Now, Hegel -- he very famously said that Africa was a place without history, without past, without narrative. Yet, I'd argue that no other continent has nurtured, has fought for, has celebrated its history more concertedly. The struggle to keep African narrative alive has been one of the most consistent and hard-fought endeavors of African peoples, and it continues to be so. The struggles endured and the sacrifices made to hold onto narrative in the face of enslavement, colonialism, racism, wars and so much else has been the underpinning narrative of our history.
黑格尔曾经说过一句名言, 非洲是一个没有“历史”的地方, 那里没有“过去”,没有“传说”。 然而,我不同意这个说法。 我相信,没有任何一块大陆 像非洲一样,团结一致地 守护并庆祝自己的历史。 如何能够使传说的 生命力长久不息, 这是非洲人民所遇到的 最长久,最艰难的挑战之一, 至今依然如此。 面对奴隶贸易、殖民统治, 人种歧视和战争等灾难, 人们所忍受的折磨 与为历史的传承所做的牺牲 也成为了非洲传说的 重要部分。
And our narrative has not just survived the assaults that history has thrown at it. We've left a body of material culture, artistic magistery and intellectual output. We've mapped and we've charted and we've captured our histories in ways that are the measure of anywhere else on earth. Long before the meaningful arrival of Europeans -- indeed, whilst Europe was still mired in its Dark Age -- Africans were pioneering techniques in recording, in nurturing history, forging revolutionary methods for keeping their story alive. And living history, dynamic heritage -- it remains important to us. We see that manifest in so many ways.
在历经了血腥斗争、枪林弹雨后, 幸存下来的 不仅仅是我们的传说, 还有物质文化, 艺术瑰宝以及人民的智慧结晶。 我们不断的利用地图、 图表等世界通用的记录形式, 力求将这些东西保留下来。 在欧洲人真正踏入 非洲的土地之前—— 事实上,当时欧洲社会 还困于黑暗时期—— 非洲人民已经在记录和保存历史的 技术上成为领先的代表, 通过革命性的记录方法 使得我们的历史得以留存。 传承的历史以及鲜活的遗迹, 对如今的我们依然很重要。 我们有许多方式来见证它们的珍贵。
I'm reminded of how, just last year -- you might remember it -- the first members of the al Qaeda-affiliated Ansar Dine were indicted for war crimes and sent to the Hague. And one of the most notorious was Ahmad al-Faqi, who was a young Malian, and he was charged, not with genocide, not with ethnic cleansing, but with being one of the instigators of a campaign to destroy some of Mali's most important cultural heritage. This wasn't vandalism; these weren't thoughtless acts. One of the things that al-Faqi said when he was asked to identify himself in court was that he was a graduate, that he was a teacher. Over the course of 2012, they engaged in a systematic campaign to destroy Mali's cultural heritage. This was a deeply considered waging of war in the most powerful way that could be envisaged: in destroying narrative, in destroying stories. The attempted destruction of nine shrines, the central mosque and perhaps as many as 4,000 manuscripts was a considered act. They understood the power of narrative to hold communities together, and they conversely understood that in destroying stories, they hoped they would destroy a people.
