2011年2月14日星期一

《纽约时报》纪思道:埃及教会美国什么


三妹摘译
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF /Op-Ed Columnist
Published: February 12, 2011

实际上美国一直在幕后,不仅仅是埃及和突尼斯事件的那几个星期在幕后,而是一直在中东的幕后几个世纪了:美国支持腐败的专制政权,只要他们保证石油湍流,并且不对以色列太过分。
我知道,外交行使起来比看起来难一千倍,但我仍想从美国的错误中汲取四个教训作为建议:
一,不要把伊斯兰原教旨主义当成妖魔,并以这种心态去驱动美国外交。美国对伊斯兰主义的偏执所造成的伤害比伊斯兰主义本身造成的伤害要大。在这次埃及革命中,美国对伊斯兰主义的不详感觉令美国瘫痪而站在了历史错误的一边。

我们美国给自己系了个死扣,似乎民主只适于美国和以色列,而不适于阿拉伯世界。我们把阿拉伯世界只当成油田,这已经太久太久。

二,我们美国需要更好的情报。需要不只是从窃听总统与情妇通电话而获取的那种情报,而是从与无权势的人打交道中获取的情报。美国新闻界同样有不足之处,这次他们没有向穆巴拉克发出应有的愤怒。

三,新技术给埃及革命提供了润滑机制。脸书和推特使异见份子的联络更容易。移动电话使政府暴行更可能放到youtube,使镇压付出代价。国际刑事法庭使独裁者在命令部队开枪前不得不三思而行。最有效的技术是电视。……美国应该在这些技术上投放更大资本。这是改变伊朗、北朝鲜和古巴的最关键的技术。

四,让我们美国保持自己的价值。赖斯2005年在埃及说得对:“六十年来,我的国家美国以牺牲民主为代价寻求中东这个地区的稳定,但结果是,我们两者皆失。”

我不知道埃及后面下一个是哪个国家。有人说是阿尔及利亚、摩洛哥、黎巴嫩、叙利亚或者沙特阿拉伯。有人提到古巴和中国也脆弱。我们知道在许多地方,人民怨声载道,热切渴望更广大的政治参与。从18481989年的历史经验看,革命会像燎原之火从一个国家漫延到另一个国家。

三妹译
0一一年二月十四日


  
What Egypt Can Teach America

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF /Op-Ed Columnist
Published: February 12, 2011

It’s a new day in the Arab world — and, let’s hope, in American relations to the Arab world.
Damon Winter/The New York Times
Nicholas D. Kristof


The truth is that the United States has been behind the curve not only in Tunisia and Egypt for the last few weeks, but in the entire Middle East for decades. We supported corrupt autocrats as long as they kept oil flowing and weren’t too aggressive toward Israel. Even in the last month, we sometimes seemed as out of touch with the region’s youth as a Ben Ali or a Mubarak. Recognizing that crafting foreign policy is 1,000 times harder than it looks, let me suggest four lessons to draw from our mistakes:
1.) Stop treating Islamic fundamentalism as a bogyman and allowing it to drive American foreign policy. American paranoia about Islamism has done as much damage as Muslim fundamentalism itself.
In Somalia, it led the U.S. to wink at a 2006 Ethiopian invasion that was catastrophic for Somalis and resulted in more Islamic extremism there. And in Egypt, our foreboding about Islamism paralyzed us and put us on the wrong side of history.
We tie ourselves in knots when we act as if democracy is good for the United States and Israel but not for the Arab world. For far too long, we’ve treated the Arab world as just an oil field.
Too many Americans bought into a lazy stereotype that Arab countries were inhospitable for democracy, or that the beneficiaries of popular rule would be extremists like Osama bin Laden. Tunisians and Egyptians have shattered that stereotype, and the biggest loser will be Al Qaeda. We don’t know what lies ahead for Egypt — and there is a considerable risk that those in power will attempt to preserve Mubarakism without Mr. Mubarak — but already Egyptians have demonstrated the power of nonviolence in a way that undermines the entire extremist narrative. It will be fascinating to see whether more Palestinians embrace mass nonviolent protests in the West Bank as a strategy to confront illegal Israeli settlements and land grabs.
2.) We need better intelligence, the kind that is derived not from intercepting a president’s phone calls to his mistress but from hanging out with the powerless. After the 1979 Iranian revolution, there was a painful post-mortem about why the intelligence community missed so many signals, and I think we need the same today.
In fairness, we in the journalistic community suffered the same shortcoming: we didn’t adequately convey the anger toward Hosni Mubarak. Egypt is a reminder not to be suckered into the narrative that a place is stable because it is static.
3.) New technologies have lubricated the mechanisms of revolt. Facebook and Twitter make it easier for dissidents to network. Mobile phones mean that government brutality is more likely to end up on YouTube, raising the costs of repression. The International Criminal Court encourages dictators to think twice before ordering troops to open fire.
Maybe the most critical technology — and this is tough for a scribbler like myself to admit — is television. It was Arab satellite television broadcasts like those of Al Jazeera that broke the government monopoly on information in Egypt. Too often, Americans scorn Al Jazeera (and its English service is on few cable systems), but it played a greater role in promoting democracy in the Arab world than anything the United States did.
We should invest more in these information technologies. The best way to nurture changes in Iran, North Korea and Cuba will involve broadcasts, mobile phones and proxy servers to leap over Internet barriers. Congress has allocated small sums to promote global Internet freedom, and this initiative could be a much more powerful tool in our foreign policy arsenal.
4.) Let’s live our values. We pursued a Middle East realpolitik that failed us. Condi Rice had it right when she said in Egypt in 2005: “For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither.”
I don’t know which country is the next Egypt. Some say it’s Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Syria or Saudi Arabia. Others suggest Cuba or China are vulnerable. But we know that in many places there is deep-seated discontent and a profound yearning for greater political participation. And the lesson of history from 1848 to 1989 is that uprisings go viral and ricochet from nation to nation. Next time, let’s not sit on the fence.
After a long wishy-washy stage, President Obama got it pitch-perfect on Friday when he spoke after the fall of Mr. Mubarak. He forthrightly backed people power, while making clear that the future is for Egyptians to decide. Let’s hope that reflects a new start not only for Egypt but also for American policy toward the Arab world. Inshallah.
I invite you to comment on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.


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