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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Obituary;Gus Dur;
讣告;古斯·杜尔;
Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), intellectual and president of Indonesia, died on December 30th, aged1 69;
阿卜都拉赫曼·瓦希德(古斯·杜尔),印度尼西亚的总统和知识分子,卒于12月30日,享年69岁;
Whatever the time or place, Abdurrahman Wahid—Gus Dur, as everyone fondly called him—had a joke to tell. About his predecessors2 as Indonesia's president: “Sukarno was mad about sex, Suharto was mad about money, Habibie was mad about technology, but me? I'm just mad!” About his removal from the presidency3 in 2001, when he was almost blind: “I need help to step up, let alone step down.” About losing power: “It's nothing. I regret more that I lost 27 recordings4 of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.”
无论何时何地,阿卜都拉赫曼·瓦希德——人们都亲切的叫他古斯·杜尔——有着开不尽的玩笑。 说起他的前任总统,他开玩笑说:“苏加诺为色疯狂,苏哈托为钱疯狂,哈比比为高科技疯狂,而我呢?就是个纯疯子。”说起2001年遭罢免(当时几近失明),他开玩笑说:“我上台尚需别人帮忙,更别说下台了。”说起丢掉权力,他开玩笑说:“没什么。更令我遗憾的是,27张贝多芬第九交响乐的唱片让我给弄丢了。”
Visiting Tokyo, he was delighted when the prime minister congratulated him on his “erection”. For a Muslim ulama, or priest-scholar, his appetite for smut was remarkable5. He had naughty jokes on his website, and was once reported to the police by conservative clerics for emphasising the raunchier bits of the Koran.
访问东京时,他受用于首相对他“勃起”的祝贺。作为一个穆斯林的乌力马(译者注:乌力马——穆斯林的学者或宗教、法律的权威)或神职学者,他对淫词秽语的爱好令人惊奇。在他的个人网站上载有黄色笑话,他还曾由于强调古兰经的淫秽片段被保守僧侣告到警察局。
Joking was essential, he said, for a healthy mind. Villagers in Jombang in East Java remembered him, as a boy, tied to the flagpole in the front yard for some jest that had gone too far. Visitors to the house would find their shoelaces surreptitiously knotted together. Later on, it was sometimes hard to tell whether he was larking6 round or serious: as a narcoleptic, he would often lull7 journalists into a snooze and then snap to, razor-sharp, with the answer to their questions. Joking got him through the rigours of pesantren, rural Muslim boarding school, and certainly through the turmoil8 of his 21 months as president from 1999 to 2001. At the end, when his aides tried to restrain him, “It has affected9 me,” he complained. “Starting tomorrow, I will start telling jokes again.”
他说,对于一个健全的头脑,戏谑不可或缺。东爪哇省班宗县的村民们记得他,那个因为恶搞过火而被系在前院旗杆子上的小男孩。来访的客人会发现鞋带被偷偷地绑在了一起。到了后来,有时很难区分他是随便玩玩还是认真的:他经常像一个嗜眠患者那样把记者也搞得昏昏欲睡,然后又突然清醒犀利地回答他们的问题。玩笑伴他度过了严苛的经学院,乡村的穆斯林寄宿学校,当然还有从1999年到2001年他作为总统的为期21个月的骚乱。最后,当他的侍从试图限制他时,“这对我有影响,”他抱怨道。“从明天起,我又会开始讲笑话了。”
The drunken master
醉翁之意
His eccentricity10 could be infuriating. But it usually hid a serious purpose. In sprawling11 Indonesia, the world's most populous12 Muslim country, cramped13 under authoritarian14 rule for most of its existence, Mr Wahid was committed to pluralism, liberalism, democracy and tolerance15. He promoted these principles in his columns in Prisma, Tempo16 and Kompas. More remarkably17, he believed that they were also fundamental to his religion. “All too many Muslims”, he wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 2005, “fail to grasp Islam.” “Right Islam” was not fanatical. It was tolerant, open and fair.