就在去年,我回想起了—— 你们可能也记得那件事—— 基地组织下属的 一个恐怖组织, “伊斯兰卫士”的几名早期成员 被指控发起战争 并被送往荷兰的海牙。 其中最臭名昭著的就是 艾哈迈德·阿法奇(Ahmad al-Faqi), 一位年轻的马里人, 而他被指控的罪名, 不是种族大屠杀, 也不是种族净化, 而是因为他担任了 一个组织的教唆者, 去唆使他人破坏马里的 一些珍贵的文化遗迹。 这不只是故意毁坏文物的行为, 也不只是一时冲动的无脑之举。 当阿法奇站在法庭表明身份时, 他所说的其中一句话是, 他是一名研究生, 他是一名老师。 在整个 2012 年, 他们参与了一个系统的活动, 去破坏马里的文化遗产。 这是一场经过深思熟虑之后 而发起的战争, 采取的是所能想到的 最极端的方式: 摧毁所有的文化传说, 摧毁古老的历史故事。 他们计划破坏九个神殿, 中央清真寺, 以及多达四千份 保存的手稿。 他们很清楚古老传说那种 能够将整个民族凝聚起来的巨大力量, 反过来,他们也认为 只要摧毁这些故事, 也许就能摧毁整个民族。
But just as Ansar Dine and their insurgency were driven by powerful narratives, so was the local population's defense of Timbuktu and its libraries. These were communities who've grown up with stories of the Mali Empire; lived in the shadow of Timbuktu's great libraries. They'd listened to songs of its origin from their childhood, and they weren't about to give up on that without a fight. Over difficult months of 2012, during the Ansar Dine invasion, Malians, ordinary people, risked their lives to secrete and smuggle documents to safety, doing what they could to protect historic buildings and defend their ancient libraries. And although they weren't always successful, many of the most important manuscripts were thankfully saved, and today each one of the shrines that was damaged during that uprising have been rebuilt, including the 14th-century mosque that is the symbolic heart of the city. It's been fully restored.
但是正当“伊斯兰卫士”这群恐怖分子 想要针对这些古老传说 发起攻击和制造暴乱时, 当地廷巴克图的人民和图书馆 也开始了他们的顽强抵抗。 这是一群基于代代相传的马里王传说 而逐渐发展起来的社群, 那里的人们在廷巴克图的 图书馆里耳濡目染, 每个人从童年时期 就在听民族起源的歌, 他们不会就这样眼睁睁看着 自己的文化和历史被摧毁。 经历了 2012 年“伊斯兰卫士” 实施文化侵略的 最艰难的那几个月, 那些普通的马里民众 冒着生命危险 秘密把文件转移到安全地点, 力所能及地去保护历史建筑, 保护他们古老的图书馆。 尽管他们的行动并不总是成功的, 但还是有大量珍贵的手稿幸存了下来。 今天,每个在暴乱中 被破坏的圣地神殿 都获得了翻修和重建, 包括市中心具有代表性的 十四世纪的清真寺, 都被很好地修缮了。
But even in the bleakest periods of the occupation, enough of the population of Timbuktu simply would not bow to men like al-Faqi. They wouldn't allow their history to be wiped away, and anyone who has visited that part of the world, they will understand why, why stories, why narrative, why histories are of such importance. History matters. History really matters. And for peoples of African descent, who have seen their narrative systematically assaulted over centuries, this is critically important. This is part of a recurrent echo across our history of ordinary people making a stand for their story, for their history.
但即使在暴动最严重的时刻, 很多廷巴克图的人民都不会 向阿法奇那样的人低头示弱。 他们不容许自己的历史被抹去, 只有实地参观过那里的人 才会明白背后的原因。 为什么故事,传说和历史那么重要。 历史很重要, 真的很重要。 对于目睹了自己的文化传说 被全面侵略了几个世纪的 非洲后裔来说, 历史尤其重要。 普通群众为了本国文明, 为了本国历史而奋起抗争, 成为了我们的历史中 反复回荡的回声。
Just as in the 19th century, enslaved peoples of African descent in the Caribbean fought under threat of punishment, fought to practice their religions, to celebrate Carnival, to keep their history alive. Ordinary people were prepared to make great sacrifices, some even the ultimate sacrifice, for their history. And it was through control of narrative that some of the most devastating colonial campaigns were crystallized. It was through the dominance of one narrative over another that the worst manifestations of colonialism became palpable.
