I'm Chetan Bhatt and when I give my name, I'm often asked, "Where are you from?" And I normally say London.
我是奇坦巴特, 當我說出我的名字時, 常會被問:「你來自哪裡?」 我通常會說:「倫敦。」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
But of course, I know what they're really asking, so I say something like, "Well, my grandparents and my mum were born in India, my dad and I were born in Kenya, and I was brought up in London. And then they've got me mapped. "Ah, you're a Kenyan Asian. I've worked with one of those."
但,當然我知道他們要問什麼, 所以我會說類似這樣的話: 「我的母親和外祖父母在印度出生, 我父親和我在肯亞出生, 而我在倫敦長大。」 接著他們就會用地圖來標示我。 「啊,你是肯亞亞洲人。 我之前有跟你們其中一個共事過。」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
And from my name they probably assume that I'm a Hindu. And this sort of fixes me for them.
他們從我的名字 推測我可能是印度教徒。 他們就這樣把我定型了。
But what about the Christians and the Muslims and the atheists that I grew up with? Or the socialists and the liberals, even the occasional Tory?
那麼,基督徒呢? 還有穆斯林或無神論者呢? 我和他們一起長大。 或其他社會主義者及自由主義者, 甚至偶有保守黨黨員呢?
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Indeed, all kinds of women and men -- vegetable sellers, factory workers, cooks, car mechanics -- living in my working class area, in some profoundly important way, they are also a part of me and are here with me. Maybe that's why I find it hard to respond to questions about identity and about origin. And it's not just a sort of teenage refusal to be labeled. It's about our own most identities, the ones that we put our hands up to, the ones that we cheer for, the ones that we fight for, the ones that we love or hate. And it's about how we apprehend ourselves as well as others. And it's about identities we just assume that we have without thinking too much about them.
的確,各式各樣,男男女女, 賣菜的人、工廠工人、 廚子、汽車技工, 他們住在我這勞動階層的地區, 大家都扮演重要的角色, 他們也是我的一部份, 現在也與我同在這裡。 也許這就是為什麼我覺得很難回答 關於身分、關於出身的問題。 這並不像年輕人不想被貼標籤 這麼地單純而已。 這是關於我們自己的身分, 我們會舉手認同的那些身分, 我們所引以為傲的身分, 我們會奮戰爭取的身分, 我們熱愛或討厭的身分, 以及關於我們如何理解自己 和看待別人的身分。 這些身分是我們自己會認同、 想都不用想、理所當然的身分。
But our responses to questions of identity and origin have substantial social and political importance. We see the wars, the rages of identity going on all around us. We see violent religious, national and ethnic disputes. And often the conflict is based on old stories of identity and belonging and origins. And these identities are based on myths, typically about ancient, primordial origins. And these could be about Adam and Eve or about the supremacy of a caste or gender or about the vitality of a supposed race or about the past glories of an empire or civilization or about a piece of land that some imagined deity has gifted.
但大家對於身分及出身問題的回應, 有著極高的社會與政治的重要性。 我們到處看得到 因身分認同問題所引發的戰爭, 到處都有宗教、民族、 人種認同問題的暴力與爭執。 而衝突的根本原因 經常是身分、歸屬感、 出身地認同問題等等的老故事。 這些身分認同建立在迷思上, 典型是古老、原始、 出身源頭的身分認同問題。 可能與亞當和夏娃有關, 或是誰的社會地位比較高、 性別地位比較高, 或是哪一族群的人才是正宗的, 或是過去帝國或文明的榮耀, 或是一塊土地的所有權, 想像出來一塊神所賜予的土地。
Now, people say that origin stories and identity myths make us feel secure. What's wrong with that? They give us a sense of belonging. Identity is your cultural clothing, and it can make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. But does it really? Do we really need identity myths to feel safe? Because I see religious, national, ethnic disputes as adding to human misery.
