“MY COUNTRY is being destroyed,” sobs Ahmad, a student from the eastern city of Deir ez-Zor who joined the protests when they began in March 2011. “The regime is killing us, many of the opposition fighters are becoming criminals and the world is watching it like a film.” He is worried that onlookers may think this is normal, seeing that Syria lies in the centre of a region which is no stranger to wars and strife. Syria, with its chemical weapons, alliance with Iran, shrinking government and spreading militias, has become the confluence where all that is worrying about the Middle East comes together.
“他们毁了我的国家。”Ahmad哽咽道。Ahmad是北部城市Deir ez-Zor 的一名学生，2011年的3月游行开始时，他加入了抗议人群。当权者让我们生不如死，而许多自由军的战士们变成了犯罪分子，世界却袖手旁观。”他担心旁观者们认为这不足为奇，因为叙利亚正处于一个充满战争与冲突的区域的中心。叙持有化学武器，背靠伊朗的支持，政府正在逐渐衰微而自由武装不断扩张。人们对中东的各种担忧在这里被汇聚在一起。
Two years ago Syria was a rather sleepy place. The muezzins’ call to prayer and the peal of church bells mingled above the rooftops of Damascus, the world’s oldest continually inhabited capital city, where Syrians liked to boast that Christians and Muslims, as well as people from a smattering of other sects, lived side by side in peace. People bustled through the markets. Women could stay out safely alone past midnight. Men played backgammon on the pavements with their neighbours. The Syrian accent, spread through the region by the country’s soap operas, conveyed hospitality and simplicity to fellow Arabs.
两年前叙利亚还是一个很安静的地方。宣礼员呼唤信徒们的喊声混着教堂清亮的钟声，盘旋在大马士革这个世界上历史最悠久，人居绵延不息的内陆首都上空。叙利亚人以他们的基督教徒与穆斯林教徒为傲，也同少许其他教派和谐地居住在一起。市场熙熙攘攘。即使午夜过后，女人们在外逗留也没有危险。而男人则和邻居们站在路边玩弹珠游戏（巴加门）。随着肥皂剧的风靡，叙利亚口音也在整个中东地区传播，把他们的好客和简约的精神传递给其他的阿拉伯人。
Syrians take pride in their colourful history. Ancient buildings dot the landscape, from crusader castles to the exquisite Umayyad Mosque, the architectural masterpiece of an empire centred on Damascus that once stretched through north Africa and up into Spain.
叙利亚人为祖国多彩斑斓的历史而自豪。古老的建筑散落在各处，既有十字军城堡，也有精美绝伦的倭玛亚大清真寺。曾有王朝以大马士革为中心，那个王朝的建筑艺术瑰宝一直延伸到北非和西班牙。
Since Hafez Assad brought his family to power in a bloodless coup in 1970, Syria has had little to celebrate. An authoritarian state snuffed out discussion and creativity with its ubiquitous Mukhabarat and tortured those who caused trouble. Many Syrians were ready to accept this as the price of stability when Bashar Assad inherited the presidency from his father in 2000.
自从哈菲兹·阿萨德家族在1970年无血政变中掌权，叙利亚就乏善可陈。独裁政府用无所不在的政治手腕扼杀讨论与创造，并且折磨那些反抗的人们。当2000年，巴沙尔阿萨德从父亲手中继承了领导人的职位，许多叙利亚人已经准备接受这一切，就当作是稳定需要付出的代价。
At first the repression seemed to ease under the new President Assad, at least for those who stuck to the bargain and kept out of opposition politics. Life became a little sweeter in 2005 when Coca-Cola arrived. Internet cafés flourished, as did the software that let Syrians visit banned websites such as Facebook. Posters of the Assads still festooned walls across the country, but schools phased out the compulsory wearing of military uniform.
新总统阿萨德上任之后，对下的镇压有所缓和，至少对于那些逆来顺受，远离反对派的人们来说是如此。2005年，可口可乐进入叙利亚，给生活添加了一丝甜味。网吧生意红火，与此同时，阻止叙利亚人登陆脸谱网的软件也一样普及。阿萨德的支持者依然在四处张贴标语，不过学校已经取消了强制学生穿军队制服。
Mr Assad’s stance against Israel and its main backer, America, through his alignment with Hizbullah (the Lebanese Shias’ party-cum-militia) and the regime in Iran, was popular with most Syrians. They had nothing against citizens from hostile countries: “We differentiate between the government and its people,” was a standard refrain during the American-led invasion of Iraq. But they pitied their brothers and sisters in Egypt for being ruled over by Hosni Mubarak, whom they saw as a wrinkled yes-man of the West.
阿萨德站在以色列以及以色列主要支持国——美国的对立面。他通过和真主党（黎巴嫩什叶派政党兼民兵组织）、伊朗结成同盟，赢得了大部分叙利亚人民的支持。叙利亚人民对敌对国的平民并没有任何敌意。在美国进攻伊拉克时，这句话就是美国典型的陈词滥调：“我们会对政府和平民区别对待。”但是叙利亚人民同情在穆巴拉克领导下的埃及兄弟姐妹们，他们认为穆巴拉克是对西方人唯唯诺诺的死老头。
Today that Syria is no more. The uprising, which is now a full-blown civil war between Mr Assad’s forces and the opposition, has brought new freedoms. Young Syrians are no longer afraid to deride the regime openly. Even within the security forces, people discuss politics. “We all say things we wouldn’t have dared talk about in our own homes before,” says Aisha, a mother of four from Idleb province, in the north-west. Neighbourly bonds have sometimes grown strong amid the bloodshed. Altruistic bravery is common. Women risk their lives to smuggle medicine to rebel areas through the regime’s checkpoints, because the soldiers are less likely to search them. In Damascus people sleep ten to a room, welcoming relations who have fled from more dangerous areas.
