阿拉伯之春失败了吗?

阿拉伯之春失败了吗?
阿拉伯之春失败了吗?

阿拉伯之春失败了吗?
但是,迄今为止,尚未有一个国家可以坦率地说已经走上了正轨,尚未有一个国家已经建立起稳定与和平的民主制度.那些希望较大的国家仍在苦苦挣扎,如突尼斯、利比亚和也门；作为阿拉伯世界中人口最多的国家,埃及的民主实验混乱不堪,民选总统已经沦为其阶下囚；叙利亚内战血流成河.The Arab spring\x0d这场革命失败了吗?Despite the chaos, the blood and the democratic setbacks, this is a long process. Do not give up hope\x0d民主是一场漫长的征程.尽管道路上充满了混乱、流血甚至倒退,但不要放弃希望. ROUGHLY two-and-a-half years after the revolutions in the Arab world, not a single country is yet plainly on course to become a stable, peaceful democracy. The countries that were more hopeful—Tunisia, Libya and Yemen—have been struggling. A chaotic experiment with democracy in Egypt, the most populous of them, has landed an elected president behind bars. Syria is awash with the blood of civil war.\x0d阿拉伯世界爆发革命已经快两年半了.但是,迄今为止,尚未有一个国家可以坦率地说已经走上了正轨,尚未有一个国家已经建立起稳定与和平的民主制度.那些希望较大的国家仍在苦苦挣扎,如突尼斯、利比亚和也门；作为阿拉伯世界中人口最多的国家,埃及的民主实验混乱不堪,民选总统已经沦为其阶下囚；叙利亚内战血流成河.No wonder some have come to think the Arab spring is doomed. The Middle East, they argue, is not ready to change. One reason is that it does not have democratic institutions, so people power will decay into anarchy or provoke the reimposition of dictatorship. The other is that the region's one cohesive force is Islam, which—it is argued—cannot accommodate democracy. The Middle East, they conclude, would be better off if the Arab spring had never happened at all.\x0d有人由此得出结论认为,阿拉伯之春是一场注定要失败的革命.这一点也不奇怪.在他们看来,中东之所以会有今天,是因为他们还没有为变革做好准备.他们提出了以下两个论点：一,中东地区没有民主机构,因此民众势力要么会陷入无政府状态,要么会驱使独裁政权做出调整；二,作为该地区一只具有凝合力的势力,伊斯兰主义无法做到同民主制度的融合.因此,要是阿拉伯之春压根就没有发生,中东的情况会比现在强百倍都不止.That view is at best premature, at worst wrong. Democratic transitions are often violent and lengthy. The worst consequences of the Arab spring—in Libya initially, in Syria now—are dreadful. Yet as our special report argues, most Arabs do not want to turn the clock back.\x0d这种观点,往好处说是欠考虑,往坏处说就是误人子弟.向民主转型是一个漫长的过程,其间经常充满了暴力.虽说阿拉伯之春的最坏后果——这种后果最初出现在利比亚,现在在叙利亚——非常可怕.但是,正如我们在本期的专题报道中所指出的那样,大多数阿拉伯人并不想让时光倒转,他们不想回到过去.Putting the cart before the camel\x0d本末倒置Those who say that the Arab spring has failed ignore the long winter before, and its impact on people's lives. In 1960 Egypt and South Korea shared similar life-expectancy and GDP per head. Today they inhabit different worlds. Although many more Egyptians now live in cities and three-quarters of the population is literate, GDP per head is only a fifth of South Korea's. Poverty and stunting from malnutrition are far too common. The Muslim Brotherhood's brief and incompetent government did nothing to reverse this, but Egypt's deeper problems were aggravated by the strongmen who preceded them. And many other Arab countries fared no better.\x0d那些认为阿拉伯之春已经失败了的人忽视了革命之前那段漫长的冬天,以及那个冬天对民众生活所造成的影响.在1960年时,埃及与韩国尚不分上下,他们的人均预期寿命与人均GDP都基本相同.可如今,他们已经成了生活在不同世界的两个国家.尽管生活在城市中的埃及人比过去多出很多,而且其四分之三的人口已经摆脱了文盲的状态,但是这个国家的人均GDP只有韩国的五分之一.贫穷随处可见,因营养不良而影响发育的现象比比皆是.穆斯林兄弟会的短命政府缺乏能力,他们没能扭转这种状况,而埃及更深层次的问题却因为他们之前强人政治而日渐恶化.