人們說, 出身源頭的故事及國家認同的迷思 能讓我們有安全感。 那樣有什麼不好? 它們能給我們歸屬感。 身分認同是你的文化外衣, 讓你覺得被包著很溫暖很舒服。 真的是這樣嗎? 我們真的需要虛構的身分認同 才能感到安全嗎? 因為在我看來, 宗教、種族、人種的爭執 只會增加人類的苦難。
Can I dare you to refuse every origin myth that claims you? What if we reject every single primordial origin myth and develop a deeper sense of personhood, one responsible to humanity as a whole rather than to a particular tribe, a radically different idea of humanity that exposes how origin myths mystify, disguise global power, rapacious exploitation, poverty, the worldwide oppression of women and girls, and of course massive, accelerating inequalities?
我能否挑戰你 是否敢拒絕每一個 宣稱與你有重大關係的 出身源頭的身分認同迷思? 如果我們拒絕每一個 原始的出身迷思, 並發展出對個人特質更深的認識, 對整體人類負責, 而不是為特定的族群負責,那會如何? 用一個全然不同的角度 來看待全體人類, 揭露出身分的迷思如何迷惑、隱藏了 全球的權力、 貪婪的剝削、貧困, 全球對女人和女孩的壓迫, 當然還有海量、快速增加的不平等。
Now, origin myths are closely linked to tradition, and the word tradition points to something old and permanent, almost natural, and people assume tradition is just history, simply the past condensed into a nice story. But let's not confuse tradition with history. The two are often in severe conflict. Origin stories are usually recently created fictions of ancient belonging, and they're absurd given the complexity of humanity and our vastly interconnected, even if very unequal world. And today we see claims to tradition that claim to be ancient changing rapidly in front of our eyes.
出身迷思與傳統有著密切的關係。 「傳統」一詞是指某件古老、 恆久不變,幾乎純天然的東西, 很多人誤以為傳統 僅僅是濃縮成美好故事的歷史。 但千萬不要把傳統和歷史混淆了。 這兩者常常會有劇烈的衝突。 出身的故事通常是近代創造出來 虛構的古早歸屬感, 它們很荒謬, 畢竟人性其實很複雜的, 即使在這個非常不平等的世界中 我們彼此都是相互連結的。 現今,我們看到有人打著傳統的旗號、 號稱自己才是古老正統的人, 正明目張膽快速地 改變著我們的社會。
I was brought up in the 1970s near Wembley with Asian, English, Caribbean, Irish families living in our street, and the neo-Nazi National Front was massive then with regular marches and attacks on us and a permanent threat and often a frequent reality of violence against us on the streets, in our homes, typically by neo-Nazis and other racists. And I remember during a general election a leaflet came through our letter box with a picture of the National Front candidate for our area. And the picture was of our next-door neighbor. He threatened to shoot me once when I played in the garden as a kid, and many weekends, shaven-headed National Front activists arrived at his house and emerged with scores of placards screaming that they wanted us to go back home. But today he's one of my mum's best mates. He's a very lovely, gentle and kind man, and at some point in his political journey out of fascism he embraced a broader idea of humanity.
1970 年代,我在溫布萊一帶長大, 和街坊的亞洲、英國、加勒比、 及愛爾蘭家庭一起長大, 那時新納粹民族陣線十分壯大, 常常在示威,且會攻擊我們, 威脅沒消失過, 經常在街上、在我們家裡, 對我們使用暴力 幾乎都是新納粹主義者和 其他種族主義者所策動的。 我記得有一次普選, 家裡的信箱有一張宣傳單, 上面是我們那區的 民族陣線候選人照片。 而那張照片, 是我們的隔壁鄰居。 我小時候在花園玩時, 他曾威脅過要射殺我, 許多個週末,都有光頭的民族陣線 激進份子到他家, 許多標語海報被張貼出來, 大聲吶喊著要我們滾回老家。 但現在,他是我母親 最好的朋友之一。 他是個很親切、溫和、仁慈的人, 在他的法西斯主義政治 旅程中的某個時點, 他對人性有了更寬容的想法。
There was a Hindu family that we got to know well -- and you have to understand that life in our street was a little bit like the setting for an Asian soap opera. Everyone knew everyone else's business, even if they didn't want it to be known by anyone at all. You really had no choice in this matter. But in this family, there was a quiet little boy who went to the same school as I did, and after I left school, I didn't hear much more about him, except that he'd gone off to India. Now around 2000, I remember seeing this short book. The book was unusual because it was written by a British supporter of Al Qaeda, and in it the author calls for attacks in Britain. This is in 1999, so 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq was still in the future, and he helped scout New York bombing targets. He taught others how to make a dirty bomb to use on the London Underground, and he plotted a massive bombing campaign in London's shopping areas. He's a very high-risk security prisoner in the UK and one of the most important Al Qaeda figures to be arrested in Britain.
