2014年1月20日 星期一

关于唯色、王力雄著作英文译本《Voices from Tibet》的两篇书评

书评一(发表于图伯特政治评论网站):

活在枪口之下
——评唯色、王力雄合著之《来自图伯特的声音》

作者:布琼·D·索朗(Bhuchung D. Sonam,图伯特政治评论编委会成员)
译者:更桑东智(@johnlee1021)
发表时间:2013年12月28日
原文网址:图伯特政治评论
原文标题:Living at Gunpoint: A review of Woeser and Wang's "Voices from Tibet"

Translated from Chinese by Violet S. Law
Published by Hong Kong University Press & University of Hawai’i Press
 《来自图伯特的声音:唯色、王力雄随笔、报道选》(Voices from Tibet: Selected Essays and Reportage by Tsering Woeser and Wang Lixiong)由维奥莱特·S·劳(Violet S. Law)译自中文,并由香港大学出版社和夏威夷大学出版社联合出版。


在过去近万年的时间里,图伯特的牧民们在高原脆弱的环境中得心应手地安排着自己的生活。他们适可而止地饲养着牲畜,从而得到足够的给养以维系他们流动不居的生活方式。这种人与自然之间的共存关系对双方都不偏不倚。

这样的日子一直持续到红旗开始飘扬在图伯特高原蓝天的那天。

2009年标志着中国占领图伯特半个世纪。就在这一年,根据维基解密(Wikileaks)透露的电文,达赖喇嘛对美国驻印度大使说,国际社会在未来五到十年应该关注图伯特严峻的环境状况;据报道,这位图伯特领袖说,环境问题比政治问题更加迫切。达赖喇嘛说,“冰川融化、森林滥伐和因矿山开采而日益严重的水污染等等,都是刻不容缓的问题。”

尽管有这位图伯特诺贝尔和平奖得主的大声疾呼,但实际上收效甚微。事实上,图伯特高原上的矿山开采规模已经成倍增长,同时从2008年起,中国实际上禁止了国际媒体进入图伯特。科罗拉多大学(University of Colorado)的卡罗尔?麦克格雷娜罕(Carole McGranahan)说,当今对于外国记者而言,去北韩都要比去图伯特更容易。这位教授也是《被拘禁的历史:图伯特、CIA与一场被遗忘的战争》(Arrested Histories: Tibet, the CIA, and Memories of a Forgotten War)一书的作者。

在如此令人忧心忡忡的时刻,住在北京的图伯特作家和博客作者唯色——以及她的汉人丈夫王力雄——所发出的声音,在构建中国统治下的图伯特与自由世界之间至关重要的沟通纽带方面,起着不可或缺的作用。

《来自图伯特的声音:唯色、王力雄随笔、报道选》由香港大学出版社和夏威夷大学出版社联合出版发行。这本书正如雪中送炭。两位作者表达他们有关图伯特问题不同意见的勇气,与他们对范围广泛的关注点的真实报道相得益彰。他们关注的范围涵盖了对拉萨历史建筑的拆除、牧民的强制转移安置、矿山开采、自焚,以及从中国涌向图伯特的移民潮——他们当中有很多人粗暴无耻地利用图伯特的文化和宗教大发横财。


唯色、王力雄,摄于拉萨大昭寺

书中的40篇文章按照主题分为五个部分——被政治化的拉萨老城、有中国特色的经济帝国主义、四面合围中的宗教、破碎的自然、被扭曲和践踏的文化——从而向读者呈现出,在极权主义统治的体制下图伯特日常遭遇的一幅幅清晰画面。唯色和王力雄形容这种体制是“建立在一种刚性结构和残酷逻辑基础之上的。”

这本书最为与众不同的引人之处在于这对夫妇写作内容的正当合理。这两位作者不是纸上谈兵的评论家。他们曾经冒着生命危险前往图伯特高原的很多地方,去受北京的政策指令影响最烈的地方搜集有关人和事的记录。

丹增德勒(Tenzin Delek)仁波切于2002年12月因所谓“非法拥有爆炸物”的罪名被判处死刑缓期两年执行。之后不久,唯色深入康区甘孜前往仁波切的家乡,去调查中国当局所宣称的在仁波切家中的“密室”发现隐藏的“炸弹”等所谓事实。唯色发现,为了建筑新居,仁波切和那个地区很多其他建房子的人一样,用炸药来平整出狭窄山谷里的一块平地。一些没用完的炸药雷管被储存在“板墙和山的凸凹之间留下的空间”。这些就是警察发现的东西,并导致仁波切被判处死刑,后改为终身监禁。

这一年,丹增德勒仁波切从他被关押的中国监狱传出话说,“有些人说如果再提起我的案子,会让我的处境更糟糕。就此而言,我已经坠入谷底。事情也不可能更糟了。所以,你们可以为我上诉和发起声援活动。”

唯色和王力雄还写到有关一些驻扎在“冒牌喇嘛”和“朱古”,通过信口开河的算命和举行假冒的供养仪式,对那些毫无疑心的游客漫天要价。如果游客没有足够的现金,他们还会说,“没关系,我们这里可以刷卡。”干这些勾当的人是一些来自旅游公司的会说藏语的汉人,他们同当地的宗教局勾结,颁发给他们许可证,从而可以在一些重要的寺院设立据点、开张营业。

对于流亡博巴和国际社会而言,唯色和王力雄的文章或许是有关图伯特最为可靠的信息来源,他们的作品还能不断地通过很多渠道流传出来,诸如书籍、博客、新闻采访和社交媒体。而很多其他一些明确表达民族诉求的图伯特作家,比如铁让(Theurang)、卓玛嘉(Dolma Kyab)和贡却才培(Kunchok Tsephel),都因他们的写作而以不同的刑期被囚禁在中国的监狱里,有些人的刑期长达15年。

