阿拉伯之春

The Arab spring阿拉伯之春Has it failed?這場革命失敗了嗎？Despite the chaos, the blood and the democratic setbacks, this is a long process. Do not give up hope民主是一場漫長的征程。縱然路上充滿了混亂、流血乃至倒退，也萬勿放棄希望。Jul 13th 2013 |From the print edition

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.阿拉伯世界爆發革命已經快兩年半了。但是，迄今為止，尚未有一個國家可以明確地說已經走上了正軌，已經建立起穩定與和平的民主制度。那些希望較大的國家仍在苦苦掙扎，如突尼西亞、利比亞和葉門；作為阿拉伯世界中人口最多的國家，埃及的民主實驗混亂不堪，民選總統已經淪為其階下囚；敘利亞內戰血流成河。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.有人由此得出結論認為，阿拉伯之春是一場註定要失敗的革命。這一點也不奇怪。在他們看來，中東之所以會有今天，是因為他們還沒有為變革做好準備。他們提出了以下兩個論點：一，中東地區沒有民主機構，因此民眾勢力要麼會陷入無政府狀態，要麼會驅使獨裁政權做出重新定位；二，作為該地區一隻具有凝合力的勢力，伊斯蘭主義無法做到同民主制度的融合。因此，要是阿拉伯之春壓根就沒有發生，中東的情況會比現在好很多。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.這種觀點，往好處說是欠考慮，往壞處說就是謬誤之論。向民主轉型是一個漫長的過程，其間經常充滿了暴力。雖說阿拉伯之春的最壞後果——這種後果最初出現在利比亞，現在在敘利亞——非常可怕。但是，正如我們在本期的專題報道中所指出的那樣，大多數阿拉伯人並不想讓時光倒流。Putting the cart before the camel革命應當循序漸進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.那些認為阿拉伯之春已經失敗了的人忽視了革命之前那段漫長的冬天，以及那個冬天對民眾生活所造成的影響。在1960年時，埃及與韓國尚不分上下，他們的人均預期壽命與人均GDP都基本相同。可如今，他們已經成了生活在不同世界的兩個國家。儘管生活在城市中的埃及人比過去多出很多，而且其四分之三的人口已經擺脫了文盲的狀態，但是這個國家的人均GDP只有韓國的五分之一。貧窮隨處可見，因營養不良而影響發育的現象比比皆是。穆斯林兄弟會的短命政府缺乏能力，他們沒能扭轉這種狀況，而埃及更深層次的問題卻因為他們之前強人政治而日漸惡化。不僅埃及如此，其他阿拉伯國家也好不到哪裡去。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.這是一個重要的觀點。因為，鑒於阿拉伯之春並不是一個同步的進程，許多人會認為，答案應該到現代化的獨裁統治中去尋找。比如說，奧古斯都·皮諾切特或者李光耀就是這方面的例子。他們都是那種既能讓社會秩序保持不變又能讓經濟實現增長的人物。但是，阿拉伯世界不同於東亞，阿拉伯世界沒有資格去吹噓自己。這是一塊缺乏智慧型領導人的地區。在這裡，沒有領導人願意隨著經濟的繁榮而自願去培育民主制度。相反，這個地區有的是獨裁者的兄弟和第一夫人的表兄，那些最好的商業都被他們所霸佔。獨裁者總是小心謹慎，他們不願激起民憤，他們一直在故意逃避改革，他們一直在迴避挑戰。例如，在埃及，僅能源補貼一項就吞噬了該國GDP的8%。當需要取消這項補貼時，政府卻始終行動遲緩。如今，即便是那些靠石油而致富的國家也在嘗試著用金錢來換取和平；但是，隨著受過教育的和被剝奪了公民權的年青一代嘗到了自由的滋味後，過去那套老辦法已經越來越行不通了，除非統治者，就像敘利亞那樣，準備用無數的鮮血來換取政權的延續。當然，阿拉伯世界中也有一些思想開明的君主，如摩洛哥、約旦和科威特的國王。他們正在摸索著前進，他們準備建立一套能夠讓批評者獲得更多發言權的憲政體系。