有一個我們很熟知的印度家庭── 各位要知道,在我們街坊的生活, 有點像是亞洲肥皂劇的場景。 每個人都知道每個人的事, 即使你不想讓任何人 知道的事也會被知道。 這不是你能選擇的。 但這個家庭, 有一個很安靜的小男孩, 他和我上同一所學校, 我離開學校之後, 就沒什麼聽說他的事了, 只知道他去了印度。 約 2000 年時, 我看了一本簡短的書。 這本書很不尋常, 因為它是由英國蓋達組織的 支持者所寫的, 在書中,作者呼籲大家攻擊英國。 這是 1999 年, 還沒有發生進攻伊拉克 事件和九一一事件, 他協助監視紐約炸彈攻擊的目標。 他教別人如何製作髒彈 用來炸倫敦地鐵, 他策劃了一個針對倫敦購物區的 大規模炸彈攻擊活動。 他是英國監獄中高風險的囚犯, 是英國逮捕的最重要的 蓋達組織人物之一。
The author of that book was the very same quiet little boy who went to my school. So a Hindu boy from Britain became an Al Qaeda fighter and a most-wanted international terrorist, and he rejected what people would call his Hindu or Indian or British identity, and he became someone else. He refused to be who he was. He recreated himself, and this kind of journey is very common for young men and women who become involved in Al Qaeda or Islamic State or other transnational armed groups. Al Qaeda's media spokesman is a white American from a Jewish and Catholic mixed background, and neither he nor the boy from my school were from Muslim backgrounds. There's no point in asking them where are they from. A more important question is where they're going.
那本書的作者 正是跟我上同一所學校的那位 安靜的小男孩。 所以,來自英國的印度男孩, 變成了蓋達組織的鬥士, 且是國際間極想要逮補的恐怖份子, 他拒絕了人們會用來稱他的 印度教、印度人或英國人身分, 他變成了另一個人。 他拒絕做過去的自己。 他重新創造了他自己, 這對開始涉入蓋達組織、 或伊斯蘭國、或其它 跨國武裝團體的年輕男女而言, 這類的旅程非常常見。 蓋達組織的媒體發言人 是個白種美國人, 來自猶太教和天主教的混合背景, 不論是他,或是我學校的那個男孩, 都不是來自穆斯林背景。 問他們來自哪裡是沒意義的。 更重要的問題是,他們要去哪裡。
And I would also put it to you that exactly the same journey occurs for those young men and women who were brought up in Muslim family backgrounds. Most of those who join Al Qaeda and other Salafi jihadi groups from Europe, Asia, North America, even in many cases the Middle East are those who have comprehensively rejected their backgrounds to become, in essence, new people. They spend an enormous amount of time attacking their parents' backgrounds as profane, impure, blasphemous, the wrong type of Islam, and their vision instead is a fantastical view of cosmic apocalypse. It's a born again vision. Discard your past, your society, your family and friends since they're all impure. Instead, become someone else, your true self, your authentic self. Now, this isn't about a return to the past. It's about using a forgery of the past to envision an appalling future which begins today at year zero. This is why over 80 percent of the victims of Al Qaeda and Islamic State are people from Muslim backgrounds. The first act by Salafi jihadi groups when they take over an area is to destroy existing Muslim institutions including mosques, shrines, preachers, practices. Their main purpose is to control and punish people internally, to dictate the spaces that women may go, their clothing, family relations, beliefs, even the minute detail of how one prays. And you get the impression in the news that they are after us in the West, but they are actually mainly after people from other Muslim backgrounds. In their view, no other Muslim can ever be pure enough, so ordinary beliefs and practices that have existed for centuries are attacked as impure by teenagers from Birmingham or London who know nothing about the histories that they so joyously obliterate.
