I want to talk to you today about a difficult topic that is close to me, and closer than you might realize to you.
今天我想与你们分享 一个与我息息相关的尖锐话题, 也许你们没有意识到,它其实也十分贴近你们的生活。
I came to the UK 21 years ago, as an asylum-seeker. I was 21. I was forced to leave the Democratic Republic of the Congo, my home, where I was a student activist. I would love my children to be able to meet my family in the Congo.
二十一年前我来到英国 寻求庇护。 那时我二十一岁 作为一名学生活动家 我被迫离开我的祖国刚果民主共和国。 我希望我的孩子能够见到 我在刚果的家人。
But I want to tell you what the Congo has got to do with you. But first of all, I want you to do me a favor. Can you all please reach into your pockets and take out your mobile phone? Feel that familiar weight ... how naturally your finger slides towards the buttons.
但今天我要说的是刚果和你们的关系。 首先,我想请大家帮我一个忙。 请各位把手伸进口袋里 拿出你们的手机。 感受一下那熟悉的重量, 手指滑向按键时是多么自然。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Can you imagine your world without it? It connects us to our loved ones, our family, friends and colleagues, at home and overseas. It is a symbol of an interconnected world.
你能想象没有手机的生活吗? 它将我们和海内外的爱人、 家人、朋友和同事 联系在一起。 它是世界内部相互联通的标志。
But what you hold in your hand leaves a bloody trail, and it all boils down to a mineral: tantalum, mined in the Congo as coltan. It is an anticorrosive heat conductor. It stores energy in our mobile phones, PlayStations and laptops. It is used in aerospace and medical equipment as an alloy. It is so powerful that we only need tiny amounts. It would be great if the story ended there.
然而你手中的手机其实沾满斑斑血迹, 这一切始于一种矿物:钽 用于提取该矿物的钶钽铁矿是在刚果开采的。 钽是一种抗腐蚀的导热体。 在我们的手机、游戏机和笔记本电脑中 被用于储存能量。 在航空和医疗领域被用来 制作合金。 钽的性能非常优良 因此用量很小。 这个故事如果就此结束就可谓皆大欢喜。
Unfortunately, what you hold in your hand has not only enabled incredible technological development and industrial expansion, but it has also contributed to unimaginable human suffering.
不幸的是,你手中的手机 不仅带来了惊人的技术进步 和产业扩张, 也带来了超乎一般人想象的
Since 1996, over five million people have died in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Countless women, men and children have been raped, tortured or enslaved. Rape is used as a weapon of war, instilling fear and depopulating whole areas. The quest for extracting this mineral has not only aided, but it has fueled the ongoing war in the Congo.
痛苦与折磨。 1996年以来,刚果民主共和国境内 有五百多万人死亡。 无数的女人、男人和小孩 被强奸、折磨、被迫成为奴隶。 强奸成为了一种武器, 用来散播恐惧 减少整个地区的人口。 对这种矿物的开采 没有缓解,反而让 刚果内战愈演愈烈。
But don't throw away your phones yet. Thirty thousand children are enlisted and are made to fight in armed groups. The Congo consistently scores dreadfully in global health and poverty rankings. But remarkably, the UN Environmental Programme has estimated the wealth of the country to be over 24 trillion dollars. The state-regulated mining industry has collapsed, and control over mines has splintered. Coltan is easily controlled by armed groups. One well-known illicit trade route is that across the border to Rwanda, where Congolese tantalum is disguised as Rwandan.
不过暂时不要扔掉你的手机。 三万儿童被迫加入武装组织 参与战斗。 在全球健康和贫富排行榜上 刚果的得分一直糟糕的吓人。 然而根据联合国环境保护署的估计, 刚果居然拥有价值 两千四百亿美元的财富。 国家管理的开采已经崩溃, 钽矿的控制权 分崩离析。 钶钽铁矿很容易被武装组织控制。 卢旺达边界是一条著名的 非法贸易路线, 来自刚果的钽被伪装成卢旺达的矿产。
But don't throw away your phones yet, because the incredible irony is that the technology that has placed such unsustainable, devastating demands on the Congo is the same technology that has brought this situation to our attention. We only know so much about the situation in the Congo and in the mines because of the kind of communication the mobile phone allows. As with the Arab Spring, during the recent elections in the Congo, voters were able to send text messages of local polling stations to the headquarters in the capital, Kinshasa. And in the wake of the result, the diaspora has joined with the Carter Center, the Catholic Church and other observers, to draw attention to the undemocratic result.
