以下英文引用部分取自 the Independent 印刷版，2006年8月28日：Noam Chomsky: You Ask Questions。
Can Israelis and Palestinians ever live peacefully together in one state?
-- MATTHEW PETERS, PHILADELPHIA
Perhaps, but it would have to be approached in stages. Since the 1970s, an international consensus has crystallised on the first stage: a two-state settlement on the internationally recognised borders, with minor and mutual adjustments. That has been barred by the US and Israel, with inconsequential departures. The US-Israel alliance is now working to undermine the option by their programs of "convergence": annexation, dismemberment, and imprisonment (by takeover of the Jordan Valley), cynically described as "courageous withdrawal". If these policies can be reversed, and the first stage achieved, then further steps are possible.
看起来老先生比大多数人都更乐观。以色列目前在其占领区的活动确实是非法的和不道义的，但以色列人有可能放弃这片土地，回到给他们划定的狭小国土中去吗？丧失了约旦河西岸这样的战略要地后，以色列的生存能否保证？这个第一步的实现，需要一个更强大的国际社会压力和减小的美国影响，在目前的中东这两点都很难实现。
You have said you see a "hint of anti-Semitic implication" in the work of Robert Faurisson, the notorious French Holocaust denier. Is Jewbaiting merely a hobby of yours, or is it vocational?
-- LAURENCE COLE, KENT
The facts and the principle have been spelled out dozens of times since 1980 (so it is a bit boring), but once again, briefly. The last time I had anything to do with this affair, Faurisson was accused of raising questions about gas chambers. Several years later, he was tried and sentenced for "Falsification of History", but there was no charge of Holocaust denial or anti-Semitism (according to Le Monde). The only issue concerning my connection with this sordid affair is whether we should adopt the Goebbels-Zhdanov doctrine that the State has the right to determine Historical Truth and punish deviation from it. As I wrote then, and am happy to repeat, it is a gross insult to the memory of victims of the Holocaust to adopt the doctrines of their murderers. The remark you are misrepresenting is from a personal letter -- an interesting source. It reviewed the facts and went on to point out that even denial of huge atrocities would not in itself be evidence for recism, giving a few of the many examples. Thus neither you, nor I, conclude that Americans are vicious racists because they estimate Vietnamese deaths at about 5 per cent of the offical figure, or because for centuries even scholarship vastly understated the scale and character of the destruction of the indigenous population. The point generalises to England and others, of course. There can be many reasons for denying horrendous crimes, even in the cases that are the most serious on moral grounds: our own. One special case--purely hypothetical in this personal correspondence--was that denial of the Holocaust would not establish anti-Semitism, for exactly the same reason.
似乎是这位读者断章取义，误解了 Chomsky 论断的来源。他对于 Faurisson 定罪的论述很有趣，似乎认为从纯历史的角度，否认大屠杀并不构成种族主义，因此这个行为本身并不是对受害者的 the most gross insult 。而问题的关键在于国家是否具有决定历史的官方版本并禁止和惩罚任何其他版本存在的权力。规定官方版本的历史并不允许任何争辩，同时使用将个人特性与种族联系起来的手段，实际上是戈培尔式的行为，Chomsky 表示自己是不会那样做的。
How did the current US administration get railroaded by the neo-cons?
-- EIRA TOVEY, AUSTRALIA
The neo-cons constitute a radical reactionary fringe of the planning spectrum, but the spectrum is narrow. Some of the more extreme -- Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith and others -- have been removed, with little policy change. The administration adopted neo-con principles when they accorded with their strategic and social/economic objectives, dismissing crazier ideas. A serious question is how the clique in charge used its extremely narrow hold on power to carry out radical domestic and international policies opposed by the large majority of the population. I've written about it, as have others, from various perspectives. One valuable study is Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, Off Center.
Can the curtailment of personal freedoms and the heightened fear among many Western populations be compared to life in the years preceding the Second World War and is it an overstatement to imagine that current events are a precursor to another global conflict?