我也要跟各位說的, 同樣的旅程也會發生在 在穆斯林家庭背景中長大的 年輕男女身上。 大部份來自歐洲、亞洲、北美, 甚至有許多來自中東, 接著去蓋達組織及其他 沙拉菲聖戰團體的那些人, 這些人都完全否認他們過往的背景, 而從本質上變成一個新的人。 他們花大把大把的時間 攻擊父母的來歷背景, 說那粗俗、不純淨、褻瀆神明, 是種錯誤的伊斯蘭教; 而他們的觀點 才是最高級正統的宇宙啟示觀點。 它是重生的版本。 拋棄你的過去、你的社會、 你的家庭、你的朋友, 因為他們都不純淨。 取而代之,變成另一個人, 你的真正自我, 你的真實自我。 這跟回到過去的傳統無關, 這跟他們利用偽造的過去有關, 預設了一個駭人聽聞的未來, 說今天就是這個未來的元年。 這就是為什麼蓋達組織和 伊斯蘭國的受害者中有 80% 都是來自穆斯林背景的。 沙拉菲聖戰團體佔據一個 地區時做的第一件事, 就是摧毀既有的穆斯林機構, 包括清真寺、神壇、傳道者、實踐機構。 他們的主要目的是控制人的思想 並懲罰人的內心, 像是限定女人能去的地方, 限定她們的服飾、家庭關係、信仰, 甚至如何祈禱的瑣碎細節。 你從新聞得到的印象是 他們的主要目標是在西方的我們, 但其實他們的主要目標是 其他來自穆斯林背景的人。 在他們的觀點, 其他的穆斯林是不夠純淨的, 所以已經存在數百年的 一般信仰和實踐機構, 會被來自伯明罕或倫敦的 青少年視為不純淨, 而被他們攻擊, 這些無知的青少年 根本完全不懂那些 他們樂於想要抹滅的歷史。
Now here, their claim to tradition is at war with history, but they're nevertheless very certain about their purity and about the impurity of others. Purity, certainty, the return to authentic tradition, the quest for these can lead to lethal visions of perfect societies and perfected people.
在這裡,他們打著 歷史傳統的口號發動戰爭, 認定他們才是純淨的, 其他人是不純淨的。 純淨、 正統性、 返回到真實的傳統、 追尋這些,會讓一個 完美的社會和人民受傷害。
This is what the main Hindu fundamentalist organization in India looks like today at its mass rally. Maybe it reminds you of the 1930s in Italy or Germany, and the movement's roots are indeed in fascism. It was a member of the same Hindu fundamentalist movement who shot dead Mahatma Gandhi. Hindu fundamentalists today view this murderer as a national hero, and they want to put up statues of him throughout India. They've been involved for decades in large-scale mass violence against minorities. They ban books, art, films. They attack romantic couples on Valentine's Day, Christians on Christmas Day. They don't like others talking critically about what they see as their ancient culture or using its images or caricaturing it or drawing cartoons about it. But the people making the strongest possible claims about ancient, timeless Hindu religion are dressed in brown shorts and white shirts while claiming, oddly, to be the original Aryan race, just like the violent Salafi jihadis who make their claims about their primordial religion while dressed in black military uniforms and wearing balaclavas.
