失落的土地/ holyhermit译

2008年6月12日选自《经济学人》印刷版
原文地址：http://book.douban.com/subject/4882161/new_review

IT IS something of an irony that a land whose timeless beauty has survived basically unchanged since biblical times is being transformed by a people who base their claim to it on biblical history. Ugly, ever-expanding Israeli settlements sprawl on the West Bank’s hilltops; great roads splice their way through its undulating, terraced hills; wildernesses have become national parks that are barred to Palestinians; and Arab villages that once blended organically into the landscape are little more than besieged ghettos.

这一片土地，自圣经时代以来基本上保持着那样一种永恒的美，然而有一个民族藉圣经故事声称享有这片土地的所有权，并且眼下正在改变这片土地，这不免颇让人感到啼笑皆非。丑陋、日益扩大的以色列定居点盘踞在西岸的山顶；条条大路，贯穿着西岸波浪起伏、错落有致的峻岭；昔日的荒原已成了巴勒斯坦人禁入的国家公园；而曾经自然融入这片景色的阿拉伯山村几乎成了被包围的贫民区。

Raja Shehadeh, a lawyer and writer living in Ramallah, used international and Israeli law to fight Israel’s seizure of land belonging to Palestinians. He struggled tirelessly in the courts for years even while recognising that successive Israeli governments, determined to establish possession of vital parts of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, were not listening. In the end it was his own people who forced him to acknowledge defeat: the 1993 Oslo accords, he believes, gave the game away. He argues that in signing those accords Yasser Arafat put the principles of recognition and a possible two-state solution ahead of the need to stop the process of Israeli colonisation which was shredding one of those two states to ribbons. In his words, “the hollow language of peace” ran on as “our land was being transformed before our eyes.”

拉加•舍哈德，一名住在拉马拉的律师和作家，曾用国际法和以色列法来反抗以色列强夺属于巴勒斯坦人的土地。即使明知历届以色列政府已决心要占领东耶路撒冷重要地区及西岸，并且对他的诉求也一定置若罔闻，但舍哈德在法庭上仍孜孜不倦地斗争了数年之久。最终，是自己人使他不得不承认失败：他认为，1993年的《奥斯陆协议》致使自己放弃斗争。他认为，在签署协议时，亚瑟•阿拉法特首先考虑的是承认原则及两国问题的解决方案，其次才是阻止以色列殖民进程之必要性，但以色列的殖民进程正在将巴勒斯坦碾得粉碎。用他的话说，”空洞的和平语言仍在回响，但我们却眼睁睁地看着自己的土地在改变。”

Mr Shehadeh’s delight at all times of stress was to ramble in the wild countryside. “Palestinian Walks”, a short, superbly written book, recounts six such walks taken between 1978 and 2006. It was published last year in Britain (but only this month in the United States) and recently won the Orwell prize, an award for political writing. Mr Shehadeh describes the scenes around him-the colour of the wildflowers, the scent of herbs, the leaping grey gazelles, the rocks that “looked as though they had burst out of the ground, small islands perched on a sea of green”-but each walk leads us gently, through his conversation with companions, his reminiscences or his encounters on the way, to an apposite story or theme.

每当感到心情沮丧时，舍哈德先生感到快乐的莫过于在这荒野中散步。”行走在巴勒斯坦”这本书，篇幅虽不长，却是上品佳作，其中记叙了1978年至2006年期间六次这样的散步。这本书去年在英国出版（该书本月才在美国出版），最近获得了奥威尔奖–一项颁发给政治著作的奖项。在这本书中，舍哈德先生描绘了所见到的景色：多姿多彩的野花、芬芳的植物、跳跃着的灰色小羚羊、 “看似从大地中突兀而起的岩石、矗立在一片湛蓝色大海之上的小岛”–然而每次散步，作者都会通过与同伴的对话、通过回忆、通过自己一路上的所见所闻让读者无意之中看到了一幕幕别样的景象。

These vary from memories of a crusty old relative dancing round the dry-stone house he had just built with his new young wife his only assistant, through the frustration of those law-court battles, to a chance meeting with a young Israeli settler who parrots official nonsense but clearly loves the land, rescues Mr Shehadeh’s hat from the water and invites him to share his excellent hashish hubble-bubble.

读者们看到了这样一幕幕的回忆：舍哈德先生的一位老年亲戚，虽已满脸皱纹，却围着舍哈德先生和年轻的妻子–他的唯一助手–造的干砌石屋欢欣舞蹈不已；舍哈德先生为一次次上法院抗争无果而感到沮丧；路上偶遇的一名以色列青年；这名青年的讲话与官方宣传如出一辙，不过可以看得出他爱着这片土地；他不但把舍哈德先生的帽子从水中捞了出来，而且还邀舍哈德先生分享自己的水烟。

By the sixth walk, the rambles and scrambles are sharply circumscribed. Mr Shehadeh has to tread carefully, knowing that in many of his old haunts he risks being arrested by the police or shot by a suspicious settler. He mourns the turn of events by which Palestinians have come to move “in our own country surreptitiously, like unwanted strangers, constantly harassed, never feeling safe”. Readers who have been entranced by his wanderings, who have trembled with him on the ledges of (Mr Shehadeh suffers from vertigo), may find themselves echoing his lament for a lovely homeland now in the process of disappearing.

到了第六次散步时，散步范围已大受限制。舍哈德先生不得不步步谨慎，因为他知道，许多自己过去常去的地方，现在已潜伏着各种危险：或被警察逮捕，或被多疑的定居者射杀。对于这种形势转变、这种巴勒斯坦人”像被遗弃的陌路人在自己的祖国迁徙也必须偷偷摸摸的，还经常遭到骚扰，始终无安全感”的状况，舍哈德先生备感哀伤。读者们啊，若你们曾对舍哈德先生的信步闲庭感到心之神往，再若你们曾像舍哈德先生一样对站在峡谷峭壁上感到头晕目眩（舍哈德先生有头晕的毛病），那么面对可爱的祖国正在渐渐消失，或许你们也会同舍哈德先生一样感到悲哀。