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.對此，有人會這樣說：很好。但是，請不要忘記，阿拉伯不會有民主制度，這場革命只會讓伊斯蘭主義者成為統治者。同那些強人相比，他們的改革能力也大不到那裡去，而政治伊斯蘭也缺乏寬容心，這是一種從骨子裡透著反民主本質的政治。本月早些時候，當埃及軍方將來自穆斯林兄弟會的穆罕默德·穆爾西趕下台時，他們看似是順應了數百萬街頭抗議者的請求。而對於穆爾西來說，他雖然是一位民選的總統，但就是這位民選的總統在其短短的任期內，總是竭力想要摧毀那些民主的規範。如今，許多世俗的阿拉伯人和他們的西方朋友都一致認為，由於伊斯蘭主義者認為他們的權力來自上天，因此他們永遠也不會接受這樣一種觀點：一套體面的民主制度必須包括能夠起到制衡作用的機構，如獨立的法庭、自由的出版制度、分散的權力體系和一部能夠保護少數派的多元化憲法。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.然而，這種觀點也是錯誤的。阿拉伯世界之外的伊斯蘭主義者——如馬來西亞和印度尼西亞的伊斯蘭主義者——已經用自己的行動證明，他們能夠學會民主的習慣。另一個例子是土耳其。在這個國家中，儘管民眾已經起來抗議民選總理埃爾多安的專制獨裁，但這場抗議活動同巴西有著更多的相同之處，而不是同阿拉伯之春有著更多的相同之處。儘管土耳其仍存在著這樣和那樣的不足，但是如今的這個國家早已不再是軍方在幕後操縱的那個國家了，她是一個更加民主的國家。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.因此，阿拉伯的伊斯蘭主義者才是問題的關鍵。這並不令人感到驚訝。幾十年來，當局一直把他們當做是鎮壓的對象，他們只有依靠有組織的秘密活動才能生存下去，他們已經從中學到了很多經驗和教訓。在大多數阿拉伯國家中，他們的核心支持者是一個人數可觀的少數派。這是一股不容忽視的力量，必須要讓他們融入主流社會。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.埃及的政變之所以是一場悲劇，其原因正在於此。假如穆斯林兄弟會仍在執政，他們有可能會學會管理一個國家所必須的寬容和務實。相反，事實卻證實了他們對民主政治的懷疑。如今，這種情況又即將在突尼西亞上演。作為第一個擺脫獨裁枷鎖的阿拉伯國家，她應該能夠告訴世人，阿拉伯伊斯蘭主義者能夠像樣地管理一個國家。她可能就是這樣做的：這個國家即將通過一部能夠作為民主制度基礎的憲法。如果其他的阿拉伯國家也朝著這個方向努力，他們可能要花費數年的時間。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.這沒有什麼可大驚小怪的，因為政治變革本來就是一場漫長的博弈。在這場博弈中，後知後覺往往能讓歷史的混亂章節變得緩和起來。比如說，當我們現在再來回顧從共產主義到民主制度的轉變時，那似乎是一場輕而易舉的轉變。然而，如果我們在柏林牆倒塌三年後看那場轉變，當時的歐洲到處都是黑幫分子在作亂；在波蘭、斯洛伐克和波羅的海諸國，極端政客大行其道；在巴爾幹地區，戰爭一觸即發；在喬治亞，各方激戰正酣。即使到現在為止，那些前蘇聯地區的大多數民眾仍舊生活在集權政權之下。然而，即便如此也沒有幾個人想回到以前。Don"t hold back the tide請勿逆流而動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.在世人的眼中，阿拉伯之春更像是一場覺醒。相比之下，真正的革命並不是過多地發生在街頭，真正的革命更多地是發生在人們的思想中。互聯網、社交媒體、衛星電視以及對受教育的渴望不可能與僵死的老式獨裁統治共生共存。民主即不僅僅是選舉的問題，也不是帶領數百萬抗議者走上街頭的能力。通向民主的道路註定曲折不平，甚至血腥暴力。這是一場可能需要數十年才能走完的征程。但即便如此，它仍然是一場受歡迎的征程。
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