他古怪的行为可能会让人发怒。但那些则往往隐藏着严肃的目的。在纷繁复杂的印度尼西亚,这个世界上人口最多的穆斯林国家,这个长久以来饱受独裁统治的压迫的国家,瓦希德致力于倡导多元化,自由主义,民主和包容。他在《Prisma》和《Tempo》杂志以及《 Kompas》报的专栏中宣讲这些原则主张。更令人惊奇的是,他相信这些也是他宗教信仰的基础。“太多的穆斯林”,2005年他在《华尔街时报》中写道“没有掌握伊斯兰教的真义。”“真正的伊斯兰教”不是极端狂热的。而是包容的,开放的,和公正的。
To some of his co-religionists, he went too far. But Mr Wahid had imbibed18 the gentle, Hindu-flavoured Islam of Java and the café-table cut-and-thrust of Baghdad's student circles, as well as the doctrinaire19 rote-learning of al-Azhar University in Cairo, and had plumped for free expression every time. He had also been brought up in a house that was both devout20 and cosmopolitan21: encouraged to read European magazines, to devour22 Dickens and Dostoyevsky, to listen to Mozart and Janis Joplin, as well as to get involved in Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the world's largest Muslim organisation23, heavily rural and steeped in animist Javanese tradition, which his grandfather had founded and his father had run.
对于一些和他信奉同一宗教的人来说,他太离谱了。但是温和的印度风格的爪哇伊斯兰教,巴格达学生圈子中咖啡桌旁的唇枪舌战,以及开罗爱资哈尔大学教条主义的死记硬背都使瓦希德饱受熏陶,他每次都支持言论自由。他成长于一个既虔诚又开放的家庭:鼓励阅读欧洲杂志,大量阅读狄更斯和陀思妥耶夫斯基作品,听莫扎特和詹尼斯·乔普林,同时也鼓励加入伊斯兰教士联合会,该组织是世界上最大的穆斯林组织,具有浓重的乡土色彩并深植于爪哇万物有灵论的传统,该组织由他的祖父组织创建,他的父亲运营。
In time the NU, with its 40m members, became his own power base. He reformed it, as well as removing it, in 1984, from party politics, in order to focus its energies on raising the pesantren to the level of secular24 schools. Though a deep believer in mysticism and the spirit world, secularism25 never offended him. Selamat pagi, “Good morning”, did as well for him as the believer's assalamu alaykum; both, as he pointed26 out, meant “Peace be to you”. He accepted the constitution's doctrine27 of pancasila—national unity28 and social justice with freedom of religion—as a useful creed29 for fissiparous Indonesia. More surprisingly, he kept on cordial terms with Suharto, despite pushing against the strongman both as the hugely popular head of the NU and, from 1998, as leader of his own non-sectarian National Awakening30 party.
经过一段时间,有着4000万成员的伊斯兰教士联合会成了他的权力基础。他改革了伊斯兰教士联合会,同时也于1984年从政党政治中移出了该组织,为了使其更好地专注于将经学院提升为普通学校。尽管他是神秘主义和精神世界的忠实信徒,却从未觉得世俗主义有何不妥。四拉玛巴基的“早晨好”对他来说同信徒的穆斯林的“早安”一样,如他指出的这两者都寓意着“带给你平和”。他接受宪法关于“潘查拉希(五戒)”的条文——民族团结,社会公正和宗教自由——这对于四分五裂的印尼是一个有用的纲领。无论是担任德高望重的伊斯兰教士联合会主席,还是自1998年以来,领导其自创的非宗教性质的民族复兴党,他与铁腕人物苏哈托针锋相对,尽管如此,他与苏哈托的关系却一贯保持融洽,这更加让人出乎意料。
In 1999, in Indonesia's first (indirect) presidential election, Mr Wahid comprehensively outmanoeuvred Megawati Sukarnoputri, who had in fact done better than he had at the polls. Though hobbled by strokes and blindness, he now grinned from ear to ear at the prospect31 of power. In short order, he invited outlawed32 dissidents and communists to see him at the palace; removed the ban against Chinese culture and language; talked to, and tried to make peace with, Aceh and West Papua, as part of a devolution of power away from “corrupt” Jakarta; dismantled33 Suharto's press-curbing Ministry34 of Information, and the extortionist Ministry of Welfare; sacked General Wiranto, who had overseen35 atrocities36 in East Timor, and apologised to the East Timorese. He did not manage to control the army or set up diplomatic relations with Israel, but made it clear he wanted to.