如今在印度,信奉印度基本教義的人 他們的大型集會 看起來就是這個樣子。 也許它會讓你想起 1930 年代在義大利或德國 紮根的法西斯主義活動。 當時射殺甘地的人, 就是這個活動中的成員之一。 現今的印度基本教義主義者 把這個兇手視為是國家英雄, 他們想要在整個印度為他立雕像。 數十年來,他們都有涉入 針對少數族群的大規模群眾暴力。 他們禁止書籍、藝術、電影。 他們在情人節攻擊浪漫的情侶, 在聖誕節攻擊基督徒。 他們不喜歡其他人去批判 他們如何看待他們的祖先文化、 或使用它的形象, 或用漫畫誇張地描述它, 或是把它當卡通題材。 但針對古老、永恆的印度教 提出最強烈主張的人, 很奇怪地,在聲稱自己 是正統的亞利安人的時候, 卻穿著褐色短褲和白色上衣, 就像暴力的沙拉菲聖戰士 申稱他們才是創始宗教時, 卻穿著黑色的軍服, 戴著巴拉克拉法帽。
These people are manufacturing pure, pristine identities of conviction and of certainty. Fundamentalists see religion and culture as their sole property, a property. But religions and cultures are processes. They're not things. They're impermanent. They're messy. They're impure. Look at any religion and you'll see disputes and arguments going all the way down.
這些人就是在製造純正信念、 創始教義正統性假象的人。 他們將宗教和文化 視為他們獨有的資產,一種資產。 但宗教和文化的演變是一個過程, 它們不是東西,不會恆久不變; 它們是零散複雜、不純正的。 世界上任何一個宗教 都會有人支持與批評。
Any criticism of religion in any form has to therefore be part of the expansive sense of humanity we should aspire to. I respect your right to have and to express your religion or your culture or your opinion, but I don't necessarily have to respect the content. I might like some of it. I might like how an old church looks, for example, but this isn't the same thing. Similarly, I have a human right to say something that you may find offensive, but you do not have a human right not to be offended. In a genuine democracy, we're constantly offended since people express different views all the time. They also change their views, so their views are impermanent. You cannot fix someone's political views based on their religious or national or cultural background.
因此,任何形式對信仰 做的任何評論, 都可以被視為人性的延伸, 我們都必須有包容的雅量。 我尊重你有不同信仰、文化, 以及表達信仰理念的權力, 但我不見得要尊重它的內容。 但我可能會喜歡其中某些內容。 比如,我可能喜歡老教堂的外貌, 但這是兩碼子事。 同樣的,我有說出 冒犯你的話的人權, 但你沒有不被冒犯的人權。 在真正的民主中,我們經常被冒犯, 因為人們總是在表達不同的觀點。 人們還會改變他們的觀點, 所以他們的觀點不是恆久不變的。 你不能根據別人的信仰、民族背景、 或文化背景, 來判定他的的政治觀點。
Now, these points about religious purity also apply to nationalism and to racism. I'm always puzzled to have pride in your national or ethnic identity, pride in the accident of birth from a warm and cozy womb, belief in your superiority because of the accident of birth.
關於信仰純淨的這些論點, 也被用在民族主義和種族主義上。 我總是搞不懂, 因民族或種族身分而感到驕傲, 因從一個溫暖舒適的子宮 出生而感到驕傲, 難道你因為出生這個偶發事件, 就相信自己比較優越嗎?
These people have very firm ideas about what belongs and what doesn't belong inside the cozy national cultures that they imagine. And I'm going to caricature a bit here, but only a little bit. I want you to imagine the supporter of some Little Englander or British nationalist political party, and he's sitting at home and he's screaming about foreigners invading his country while watching Fox News, an American cable channel owned by an Australian on his South Korean television set which was bought by his Spanish credit card which is paid off monthly by his high-street British bank which has its headquarters in Hong Kong. He supports a British football team owned by a Russian. His favorite brand of fish and chips is owned by a Swedish venture capitalist firm. The church he sometimes goes to has its creed decided in meetings in Ghana. His Union Jack underpants were made in India.