不仅埃及如此,其他阿拉伯国家也好不到哪里去.This matters, because, given the Arab spring's uneven progress, many say the answer is authoritarian modernisation: an Augusto Pinochet, Lee Kuan Yew or Deng Xiaoping to keep order and make the economy grow. Unlike South-East Asians, the Arabs can boast no philosopher-king who has willingly nurtured democracy as his economy has flourished. Instead, the dictator's brothers and the first lady's cousins get all the best businesses. And the despots—always wary of stirring up the masses—have tended to duck the big challenges of reform, such as gradually removing the energy subsidies that in Egypt alone swallow 8% of GDP. Even now the oil-rich monarchies are trying to buy peace; but as an educated and disenfranchised youth sniffs freedom, the old way of doing things looks ever more impossible, unless, as in Syria, the ruler is prepared to shed vast amounts of blood to stay in charge. Some of the more go-ahead Arab monarchies, for example in Morocco, Jordan and Kuwait, are groping towards constitutional systems that give their subjects a bigger say.\x0d鉴于阿拉伯之春并不是一个同步的进程,因此许多人会认为,答案应该到现代化的独裁统治中去寻找.奥古斯都·皮诺切特或者李光耀就是这方面的例子.他们都是那种既能让社会秩序保持不变又能让经济实现增长的人物.但是,阿拉伯世界不同于东亚,阿拉伯世界没有资格去吹嘘自己.这是一块缺乏智慧型领导人的地区.在这里,没有领导人愿意随着经济的繁荣而自愿去培育民主制度.相反,这个地区有的是独裁者的兄弟和第一夫人的表兄,那些最好的商业都被他们所霸占.独裁者总是小心谨慎,他们不愿激起民愤,他们一直在故意逃避改革,他们一直在回避挑战.例如,在埃及,仅能源补贴一项就吞噬了该国GDP的8%.当需要取消这项补贴时,政府却始终行动迟缓.如今,即便是那些靠石油而致富的国家也在尝试着用金钱来换取和平；但是,随着受过教育的和被剥夺了公民权的年青一代尝到了自由的滋味后,过去那套老办法已经越来越行不通了.除非统治者直面变革,不然的话,他们就得要像叙利亚的统治者那样做好准备,准备用无数的鲜血来换取政权的延续.当然,阿拉伯世界中也有一些思想开明的君主,如摩洛哥、约旦和科威特的国王.他们正在摸索着前进,他们准备建立一套能够让批评者获得更多发言权的宪政体系.Fine, some will reply, but Arab democracy merely leads to rule by the Islamists, who are no more capable of reform than the strongmen, and thanks to the intolerance of political Islam, deeply undemocratic. Muhammad Morsi, the Muslim Brother evicted earlier this month by the generals at the apparent behest of many millions of Egyptians in the street, was democratically elected, yet did his best to flout the norms of democracy during his short stint as president. Many secular Arabs and their friends in the West now argue that because Islamists tend to regard their rule as God-given, they will never accept that a proper democracy must include checks, including independent courts, a free press, devolved powers and a pluralistic constitution to protect minorities.\x0d对此,有人会这样说：很好.但是,请不要忘记,阿拉伯不会有民主制度,这场革命只会让伊斯兰主义者成为统治者.同那些强人相比,他们的改革能力也大不到那里去,而政治伊斯兰也缺乏宽容心,这是一种从骨子里透着反民主本质的政治.本月早些时候,当埃及军方将来自穆斯林兄弟会的穆罕默德·穆尔西赶下台时,他们看似是顺应了数百万街头抗议者的请求.而对于穆尔西来说,他虽然是一位民选的总统,但就是这位民选的总统在其短短的任期内,总是竭力想要摧毁那些民主的规范.如今,许多世俗的阿拉伯人和他们的西方朋友都一致认为,由于伊斯兰主义者认为他们的权力来自上天,因此他们永远也不会接受这样一种观点：一套体面的民主制度必须包括能够起到制衡作用的机构,如独立的法庭、自由的出版制度、分散的权力体系和一部能够保护少数派的多元化宪法.This too, though, is wrong. Outside the Arab world, Islamists—in Malaysia and Indonesia, say—have shown that they can learn the habit of democracy. In Turkey too, the protests against the autocratic but elected prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have more in common with Brazil than the Arab spring. Turkey, for all its faults, is more democratic today than it was when the army lurked in the background.\x0d然而,这种观点也是错误的.阿拉伯世界之外的伊斯兰主义者——如马来西亚和印度尼西亚的伊斯兰主义者——已经用自己的行动证明,他们能够学会民主的习惯.