在1999年印尼第一次总统大选中,瓦希德挫败了梅加瓦蒂,虽然在选票上后者略胜一筹。尽管拖着中风和失明之躯,对于即将获得的权利他还是咧着嘴笑了。在很短的时间内,他就在总统府内召见了那些被宣告非法的异见人士和共产党人,取消了中国文化和语言的禁令;与游离于“腐败的”雅加达统治的亚齐省和西巴布亚对话并试图与他们和平相处,分解了苏哈托封锁言论的信息部和巧取豪夺的社会福利部;免除了曾在东帝汶施下暴行维兰托将军的职务,并向东帝汶人民道歉。他并没有设法控制军队或者或与以色列建交,但是他表明了他想要的态度。
The result was chaos37. Mr Wahid, out of his depth and surrounded by enemies, soon lost control, and parliament removed him. But he had at least set standards for government accountability and openness in Indonesia, which helped democracy to grow. Even more valuably, he had shown the world a thoughtful, tolerant form of Islam. He saw himself as many characters: as Semar, the wise demigod-turned-jester of Javanese shadow-theatre, and as the “drunken master” of kung-fu films, expertly waddling38 in, in his cheap batik shirts, to bang heads together. But he was also the laughing Sufi of Islam's mystical tradition, mad—or wise—before the undiscriminating inclusiveness of God.
结果却是一团糟,瓦希德想做的超出了他的能力并置身于四面楚歌的境地,很快一切都失控了,国会罢免了他。但他至少为印尼政府的责任感和开放性树立了一个标杆,这有助于民主的发展。更难能可贵的是,他向世界展示了一种具有思想性和包容性的穆斯林形象。他视自己为多种角色:一个西玛——爪哇皮影戏中半人半神的小丑,一个功夫电影中的醉仙,穿着便宜的蜡染衬衫,迈着潇洒的醉步,处处逼人就范。但他也是伊斯兰神秘传统中那个笑着的苏菲,在不偏不袒的神的包容面前,疯狂——或睿智。
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1 aged | |
adj.年老的,陈年的 | |
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3 presidency | |
n.总统(校长,总经理)的职位(任期) | |
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4 recordings | |
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5 remarkable | |
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6 larking | |
v.百灵科鸟(尤指云雀)( lark的现在分词 );一大早就起床;鸡鸣即起;(因太费力而不想干时说)算了 | |
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10 eccentricity | |
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11 sprawling | |
adj.蔓生的,不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 );蔓延;杂乱无序地拓展;四肢伸展坐着(或躺着) | |
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14 authoritarian | |
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15 tolerance | |
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16 tempo | |
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17 remarkably | |
ad.不同寻常地,相当地 | |
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18 imbibed | |
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19 doctrinaire | |
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20 devout | |
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21 cosmopolitan | |
adj.世界性的,全世界的,四海为家的,全球的 | |
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22 devour | |
v.吞没;贪婪地注视或谛听,贪读;使着迷 | |
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23 organisation | |
n.组织,安排,团体,有机休 | |
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24 secular | |
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25 secularism | |
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26 pointed | |
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27 doctrine | |
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29 creed | |
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30 awakening | |
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31 prospect | |
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32 outlawed | |
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33 dismantled | |
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34 ministry | |
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35 overseen | |
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36 atrocities | |
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37 chaos | |
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38 waddling | |
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