這些人對誰跟他同一國, 誰跟他不同國分的很清楚, 沉浸在他們幻想出來的、 優越的民族主義文化中。 這裡我要稍稍誇地張描述 一下,但只是稍稍地。 請各位想像那些英國本土主義者 或英國民族主義政黨的支持者, 正坐在家裡, 對著電視大喊, 說外國人侵略他的國家, 但他看的是 Fox News, 這是個美國的有線頻道, 頻道所有者是澳洲人, 而他的電視機則是南韓品牌, 用他的西班牙信用卡所購買, 這信用卡是透過他的 英國大眾銀行來做每月的繳款, 而這家英國銀行的總部在香港。 他支持的英國足球隊, 老闆是俄國人。 他最愛的炸魚薯條品牌 背後所有人是瑞典的風險投資公司。 他有時會去的教堂, 其教義是在迦納共和國 舉行的會議所定案的。 他的英國國旗內褲 是印度製的。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
And --
還有──
(Applause)
(掌聲)
Thank you.
謝謝。
And they're laundered regularly by a very nice Polish lady.
而他的內褲定期被一位 非常和藹的波蘭女士所清洗的。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
There is no pure ethnicity, national culture, and the ethical choices we have today are far wider than being forced to choose between racist right and religious right visions, dismal visions of culture.
這世上沒有純淨的種族 或民族文化的存在, 我們現今的道德選擇, 絕對不會逼迫我們在 種族權力和信仰權力 兩個另人沮喪的文化版本之間做選擇。
Now, culture isn't just about language, food, clothing and music, but gender relations, ancient monuments, a heritage of sacred texts. But culture can also be what has been decided to be culture by those who have a political stake in pounding culture into the shape of a prison. Big political identity claims are elite bids for power. They're not answers to social or economic or political injustices. They often obscure them. And what about the large number of people across the globe who can't point to a monument from their past, who don't possess a sacred written text, who can't hark back to the past glories of a civilization or empire? Are these people less a part of humanity?
文化並不只是語言、 食物、衣著、音樂, 還包括性別關係、古老歷史遺跡、 神聖文字的遺產。 但文化也會被,而且已經 被那些掌有政治權利的人所定義, 他們把文化捶打成監獄的形狀。 大型政治操作身分的宣傳活動, 是政治菁英爭權奪利的操作手段, 並不是社會、經濟問題, 或政治不公的解答, 通常只會使它們更不公正、更混亂。 還有,這世上有很多 無法指出祖先墓碑在哪裏的人, 有很多沒有神聖文字手稿的人, 有很多不敢回憶起 過去文明或帝國榮耀的人, 那麼這些人怎麼辦呢? 這些人就不算是人類的一部份嗎?
What about you, now, listening to this? What about you and your identity, because you stitch your experiences and your thoughts into a continuous person moving forward in time. And this is what you are when you say, "I," "am," or "me." But this also includes all of your hopes and dreams, all of the you's that could have been, and it includes all the other people and the things that are in the biography of who you are. They, the others, are also a part of you, moving forward with you. Your authentic self, if such a thing exists, is a complex, messy and uncertain self, and that is a very good thing. Why not value those impurities and uncertainties? Maybe clinging to pure identities is a sign of immaturity, and ethnic, nationalist and religious traditions are bad for you. Why not be skeptical about every primordial origin claim made on your behalf? Why not reject the identity myths that call on you to belong, that politicians and community leaders, so-called community leaders, place on you? If we don't need origin stories and fixed identities, we can challenge ourselves to think creatively about each other and our future.