今天的叙利亚已经大变。起义已经升级为政府军和反对派的全面内战，这给国家带来了全新的自由。年轻的叙利亚人已经敢于公开的嘲讽当今政权。即便是保安部队的内部人员也在讨论政治。来自西北部省市伊德利卜的一位四岁孩子的母亲爱莎说：“我们现在都谈论一些以前在家里都不敢谈的话题。”邻里关系有时候变得比血亲关系更为牢固。利他的英雄主义精神也随处可见。女人冒着生命危险越过政府的检查点，把药品送到自由军的地盘，因为士兵搜她们身的概率更小。在大马士革，十个人挤在一个房间里睡觉，他们依然欢迎从更危险的地方逃难来的族人。
But these gains have come at a terrible price. War is tearing Syria apart. For months the country has been divided between Mr Assad’s forces and the rebel groups. Neither side has victory within its grasp. The rebels control swathes of land in the north and east, where the regime shells towns and villages and sends its aircraft to bomb military and civilian targets. The regime is determined to consolidate its grip along a north-south axis from Damascus through Homs and Hama (the country’s third- and fourth-biggest towns) to Latakia, the port and region that were home to the Assad family and its Alawite sect.
但这些收获付出了惨痛的代价。战争已经把叙利亚撕碎。几个月来，国家在政府军和自由军之间四分五裂。双方都没有胜算的把握。自由军占据了北部和东部大片的土地，而政府军以城镇与乡村为掩护，并且派出飞机炸毁军事目标和民众。政府军决心巩固从大马士革到霍姆斯、哈马再到拉塔基亚（分别为叙第三大、第四大城市）这条从北至南的轴线，因为拉塔基亚居住着阿萨姆家族和阿拉维教派。
At present, there is no chance of a political opening that could lead to serious negotiations between the opposition and the regime. The circle around Mr Assad refuses to contemplate his exit. Until recently the political opposition, which since November has been gathered under an umbrella calling itself the Syrian Opposition Coalition, had refused to negotiate unless Mr Assad goes first. He, meanwhile, has taken comfort from the solid financial and political backing of Iran. Russia, which supplies Mr Assad with money and weapons, has sometimes hinted that it will put pressure on him, only to step back at the last minute—possibly, Western diplomats speculate, on the personal command of Vladimir Putin. They believe that Russia’s president is determined to frustrate the West, especially America, and to prevent it from forcing change, as it did in Libya. A joint call from Russia and the Arab League for a negotiated settlement does not mean that calculation has changed.
目前，还没有出现政治契机能让反对派和政府军进行严肃的谈判。阿萨德的亲信们拒绝考虑让阿萨德退位。而截至最近，自由军在12月在保护框架下结成了叙利亚反对派同盟，他们拒绝谈判，除非阿萨德先退位。与此同时，阿萨德本人从伊朗对其稳固的经济、政治支持上尝到了甜头。俄罗斯给阿萨德提供了武器与财力支持，时不时地暗示出将对阿萨德施加压力。但俄罗斯总是在最后一刻改变了主意——西方的外交家们猜测很可能是普京本人下的命令。他们认为俄国总统决意要令西方失望，特别是让美国失望。他决意阻止西方像利比亚事件一样以武力行动来推进进程。
Western governments have struggled to keep up with what is happening inside the country. Fearing another Middle Eastern adventure in the wake of Iraq, the American administration has been reluctant to do anything beyond calling for Mr Assad to go. At a congressional hearing earlier this month Leon Panetta, the outgoing secretary of defence, and General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, revealed that they had recommended arming the rebels. Although this plan had the backing of Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, and David Petraeus, then head of the CIA, the White House vetoed the idea. Though Britain and France would like to ease the European Union’s arms embargo, some European states, including Germany and the Nordic countries, are set against doing so. On February 18th, at a meeting in Brussels, the EU endorsed a compromise resolution to provide more “non-lethal aid”. Members of the Syrian opposition grumble that even the West’s pledges of cash to the political opposition have not been honoured.
西方国家难以及时跟进叙利亚国内的情况。美国当局以伊拉克为鉴，不愿再次带兵深入中东。因此，美国除了呼吁阿萨德下台之外，不愿采取其他行动。在本月初举行的国会听证会上，即将离任的国防部长莱昂帕内塔以及参谋长联席会议主席Martin Dempsey上将透露他们建议给反对军提供武器。尽管该计划得到了前任国务卿希拉里克林顿，中央情报局前局长David Petraeus的支持，仍然遭到白宫的否决。尽管英国与法国有意放松欧盟对武器的禁运规定，其他一些欧洲国家，包括德国和北欧诸国都反对放松禁运。2月18日，欧盟在布鲁塞尔举行的会议上通过一项折中的解决办法——提供非致命性的帮助。与会的叙利亚自由军代表抱怨，欧洲答应给予他们的资金支持至今还没有兑现。
Opposition fighters, divided into numerous groups, varying from large battalions of a thousand to handfuls of men, get far fewer weapons than they had hoped. Gulf countries, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, have supplied mostly light weapons, many through private donors. Libya has chipped in. But the rebels are equipped mainly with AK-47 rifles, home-made rockets and kit captured from Mr Assad’s arms depots and barracks.
自由军的战士们也分成了无数的派别，既有人数众多的大军，其中每营有1000人；也有十几个人的小队。他们收到的武器远少于期望。海湾国家，比如卡塔尔沙特阿拉伯还有科威特，提供的大部分是轻型武器，许多还是私人捐赠。利比亚已经介入叙利亚事务。自由军的主要装备还是AK-47步枪，自制的火箭炮，从阿萨德的军火库和兵营缴来的成套装备。
The din of battle