尽管唯色和王力雄每天都要面对威胁、骚扰、软禁和跟踪,但他们迄今还能免于身陷囹圄。他们面临的危险是何其真切,正如他们的朋友和诺贝尔和平奖获得者刘晓波因起草《08宪章》而被判处入狱11年,他们(监狱外)的日子也或许朝不保夕。

但是此时此刻,面对中共统治下的当今图伯特和中国,他们还必须承担见证者和记录者的责任。唯色写道,“这是无权者的武器。这武器由文字构成,其资源来自西藏的宗教、传统和文化,”而且“面对今日西藏被毁损的处境、以身浴火的一百多位族人的愿望,所有这些既是抵抗压迫的力量,也是我不放弃、不妥协的理由。”

中共早就应该聆听这对勇敢的夫妇发出的声音,并且认识到他们清晰无误的声音承载了高原上每个人的心愿——这些人的声音被扼杀,他们对自由的渴望遭到子弹和装甲车打压。

对于任何同时对图伯特与中国的关系,以及世界其他地方争取自由的斗争感到有兴趣的读者而言,《来自图伯特的声音》是一本深刻敏锐,需要先睹为快的作品。如果说还有一些关于压迫的记录可以突破国家操纵的集体失忆,此书就是这样的作品。

书评二(发表于财新网英文版):

作者:Kerry Brown
发表时间:2014年1月17日
原文网址:http://english.caixin.com/2014-01-17/100630656.html

Voices from Tibet: Selected Essays and Reportage


Since 2011, over 100 Tibetans have self-immolated. This act of political despair has highlighted the sense felt by many Tibetans living in the autonomous region and elsewhere in China that their cultural identity is under profound threat. The root of this is a vision of modernity adopted by the central government in Beijing which regards many of the religious practices and beliefs of a large number of ethnic Tibetans as backward and retrogressive. The narrative of Tibetan history before 1949 is presented in orthodox People's Republic historiography as one of feudal exploitation at the hands of lamas, with the annexation of 1959 as a moment of liberation.

Writing about Tibet is challenging because of the entrenched positions of many of the key stakeholders, the highly politicized nature of the region's status and international perceptions of it, and the battle between Beijing and various sections of the global community and individuals sympathetic to the plight of specific groups in Tibet over how to view the region.

The presentation of Tibet as an issue best seen in stark black and white moral terms derivedfrom these two main contesting perspectives has long since been one of the main impediments to understanding what is really happening there and how best to interpret it. One antidote is to try to listen as hard as possible to the voices of those most directly affected by this long standing problem: the people of Tibet themselves.

Tsering Woeser must rank as one of the most globally respected and best known of such voices. She has spoken with great bravery and lucidity about issues concerning Tibet, and despite being based in Beijing, has managed to visit the region many times. She has also, remarkably, avoided some of the more heavy-handed interventions of the state security apparatus which has been so efficiently harsh on others who have attempted to speak out. Nor does she mince her words.

This slender volume (it has fewer than 100 pages) has articles on Tibet's history of colonization, the changing nature of Lhasa as it has been transformed from a religious centre to one largely geared up to accommodating large numbers of visiting tourists, and its relations with Beijing. She and her co-author, husband Wang Lixiong, also deal with the highly contentious issue of the choice of the Panchen Lama in 1995 when Beijing and the Dalai Lama chose different candidates. The detention by Beijing of the Dalai Lama's choice, a boy barely six at the time, meant that the unenviable record for the country with the world's youngest political prisoner went for many years to China.

This collection is furnished with a lengthy introduction by the ever excellent Robbie Barnett, a U.S.-based academic who has been one of the most even-handed commentators and scholars of Tibet for many years, and who sets Wang and Woeser's essays in context. Both come from unique backgrounds: Wang is a long-term intellectual and activist who has had many tough scrapes with the authorities over the last three decades, and who remains one of the few non-Tibetan voices in China willing to engage with issues raised by the contentious status of the region in ways which stray from the usual rigid rhetoric used by many who speak it. Woeser was born in Lhasa during the Cultural Revolution, to parents who were of mixed Han and Tibetan ethnicity (her paternal grandfather was Han Chinese). That her father worked in the People's Liberation Army gives her work an extra angle—it is from someone who would well have joined to cozy elites from the Tibetan region who have accommodated to the status quo there, and never chosen to speak about the great challenges the region faces. Brought up in Sichuan, she moved to Beijing to study and has been based there ever since.

The essays in this collection, ably translated by Violet Law, are mostly from Internet articles. They are polemical in style, and highly accessible.

One issue they do raise sharply is the dearth of fresh ideas and new thinking about Tibet and its unique cultural, environmental and geopolitical issues, by political leaders in Beijing. It is clear that the current system of governance with its heavy reliance on security and diktat is unsustainable. But nor is there any viable solution from Tibetans themselves waiting in the wings. The Dalai Lama has proposed a middle-way policy, where autonomy is increased but sovereignty rejected.
But the issues of how to politically mediate power between a vast region which is currently a net burden on Chinese central fiscal funds, and an area where there are many specificities in terms of environment, governance and culture which a centralized administrative template can't address is far less easy to solve than many of Beijing's critics would like to admit.

This book helps a little in uncovering the nuances and complexities of Tibet in the 21st century, by three of the people—Barnett, Wang and Woeser—best-qualified to do this.

Kerry Brown is Director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, Professor of Chinese Politics, and Team Leader of the Europe China Research and Advice Network. His most recent book is Hu Jintao: China's Silent Ruler. For more writings see www.kerry-brown.co.uk.

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