-- RAY LONG, DUBLIN
I'm sceptical about such comparisons. There is a serious risk of global conflict, but for different reasons. We should take seriously the judgement of prominent strategic analysts that current policies, particularly Bush administration aggressive militrarism, significantly increase the threat of "ultimate doom".
这位读者的问题还是要赞一下的，确实不是每个人都能提得出来。
Since American foreign policy in the Middle East has throughout history been primarily interventionist, do you think the War in Iraq was inevitable, even if Bush had not stolen the 2000 election?
-- DAVID KEELAGHAN, MONAGHAN, IRELAND
Not at all. There was unprecedented criticism of the war plans within elite sectors, compelling Bush-Blair to resort to considerable deceit to manipulate their countries into war. That aside, the US has been no more interventionist than Britain or France, often less so, as in 1956.
已经快忘了克林顿时代美国是如何对待中东国家和阿以冲突的了。但是可以肯定的是那时候的西方没有面对像今天这样迫切的“反恐”需要。“War on Terror" 今天看来更像是一场把美国拖入泥潭，让阿富汗和伊拉克人民才离虎口又入狼窝的战争。
The anti-globalisation movement, which you have lent your support to, appears to have run out of steam. Is this a lost battle?
-- DANNY CAMPBELL, CARDIFF
The term "globalisation" is conventionally used to refer to the specific form of investor-rights integration designed by wealth and power, for their own interests. The "anti-globalisation movement" is the most significant proponent of globalisation -- but in the interests of people, not concentrations of state-private power. The people from all over the world and all walks of life who meet annually in Porto Alegre, Mumbai, etc, are far more representative of globalisation than those who gather at the same time in Davos. This global justice movement is expanding in significant ways. Among the many illustrations is the proliferation of regional and local social forums, with similar concerns but focusing on more specific problems. Other illustations are the exciting developments taking place in South America. And their are many others.
Chomsky 在这段回答里提供了对全球化和反全球化的一种新看法。他认为全球化应该是服从各种各样人的利益，而不是仅仅有利于国家或私人的利益。我想他理想中的全球化是一种平等、民主的全球化，体现在尊重少数派的价值。他在这里没有提到多样性的问题，但我想这种思想和多样性的要求是一致的。
After all the lies about the "war on terror", why has nobody in America started procedures to impeach George Bush?
-- MARICARMEN SANDOVAL DE PASMANS, SINT ODILIENBERG, THE NETHERLANDS
There are several efforts, but there is unlikely to be any outcome in the absence of a genuine opposition party.
啥也不说了，一语中的。
Why do you suppose it is so difficult for us Americans to create a real citizens' movement as a proper counterweight to the administration's power?
-- HONORABLE ANNA TAYLOR, US DISTRICT COURT
The question is much too important for a brief answer. The level of activism is high, probably higher than the 1960s. But it is diffuse and not well-integrated. An ideal form of social control is an atomised collection of individuals focused on their own narrow concern, lacking the kinds of organisations in which they can gain information, develop and articulate their thoughts, and act constructively to achieve common ends. By many familiar mechanisms, that ideal has been approached in dangerous but not irreversible ways.
这段论述非常有趣。我们一般认为民间自发组成的小团体，所谓 interest groups，是一种民众获得权力的表现，但 Chomsky 提出许多仅仅考虑自己利益的小团体实际上不能对政策产生什么影响力，因而对民间团体的分化实际上成了一种社会控制手段。所以，过度细分的利益团体面临失去影响力的危险。相比之下，秦晖提倡农村的传统认同，恢复家庭、宗族等传统群体的价值，是否也会给农民带来失语的危险呢？不过在农村没有传统认同而只有“全国一盘棋”的全局认同的时代，农民的利益也是不被政策所考虑的。所以，也许在共同价值认同的基础上，一个粒度适中的社会组织形式才最有利于各利益团体的思想表达和政策的公平。
没有评论:
发表评论