战争的喧嚣
The UN reckons that 70,000 Syrians, mostly civilians, have died. The true figure is probably far higher: thousands have gone missing or have been locked up. In the past few weeks an average of 5,000 people have fled every day. The UN’s High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) says the number now exceeds 860,000, but many more have left uncounted. The number displaced within the country is higher still. More than 4m Syrians now lack fuel, electricity, a telephone line and food.
据联合国估计，有7万名叙利亚人在冲突中死亡，其中大部分是平民。真实的数字可能更大：还有成千人失踪或者被羁押。过去的数周之内，每天平均有5千人外逃。联合国难民事务高级专员办事处称难民数超过86万人，还有许多未能统计到的人。在国内颠沛流离的难民数量更多。有超过400万叙利亚人缺油断电，通信被切断，食物短缺。
A hardened and increasingly sectarian underclass on each side—disenfranchised mainly Sunni rebels and the regime’s mainly poor Alawites—is bearing the brunt of the battle. Middle-class Syrians and secular activists are leaving in droves. A lawyer in Tal Abyad, a border village north-east of Aleppo, Syria’s second city, bemoans the fact that armed rebels have displaced the civilians who sought to administer his town and the area around it. Yet the hundreds of rebel groups, despite their efforts to co-ordinate, have failed to jell into a coherent army with a chain of command. Each of them wants to stake out its own patch. Opposition groups seem keener to court their financial backers than to lighten the burden of local civilians.
两方各自阶级固化且人数不断增加的社会底层人士，包括大部分被剥夺选举权的逊尼派自由军，以及占了国家大多数人口的贫穷的阿拉维教徒，他们承担了战争的苦果。中产阶级和不信教的激进分子都成群结队地逃离叙利亚。有一名律师，他来自东北部城市Aleppo的一个边境村庄 Tal Abyad，他为那些被武装反对派转移的平民哀悼。那些人原来立志要自己管理自己的家乡。而成百上千的反对派派别，尽管他们努力相互配合，依然无法形成一支融合良好的军队，顺利传达命令。每一派都想占地为王。他们更愿意向他们的金主献殷勤，而不愿意减轻平民的负担。
Sometimes the rebels turn on each other and fight. Islamist groups have clashed with the Kurdish militias that control the north-east of the country, where most of Syria’s Kurds live. Syria will be harder to put together again after the war ends.