就像在十九世纪, 加勒比海地区被奴役的非洲后裔 即使面对酷刑威胁, 也依然奋勇抗争, 为他们的信仰而战, 为能够欢庆佳节而战, 为保护他们鲜活的历史而战。 普通民众都做好了牺牲的准备, 一些人甚至会为了他们的历史 而无私的奉献一切。 通过对传说的控制, 最具破坏性的一些 殖民主义行动得以成功。 通过让一个故事压倒另一个故事, 殖民主义最邪恶的影响得以成型。
When, in 1874, the British attacked the Ashanti, they overran Kumasi and captured the Asantehene. They knew that controlling territory and subjugating the head of state -- it wasn't enough. They recognized that the emotional authority of state lay in its narrative and the symbols that represented it, like the Golden Stool. They understood that control of story was absolutely critical to truly controlling a people. And the Ashanti understood, too, and they never were to relinquish the precious Golden Stool, never to completely capitulate to the British. Narrative matters.
当英国于 1874 年袭击 非洲西部 Ashanti 地区时, 他们占领了库马西, 抓捕了阿散蒂土王。 他们明白只有军事控制 以及征服当地首脑 是远远不够的。 他们意识到这个地区的情感支柱 来源于当地的文化传说 以及文化传说的象征, 像是那只金凳子。 他们明白控制当地的文化传说 对于真正征服当地人民 起着至关重要的作用。 阿散蒂人民也明白这个道理, 他们绝不交出金凳子, 绝不让英国完全统治他们。 文化传说至关重要。
In 1871, Karl Mauch, a German geologist working in Southern Africa, he stumbled across an extraordinary complex, a complex of abandoned stone buildings. And he never quite recovered from what he saw: a granite, drystone city, stranded on an outcrop above an empty savannah: Great Zimbabwe. And Mauch had no idea who was responsible for what was obviously an astonishing feat of architecture, but he felt sure of one single thing: this narrative needed to be claimed.
在 1871 年,一位叫 卡尔·毛奇(Karl Mauch)的 德国地质学家在非洲南部考察, 他发现了一个奇特的建筑群, 一组废弃的石头建筑。 在他的脑海中, 这番景象始终历历在目: 一座花岗岩石城 矗立在一片荒芜的大草原上: 这就是大津巴布韦古城。 毛奇不知道是谁建造了 这些令人叹为观止的建筑物, 但是他对于一件事很确定: 这段文化传说需要为世人知晓。
He later wrote that the wrought architecture of Great Zimbabwe was simply too sophisticated, too special to have been built by Africans. Mauch, like dozens of Europeans that followed in his footsteps, speculated on who might have built the city. And one went as far as to posit, "I do not think that I am far wrong if I suppose that that ruin on the hill is a copy of King Solomon's Temple." And as I'm sure you know, Mauch, he hadn't stumbled upon King Solomon's Temple, but upon a purely African complex of buildings constructed by a purely African civilization from the 11th century onward.
随后,他写道, 大津巴布韦的壮观建筑结构 太过精细复杂和独特, 非洲人没有能力建造这样的建筑。 如同成百上千 追随他脚步的欧洲人一样, 毛奇也在猜测, 是谁建造了这个城市。 有人提出了这样的假设: “如果我提出:在那山岗上的废墟 其实是一种对于所罗门王庙宇的模仿, 应该也不算是大错特错。” 大家都知道,毛奇 所发现的并不是所罗门王庙, 而是由十一世纪或是更早的 纯粹的非洲文明建立起来的, 完全属于非洲的建筑群。
But like Leo Frobenius, a fellow German anthropologist who speculated some years later, upon seeing the Nigerian Ife Heads for the very first time, that they must have been artifacts from the long-lost kingdom of Atlantis. He felt, just like Hegel, an almost instinctive need to rob Africa of its history. These ideas are so irrational, so deeply held, that even when faced with the physical archaeology, they couldn't think rationally. They could no longer see. And like so much of Africa's relationship with Enlightenment Europe, it involved appropriation, denigration and control of the continent. It involved an attempt to bend narrative to Europe's ends.