那麼在座現在正在 聽這演說的人呢? 你和你的身分又如何呢? 因為你過去的經驗與想法 隨著時間會緊緊地跟在你身上。 這才是當你用「我是誰」 表達自己的時候, 真正的你。 這當中也包含了 你所有的希望和夢想, 所有你未曾實現的自己, 也包含所有其他人, 以及將來在你自傳中的所有事物。 他們,其他人, 也是你的一部份, 和你在人生中一起前行的人。 你的真實自我,如果真的存在的話, 是個複雜、混亂、不確定的自我, 那是一件好事。 為什麼不珍惜這些 不純淨和不確定性? 也許執著於純淨的身分 是不成熟的徵兆, 執著於種族、民族主義 和宗教傳統對你有害。 為什麼不對每個以你原始出身之名 所做出的區別問題提出質疑? 為什麼不拒絕那些號召你 歸屬的那些身分迷思呢? 為什麼不拒絕政治、社區領袖, 那些所謂的社區領袖, 加諸於你的身分迷思呢? 如果我們能放下出身來源 及身分認同的迷思, 我們就能挑戰自己去創意地思考, 去想想彼此,想想我們的未來。
And here culture always takes care of itself. I'm not worried about culture. Cultures are creative, dynamic processes, not imposed laws and boundaries.
文化會有自己的出路。 我不擔心文化。 文化是創意的動態過程, 而不是強加於人的法律和界線。
This is Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd, a very senior Muslim judge and thinker in Cordoba in the 12th century, and his writings were considered deeply blasphemous, heretical and evil. Long after he died, followers of his work were ruthlessly hunted down, banished and killed over several centuries by the most powerful religious institution of the medieval period. That institution was the Roman Catholic Church. Why? Because ibn Rushd said that something true in religion may conflict with something that your reason finds to be true on earth, but the latter is still true. There are two distinct worlds of truth, one based on our reason and evidence, and one that is divine, and the state, political power, social law are in the realm of reason. Religious life is a different realm. They should be kept separated. Social and political life should be governed by our reason, not by religion. And you can see why the church was upset by his writings, as indeed were some Muslims during his lifetime, because he gives us a strong statement of secularism of a kind which is normal in Europe today.
這位是伊本 · 魯世德, 他是十二世紀在哥多華的一位 資深穆斯林法官和思想家, 他寫的東西被認為是極度 瀆神的、異教的、邪惡的。 他死後很久, 他的作品的追隨者被無情地追捕、 放逐、殺害,持續了好幾世紀。 迫害者是中世紀最有權力的宗教機構 羅馬天主教教堂。 為什麼? 因為伊本魯世德說, 宗教眼裡的真實 可能和你理智所認知的 世間真實有所衝突, 但後者仍是真實的。 有兩個不同的真實世界, 一個根據理智和證據, 另一個根據神學; 而國家、政治權力 和社會法律屬於理智的範疇, 信仰生活則在另一邊; 兩個應該要被區分開來。 社會與政治應該要 由我們的理智來管理, 而非由信仰來管理。 不難看出為何教堂會 對他的著作感到氣憤, 在他一生中有些穆斯林也是如此, 因為他給了我們 政教分離的強烈聲明, 這種聲明現今在歐洲就很正常。
Now, history plays many tricks on us. It undermines our fixed truths and what we believe to be our culture and their culture. Ibn Rushd, someone who happens to be a Muslim, is considered one of the key influences in the introduction and spread of secularism in Europe.
歷史經常戲弄我們, 它破壞了我們確切的真理 以及我們對我們的文化 和其他文化的認知。 伊本魯世德剛好是個穆斯林, 他被公認是在歐洲提出和傳播 政教分離論的關鍵影響人物之一。
So against religious, nationalist and racial purists of all kinds, can you make his story a part of your own, not because he happened to be a Muslim, not because he happened to be an Arab, but because he was a human being with some very good ideas that shook his world and ours.
在與各種宗教、民族主義、 種族淨化主義相抵觸的情況下, 你能否將他的故事 變成你的故事的一部份? 不是因為他剛好是穆斯林, 不是因為他剛好是阿拉伯人, 而是因為他是人類, 他有一些很好的想法 撼動了他的世界, 以及我們的世界。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)