有时候自由军内部还发生交火。伊斯兰教派与占据国家东北部地区的库尔德民兵曾经发生冲突。东北部正是大部分叙利亚库尔德人居住的地方。在战争过后，叙利亚会变的更难统一。

Mr Assad and his family, conscious of their minority status in a mainly Sunni country and thus determined to keep Syria broadly secular, insist that the rebels are Islamist extremists, as dangerous to the West as they are to the Arab world. In fact, few of the protesters who started the uprising two years ago were very devout. Alawite defectors are still helped to flee the army. The rebels have mostly left Christians alone. Nor have they slaughtered Alawites, despite the massacres carried out by Mr Assad’s thugs against Sunni villages around Homs. Salafism, the strict version of Islam that has gained ground elsewhere in the Arab world, never found fertile ground in Syria.

阿萨德和他的家人意识到他们在这个以逊尼派为主的国家，他们是少数民族。由此，他决定让叙利亚保持不以宗教治国，坚持称那些自由军是伊斯兰极端分子，对西方国家和阿拉伯世界都一样危险。事实上，只有少数在两年前开始起义的抗议者很虔诚。阿拉维地区的自由军还帮助军队逃兵。大部分的自由军都孤立基督教徒。尽管阿萨德派出暴徒在霍姆斯附近的逊尼派村庄大肆屠杀，自由军也不杀害阿拉维人。萨拉维这种极端的伊斯兰教旨在阿拉伯世界各处生根发芽，唯独在叙利亚找不到发展的土壤。

But this is changing, too. Western intelligence sources say that jihadists are now arriving in Syria by the busload. Jabhat al-Nusra, the most devout Syrian battalion, which shares al-Qaeda’s worldview, is getting stronger. In December an armed group trashed a Shia prayer house in Zarzour, a town in Idleb. Though many Syrians reject the jihadists the war is becoming religious.