但是就像一位德国人类学家 利奥·费罗贝尼乌斯(Leo Frobenius) 若干年后的猜测一样, 毛奇看到尼日利亚伊费青铜头像时, 就认定它们是消失很久的 亚特兰蒂斯帝国的遗物。 他有种和黑格尔一样的感受, 去洗劫非洲的文化历史几乎 就像一种与生俱来的直觉。 这些想法如此荒谬可笑, 却又深深扎根于他们的脑海中, 以至于面对着眼前的历史遗迹, 他们都不能理性思考。 他们看不到事实。 就像非洲与启蒙时期的 欧洲的关系一样, 它涉及对非洲大陆的 侵吞,贬低,以及控制。 他们企图为了 让欧洲得利而扭曲历史。
And if Mauch had really wanted to find an answer to his question, "Where did Great Zimbabwe or that great stone building come from?" he would have needed to begin his quest a thousand miles away from Great Zimbabwe, at the eastern edge of the continent, where Africa meets the Indian Ocean. He would have needed to trace the gold and the goods from some of the great trading emporia of the Swahili coast to Great Zimbabwe, to gain a sense of the scale and influence of that mysterious culture, to get a picture of Great Zimbabwe as a political, cultural entity through the kingdoms and the civilizations that were drawn under its control. For centuries, traders have been drawn to that bit of the coast from as far away as India and China and the Middle East. And it might be tempting to interpret, because it's exquisitely beautiful, that building, it might be tempting to interpret it as just an exquisite, symbolic jewel, a vast ceremonial sculpture in stone. But the site must have been a complex at the center of a significant nexus of economies that defined this region for a millennium.
如果毛奇真心想要回答 “大津巴布韦古城,或者那幢 大岩石建筑,是从哪里来的?” 他就需要在 离大津巴布韦一千英里之外, 非洲大陆和印度洋 交界的地方开始他的调查。 他就需要追踪从斯瓦希里海岸的 一些大贸易中心到达 大津巴布韦的黄金和货物, 从而理解那神秘文化的 规模与影响, 并通过受它控制的 王国与文明 了解大津巴布韦 这一政治文化体。 几百年中,那段海岸吸引了 从印度,中国,中东等地的商人。 正因为那幢建筑物那么美, 因为那幢建筑物那么美, 一般人很容易把它想象为 一颗华丽的,有象征意义的珠宝, 一座庞大的纪念石雕。 可是该遗址曾经 一定是千年来界定该地区 重要经济联系中心的综合体。
This matters. These narratives matter. Even today, the fight to tell our story is not just against time. It's not just against organizations like Ansar Dine. It's also in establishing a truly African voice after centuries of imposed histories. We don't just have to recolonize our history, but we have to find ways to build back the intellectual underpinning that Hegel denied was there at all. We have to rediscover African philosophy, African perspectives, African history.
这是很重要的。 那些故事有着深远的意义。 即便是现在,为了延续我们的 历史文化,我们不仅要跟时间抗争, 不仅要跟“伊斯兰卫士”等组织抗争, 也要摆脱外界几百年来 强加给我们的历史, 并建立真正属于非洲人的历史。 我们不仅需要夺回我们的历史, 我们还要想办法重建 黑格尔认为不存在的, 属于我们的知识基础和理论支持。 我们需要重新发现非洲哲学, 非洲观点,和非洲历史。
The flowering of Great Zimbabwe -- it wasn't a freak moment. It was part of a burgeoning change across the whole of the continent. Perhaps the great exemplification of that was Sundiata Keita, the founder of the Mali Empire, probably the greatest empire that West Africa has ever seen. Sundiata Keita was born about 1235, growing up in a time of profound flux. He was seeing the transition between the Berber dynasties to the north, he may have heard about the rise of the Ife to the south and perhaps even the dominance of the Solomaic Dynasty in Ethiopia to the east. And he must have been aware that he was living through a moment of quickening change, of growing confidence in our continent. He must have been aware of new states that were building their influence from as far afield as Great Zimbabwe and the Swahili sultanates, each engaged directly or indirectly beyond the continent itself, each driven also to invest in securing their intellectual and cultural legacy. He probably would have engaged in trade with these peer nations as part of a massive continental nexus of great medieval African economies.
