistani-born neuroscientist who excelled in her studies at leading American universities, she has been described as the only senior female member of al-Qaeda and “the most wanted woman in the world”. Her alleged complicity in terrorist plots has not been tested in court (her trial had a narrower remit) but there is no doubting her jihadist zeal.

从这样看起来,两人的结局大同小异。索马里裔的·希尔西·阿里女士是受人尊敬的公共知识分子,她谴责伊斯兰教对自己的性压迫,并视其为其它许多悲剧的根源。西迪基女士则因被控在阿富汗向拘留自己的美国军官开枪,被判在德州沃思堡监狱服刑86年。西迪基女士是巴基斯坦裔的神经系统科学家,在美国顶尖大学里研究成果突出,被描述为基地组织唯一的女性高级成员和“全世界最有名的女性通缉犯”。虽然指控其与恐怖分子同谋未经法庭证实(对其审判稍有从轻)但她对于圣战的狂热是毫无疑问的。

As Deborah Scroggins, an American journalist, recalls in this gripping and finely textured double biography, the two women's marital histories are also different. Ms Hirsi Ali is now wedded to Niall Ferguson, a British-born historian, forming one of the world's most lionised couples. Their son was born last month. Formally speaking, her first marriage was an arranged union with a fellow Somali who wanted to take her to Canada. Ms Hirsi Ali instead sought asylum in the Netherlands. Eventually she became its best-known politician after her artistic collaborator (on a film denouncing Islam's cruelty to women) was murdered by a Muslim extremist and her own life needed protecting.

身为记者的美国作者黛博拉 斯克罗金斯在这部精心创作、扣人心弦的双人传记中回顾了两位女性截然不同的婚史。希尔西·阿里的现任丈夫是英国裔史学家尼尔 弗格森,两人组成全球最受崇拜的夫妻。上个月他们刚刚喜得贵子。而从形式上讲,希尔西·阿里的初婚则是与某个设法将其带到加拿大的索马里男子组成的形式婚姻。希尔西·阿里舍弃了对方在荷兰寻求庇护。而让希尔西·阿里最终扬名天下的是她艺术合伙人(在一部影片中谴责伊斯兰教残酷对待妇女)被伊斯兰极端主义者谋杀,而她自己亦需要保护之后。

Ms Siddiqui, who seemed to personify the very demons that Ms Hirsi Ali was fighting, married the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11th 2001 terror attacks. An earlier, failed marriage was to a Pakistani-born doctor, another high-flyer in American academia, who shared her piety but not her extremism.

西迪基看上去则恰恰正像是希尔西·阿里与之战斗的那些魔鬼的化身,她嫁给了据称是911恐怖袭击的主要策划者哈立德 谢赫 穆罕默德的侄子。而其前夫是一位在美国学术界极有抱负的巴基斯坦裔医生,此人与其一样虔诚但没有她极端。

Ms Scroggins has spent much of the past decade tracking both women and is struck by what she calls the weird symmetry between them. Ms Hirsi Ali could have been an Islamist; as an adolescent in east Africa she was exposed to persuasive activists in the Muslim Brotherhood. Ms Siddiqui could have settled for life as a “Volvo-driving mother of two” as she was described (accurately, in a way) by those who insisted that her detention and trial were unfair. By flipping between the two lives, the book cleverly shows how both women were influenced by successive episodes in history, from the Bosnian war to the New York attacks and the overthrow of the Taliban, gradually becoming protagonists in subsequent events.