但是现在情况也在改变。西方的智库认为，圣战分子正在一车一车地被送到叙利亚。Jabhat al-Nusra是最虔诚的叙利亚大军，拥有与基地组织共通的世界观。这支军队仍在不断壮大。12月，一组武装分子毁坏了一座什叶派的祈祷所，祈祷所坐落在Idleb，Zarzour镇。尽管许多叙利亚人反对圣战分子，这场战争还是变得越来越与宗教相关。

The war has made many Syrians more sectarian in outlook. Alawites have been drafted into the regime’s security forces and militia. “We see that Alawites are stuck,” says Abu Adnan, a rebel fighter in Latakia province, “because Bashar is trying to tie all of their fates to his.”

战争让许多叙利亚的想法更加富有党派性。阿拉维人被招进政府军的保安部队和军队。拉塔基亚省的一个自由军战士Abu Adnan说：“我们看到阿拉维人面临困境，因为总统想把政府的命运同阿拉维人绑在一起。”

Both middle-class Syrians and religious minorities are increasingly worried by the way even moderate opposition groups talk of an “Islamic state” to replace Mr Assad’s regime. “We’re bringing back the rule of the Sunnis,” proclaims a fighter in Aleppo’s Tawhid battalion. “We’re the majority, so it’s only fair.” Alawites have reason to be afraid. It is hard to imagine them moving back to mixed cities such as Homs.

即便是自由军们温和地谈论“伊斯兰政权”取代阿萨德政权，还是让叙利亚中产阶级以及宗教的少数族裔都越来越担心。一位驻扎在Aleppo， Tawhid营的战士宣称：“我们要让逊尼派的教规重新发扬光大，我们的人占了大多数，所以这是公平的。”阿拉维人有理由害怕，很难想象他们回到各教派混居的霍姆斯城会发生什么事。

Many Syrians have for years looked to mildly Islamist Turkey as an example. “But they aren’t an Islamic state,” grumbles a rebel fighter. “We want something stronger.”

一直以来许多叙利亚人以温和的伊斯兰教国家——土耳其为榜样。“但是土耳其不是真正的伊斯兰政权”一位反对派战士说，“我们期待更加有力的政权。”

Spot the jihadist

遭遇圣战组织成员
Many Christians are emigrating, having seen what became of their brethren in Iraq and Egypt. Alawites in Damascus say that Maher Assad, the president’s ruthless brother and commander of the Republican Guard that is at the core of the regime, should take over to become their saviour and protector if Bashar is killed.

许多基督教徒在看到教友们在伊拉克和埃及的结局后，纷纷移民。大马士革的阿拉维人认为，总统的弟弟——冷血无情的共和国卫队长Maher Assad是政权的核心人物，假如巴沙尔被杀，他应该继位，成为阿拉维人的保护神与救世主。

Beneath it all is the brutalisation of Syrian life. Disputes that have nothing to do with the uprising are being settled with guns. Assassinations and kidnappings have become more frequent. By arming loyalist neighbourhood committees, the regime is dragging more civilians into the war. “I see how my men have become used to killing,” says a rebel commander with Farouq, a large battalion that has brigades spread across the country. “Soon we won’t even realise it is wrong.”

掩盖其下的，是叙利亚生活的残酷血腥。同起义没有任何关系的冲突也靠枪来解决。杀人拐卖都越来越猖獗。政府把越来越多的平民拖进了战争。反对派大营队Farouq（该营的部队遍布全国）的指挥官说：“我眼看着我的手下们越来越习惯杀戮，用不了多久他们就意识不到杀人是错的了。”

Thousands of homes, factories, schools and hospitals have been razed. Doctors, teachers and engineers have fled. Many Syrians worry that the war will finish only when no one is left to fight. “I just want it to end so I can get married and get on with my life,” sighs the rebel commander. “I am worried that when this is done there won’t be a country left.”

无数的民房、工厂、学校、医院都被夷为平地。医生、教师还有工程师都逃往国外了。许多叙利亚人担心，战争永远不会结束，直到无人可战。“我真希望战争快点结束，我就能结婚，继续正常的生活。”这位反对派的指挥官叹息道。“我担心等到那一天，叙利亚这个国家已经不复存在。”