大津巴布韦的灿烂 不是短暂的,偶然的。 它是当时全非洲 一次大变革当中的一部分。 也许这次变革中最伟大的代表 是松迪亚塔·凯塔(Sundiata Keita), 马里帝国的开创者, 带领着西非史上可以说最伟大的帝国。 松迪亚塔大概生于 1235 年, 在一个充满动荡和变革的时代中长大。 他当时目睹了北方柏柏尔朝代的更替, 他有可能听说过南方伊费的崛起, 甚至可能听说过东方 埃塞俄比亚所罗门王朝 统治的转变。 他肯定意识到了,他所处的时代 是一个快速变化的时代, 是一个人民对我们的大陆 越来越有信心的时代。 他肯定意识到,有新的国家 在建立他们的影响, 远到大津巴布韦 和斯瓦西里君主国家, 都直接或间接在非洲之外的地方活动, 都决心投入资源 保护它们的知识和文化遗产。 作为中世纪非洲大经济体中 一个庞大的大陆枢纽, 他当时有可能 跟这些邻国进行了贸易。
And like all of those great empires, Sundiata Keita invested in securing his legacy through history by using story -- not just formalizing the idea of storytelling, but in building a whole convention of telling and retelling his story as a key to founding a narrative for his empire. And these stories, in musical form, are still sung today.
而像所有那些大帝国一样, 松迪亚塔也致力于 利用故事在历史中 留下他的遗产—— 不仅把讲故事这个概念正式化, 还建立了一套完整的 讲述和复述他的故事的惯例, 作为为他的帝国建立 一个传说的关键。 而这些故事,至今仍然以音乐的形式 被人们传唱。
Now, several decades after the death of Sundiata, a new king ascended the throne, Mansa Musa, its most famous emperor. Now, Mansa Musa is famed for his vast gold reserves and for sending envoys to the courts of Europe and the Middle East. He was every bit as ambitious as his predecessors, but saw a different kind of route of securing his place in history. In 1324, Mansa Musa went on pilgrimage to Mecca, and he traveled with a retinue of thousands. It's been said that 100 camels each carried 100 pounds of gold. It's been recorded that he built a fully functioning mosque every Friday of his trip, and performed so many acts of kindness, that the great Berber chronicler, Ibn Battuta, wrote, "He flooded Cairo with kindness, spending so much in the markets of North Africa and the Middle East that it affected the price of gold into the next decade."
松迪亚塔去世的数十年以后, 一个新的国王继承了他的王位, 他就是曼萨·穆萨, 马里帝国最著名的帝王。 曼萨·穆萨因拥有巨大的金库, 并且向欧洲和中东的朝廷 派发使者而出名。 虽然他与他的先人一样有雄心, 但他看到了另一种 确保自己在历史上地位的方式。 在 1324 年,曼萨·穆萨 开始了他去麦加的朝圣之旅, 随行人员达到了几千人。 有人说他们带了 100 匹骆驼, 每一个都背着 100 磅重的黄金。 据记载,他的旅程中每一个星期五 都建造出了一个完整的清真寺, 并且到处行善积德, 于是伟大的柏柏尔编年史家 伊本·白图泰 (Ibn Battuta)写道, “他在开罗到处散播慈悲, 在北非和中东的市场花的钱 多得影响到了之后十年的黄金价格。”
And on his return, Mansa Musa memorialized his journey by building a mosque at the heart of his empire. And the legacy of what he left behind, Timbuktu, it represents one of the great bodies of written historical material produced by African scholars: about 700,000 medieval documents, ranging from scholarly works to letters, which have been preserved often by private households. And at its peak, in the 15th and 16th centuries, the university there was as influential as any educational establishment in Europe, attracting about 25,000 students. This was in a city of around 100,000 people. It cemented Timbuktu as a world center of learning. But this was a very particular kind of learning that was focused and driven by Islam.