不过还是不要扔掉你们的手机, 因为这其中的关系有些讽刺 手机通讯给刚果带来的是不具可持续性的开发 和巨大的伤害 然而也正是这项技术 引起了我们对这些问题的重视。 我们对刚果 和钽矿情况的了解 都来自手机通讯 传递的信息。 和阿拉伯之春一样, 在刚果最近的选举中, 选民可以通过短信 将地方选举站的情况发往 位于首都金沙萨的总部, 选举结果公布之后 各地的群众立刻与卡特中心 基督教教会和其它观察机构一起 呼吁世界关注选举中的不民主现象。
The mobile phone has given people around the world an important tool towards gaining their political freedom. It has truly revolutionized the way we communicate on the planet. It has allowed momentous political change to take place. So, we are faced with a paradox. The mobile phone is an instrument of freedom and an instrument of oppression.
手机是世界各地的人民 争取政治自由的重要工具。 它彻底变革了 人类沟通的方式。 它促进了 重大政治变革的发生。 因此 我们深处一个两难境地。 手机既能带来自由 又会引起压迫。
TED has always celebrated what technology can do for us, technology in its finished form. It is time to be asking questions about technology. Where does it come from? Who makes it? And for what? Here, I am speaking directly to you, the TED community, and to all those who might be watching on a screen, on your phone, across the world, in the Congo. All the technology is in place for us to communicate, and all the technology is in place to communicate this.
TED一直赞赏技术, 成熟的技术, 对我们生活的改善。 然而现在我们也要 提出与技术有关的问题。 一项技术来自何方? 由谁制造? 为何存在? 现场的TED观众、 来自刚果或是世界各地 通过屏幕或者手机观看的人们 今天 我与你们直接交流。 技术给我们相互沟通的机会, 技术让我们传递这样的信息。
At the moment, there is no clear fair-trade solution. But there has been a huge amount of progress. The US has recently passed legislation to target bribery and misconduct in the Congo. Recent UK legislation could be used in the same way. In February, Nokia unveiled its new policy on sourcing minerals in the Congo, and there is a petition to Apple to make a conflict-free iPhone. There are campaigns spreading across university campuses to make their colleges conflict-free. But we're not there yet. We need to continue mounting pressure on phone companies to change their sourcing processes.
现在 我们还没有找到保证贸易公平的明确措施, 但在这一方面已经取得了显著的进展。 美国近期通过了 意在整治刚果境内的贿赂和不法现象的有关法律。 英国最近通过的法律也有类似的功效。 2月,诺基亚公布了有关 在刚果境内采矿的最新政策 也有人向苹果请愿 要求他们制造不涉及冲突的iPhone手机。 大学里也兴起了广泛的 建立无冲突校园的 宣传活动。 然而我们的使命尚未完成。 我们必须继续向 手机制造商施压
When I first came to the UK, 21 years ago, I was homesick. I missed my family and the friends I left behind. Communication was extremely difficult. Sending and receiving letters took months -- if you were lucky. Often, they never arrived. Even if I could have afforded the phone bills home, like most people in the Congo, my parents did not own a phone line.
要求他们改变获取原料的流程。 21年前,我刚刚来到英国的时候 非常想家。 我想念留在国内的家人和朋友。 和他们联系非常困难。 书信往来往往需要好几个月。 信件常常丢失,运气好的时候才能收到。 即便我能付得起 打电话回家的费用, 和大多数刚果人一样 我的父母没有电话。
Today, my two sons -- David and Daniel, can talk to my parents and get to know them. Why should we allow such a wonderful, brilliant and necessary product to be the cause of unnecessary suffering for human beings?
如今,我的两个儿子 大卫和丹尼尔 可以和我的父母交流,并了解他们。 我们为什么要让 如此美好、优秀、必要的产品 成为不必要的人类痛苦的 源头?
We demand fair-trade food and fair-trade clothes. It is time to demand fair-trade phones. This is an idea worth spreading.
我们在食品、服装等方面 要求公平贸易。 现在是倡导手机公平贸易的时候了。 这是一个值得传播的理念。谢谢。
Thank you.
(掌声)
(Applause)