过去十年,斯克罗金斯女士花费了大量时间追踪两位女性的生活,并被其描述的发生在两个妇女身上宿命的对称所震撼。幼年生活在东非,身处穆斯林兄弟会极具蛊惑的活动分子当中,希尔西·阿里本应成为一个穆斯林。而按照某些坚称对其拘捕和审判是不公的人们的描述,西迪基的生活本应是“驾驶着沃尔沃的两个孩子的妈妈”(某种程序上的确这样)。而通过回顾两个人的生活,传记清晰地展示了两人是如何被从波黑内战到911袭击再到塔利班被推翻这一系列历史事件所影响,从而逐渐走向了各自的命运。

Although the book avoids psychobabble, it is tempting to conclude that very personal factors influenced the women's choices. In Ms Hirsi Ali's childhood the dominant figure was her father, a rebel leader who was frustratingly absent most of the time. In her own battles, she at once defied and emulated him. In the Siddiqui household, the strongest role model was her mother, a passionate advocate of ultra-conservative Islam and close associate of Pakistan's most hard-line clerics. Both lives were also affected by the final phase of the cold war. The Siddiquis were part of a wave of Islamist zeal unleashed by Zia ul Haq, a Pakistani general who enjoyed American support as an ally in the anti-Soviet fight in Afghanistan. As opponents of Somalia's pro-Soviet regime, Ms Hirsi Ali's family were initially welcomed by pro-Western Saudi Arabia; but when Somalia switched sides, the family had to move to Kenya, where life as an exile remained difficult. The worst features of traditional life, especially domestic violence, were easier to reproduce than any other aspect of Somali culture.

虽然这本传记也在避免心理呓语,但还是吸引人地总结了左右两人选择的每个个人因素。支撑希尔西·阿里童年的是其父,这是一位在绝大多数时间里都令人沮丧地不在其身边的反对派领导人。当希尔西·阿里开始自己的战斗时,她立即膜拜并效仿父亲。而西迪基家中最有力的榜样是母亲,后者强烈拥护极端保守的伊斯兰教,与巴基斯坦最强硬的神职人员关系紧密。两人的生活都受到了冷战最后阶段的影响。西迪基是被齐亚 哈克释放出的一波伊斯兰教狂热的一部分,而齐亚 哈克则是受到美国支持并被视为美国在阿富汗反苏盟友的巴基斯坦将军。而做为索马里亲苏政府的反对者,希尔西·阿里的家庭起初受亲西方的沙特欢迎,不过后来索马里变换了阵营,希尔西·阿里一家不得不远走肯尼亚,在那里做为被流放者艰难度日。传统生活中的糟粕,尤其是家庭暴力,比索马里文化中的其它东西更容易滋生。

In the introduction, Ms Scroggins says she hopes her meticulous investigation into the two women's lives (which did not enjoy the collaboration of either) will help her to understand the “deep structure” of the defining conflict of the early 21st century, pitting militant Islam against the West. (Something her subjects share, of course, is that both regard that battle as primordial and non-negotiable.) Some may find the book's stated intention slightly over-ambitious. But it does add greatly to the understanding of several interlocking conflicts, some grand and geopolitical and others intimate and personal.

在前言里,斯克罗金斯女士表示她希望自己严谨细致的对这两位妇女生活(并没有与这两名妇女共同谋划)的调查,能够帮助自己理解被定义为21世纪初,伊斯兰极端主义反西方的这场冲突的“深层次结构”。(当然,她这个主题的含义,是认为这场冲突是原始的和不可调和的)。有人可能会发现这本书所宣称的意图稍微有那么点过于宏大。不过这本书的确大大有助于从宏观的、地缘政治的以及其它一些秘密的和个人的方面增加了人们对于几场连续发生冲突的理解。

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重点单词
  • concludevi. 总结,作出决定 vt. 使结束,推断出,缔结
  • understandvt. 理解,懂,听说,获悉,将 ... 理解为,认为
  • intimateadj. 亲密的,私人的,秘密的 n. 密友 vt. 透
  • affectedadj. 受影响的,受感动的,受疾病侵袭的 adj. 做
  • rebeln. 叛徒,起义者,反叛者 adj. 造反的,反抗的 v
  • forcefuladj. 有力的,强烈的
  • reproducev. 再生,复制,生殖
  • opposedadj. 反对的,敌对的 v. 和 ... 起冲突,反抗
  • virtuen. 美德,德行,优点,贞操
  • accuratelyadj. 准确地 adv. 精确地,准确地