另一个例子是土耳其.在这个国家中,尽管民众已经起来抗议专制独裁,但是民选总理埃尔多安的命运同巴西有着更多的相同之处,而不是同阿拉伯之春有着更多的相同之处.尽管土耳其仍存在着这样和那样的不足,但是如今的这个国家早已不再是军方在幕后操纵的那个国家了,她是一个更加民主的国家.The problem, then, is with Arab Islamists. That is hardly surprising. They have been schooled by decades of repression, which their movements survived only by being conspiratorial and organised. Their core supporters are a sizeable minority in most Arab countries. They cannot be ignored, and must instead be absorbed into the mainstream.\x0d因此,阿拉伯的伊斯兰主义者才是问题的关键.这并不令人感到惊讶.几十年来,当局一直把他们当做是镇压的对象,他们只有依靠有组织的秘密活动才能生存下去,他们已经从中学到了很多经验和教训.在大多数阿拉伯国家中,他们的核心支持者是一个人数可观的少数派.这是一股不容忽视的力量,必须要让他们融入主流社会.That is why Egypt's coup is so tragic. Had the Muslim Brotherhood remained in power, they might have learned the tolerance and pragmatism needed for running a country. Instead, their suspicions about democratic politics have been confirmed. Now it is up to Tunisia, the first of the Arab countries to throw off the yoke of autocracy, to show that Arab Islamists can run countries decently. It might just do that: it is on its way to getting a constitution that could serve as the basis of a decent, inclusive democracy. If the rest of the Arab world moves in that direction, it will take many years to do so.\x0d埃及的政变之所以是一场悲剧,其原因正在于此.假如穆斯林兄弟会仍在执政,他们有可能会学会管理一个国家所必须的宽容和务实.相反,事实却证实了他们对民主政治的怀疑.如今,这种情况又即将在突尼斯上演.作为第一个摆脱独裁枷锁的阿拉伯国家,她应该能够告诉世人,阿拉伯伊斯兰主义者能够像样地管理一个国家.她可能就是这样做的：这个国家即将通过一部能够作为民主制度基础的宪法.如果其他的阿拉伯国家也朝着这个方向努力,他们可能要花费数年的时间.That would not be surprising, for political change is a long game. Hindsight tends to smooth over the messy bits of history. The transition from communism, for instance, looks easy in retrospect. Yet three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Europe was overrun by criminal mafias; extremist politicians were prominent in Poland, Slovakia and the Baltics; the Balkans were about to degenerate into war and there was fighting in Georgia. Even now, most people in the old Soviet bloc live under repressive regimes—yet few want to go back.\x0d这没有什么可大惊小怪的,因为政治变革本来就是一场漫长的博弈.在这场博弈中,后知后觉往往能让历史的混乱章节变得缓和起来.比如说,当我们现在再来回顾从共产主义到民主制度的转变时,那似乎是一场轻而易举的转变.然而,如果我们在柏林墙倒塌三年后看那场转变,当时的欧洲到处都是黑帮分子在作乱；在波兰、斯洛伐克和波罗的海诸国,极端政客大行其道；在巴尔干地区,战争一触即发；在格鲁吉亚,各方激战正酣.即使到现在为止,那些前苏联地区的大多数民众仍旧生活在集权政权之下.然而,即便如此也没有几个人想回到以前.Don't hold back the tide\x0d请勿逆流而动The Arab spring was always better described as an awakening: the real revolution is not so much in the street as in the mind. The internet, social media, satellite television and the thirst for education—among Arab women as much as men—cannot co-exist with the deadening dictatorships of old. Egyptians, among others, are learning that democracy is neither just a question of elections nor the ability to bring millions of protesters onto the street. Getting there was always bound to be messy, even bloody. The journey may take decades. But it is still welcome.\x0d在世人的眼中,阿拉伯之春更像是一场觉醒.相比之下,真正的革命并不是过多地发生在街头,真正的革命更多地是发生在人们的思想中.互联网、社交媒体、卫星电视以及对受教育的渴望不可能与僵死的老式独裁统治共生共存.民主即不仅仅是选举的问题,也不是带领数百万抗议者走上街头的能力.通向民主的道路注定曲折不平,甚至血腥暴力.这是一场可能需要数十年才能走完的征程.但即便如此,它仍然是一场受欢迎的征程.