在返回后, 曼萨·穆萨为了纪念他的旅程, 在他帝国的中心建造了一座清真寺。 而他遗留下来的 廷巴克图, 代表了由非洲学者整理的最伟大的 一套书面历史材料: 包含大概七十万份中世纪文件, 包括学术作品和信件, 其中许多都是被私人收藏的。 在十五和十六世纪的顶峰时期, 那里的大学的影响力 能够跟任何欧洲教育机构媲美, 吸引了大概两万五千名学生, 而这个城市的人口只有十万。 它稳固了廷巴克图 作为世界级学习中心的地位。 然而,这是一种十分特殊的教育, 它的核心动力是伊斯兰教。
And since I first visited Timbuktu, I've visited many other libraries across Africa, and despite Hegel's view that Africa has no history, not only is it a continent with an embarrassment of history, it has developed unrivaled systems for collecting and promoting it. There are thousands of small archives, textile drum stores, that have become more than repositories of manuscripts and material culture. They have become fonts of communal narrative, symbols of continuity, and I'm pretty sure that many of those European philosophers who questioned an African intellectual tradition must have, beneath their prejudices, been aware of the contribution of Africa's intellectuals to Western learning. They must have known of the great North African medieval philosophers who had driven the Mediterranean. They must have known about and been aware of that tradition that is part of Christianity, of the three wise men. And in the medieval period, Balthazar, that third wise man, was represented as an African king. And he became hugely popular as the third intellectual leg of Old World learning, alongside Europe and Asia, as a peer.
自从我第一次去廷巴克图, 我又参观了非洲各地其他的图书馆, 虽然黑格尔说非洲没有历史, 而我却发现它不仅有很丰富的历史, 还发展出了无可比拟的 采集与弘扬历史的系统。 那里有上千个小档案馆, 纺织鼓商店, 它们的意义已经超过了简单的 文件与物质遗产的储藏处, 它们已经成为了公共叙事的载体, 传承的象征。 我相信,许多质疑 非洲存在知识传统的 欧洲哲学家, 在他们隐藏的偏见之下, 也一定意识到了非洲知识分子 对西方思想的贡献。 他们肯定知道那些 曾经领导了地中海地区的 伟大的中世纪北非哲学家。 他们也肯定知道 基督教的“东方三智者”这个传统。 而在中世纪,第三位智者巴尔塔萨, 代表着非洲的君主。 他作为旧世界 与欧洲和亚洲并列的 第三个智慧之柱 而家喻户晓。
These things were well-known. These communities did not grow up in isolation. Timbuktu's wealth and power developed because the city became a hub of lucrative intercontinental trade routes. This was one center in a borderless, transcontinental, ambitious, outwardly focused, confident continent. Berber merchants, they carried salt and textiles and new precious goods and learning down into West Africa from across the desert. But as you can see from this map that was produced a little time after the life of Mansa Musa, there was also a nexus of sub-Saharan trade routes, along which African ideas and traditions added to the intellectual worth of Timbuktu and indeed across the desert to Europe. Manuscripts and material culture, they have become fonts of communal narrative, symbols of continuity. And I'm pretty sure that those European intellectuals who cast aspersions on our history, they knew fundamentally about our traditions.
这些事是众所周知的。 这些社会的发展不是孤立的。 廷巴克图的财富和影响要归因于 它作为多个重要的 国际贸易路线枢纽的角色, 屹立在 一个无边界,跨大陆, 有雄心,有志气, 注重对外联系的大陆上。 柏柏尔商人跨越沙漠, 把盐、纺织品 新的珍贵产品和知识 带进了西非。 但是你可以从这张 在曼萨·穆萨死后不久 绘制的地图中看出, 那里曾是撒哈拉沙漠以南 多个贸易路线的枢纽, 非洲的思想和传统 沿着这些贸易路线传播, 增加了廷巴克图的智慧价值, 让非洲智慧跨过沙漠传递到欧洲。 手写历史文件和物质文化遗产 已经成为了公共叙事的来源, 传承的象征。 我相信,那些质疑我们历史的 欧洲学者, 其实是知道我们的传统文化的。
And today, as strident forces like Ansar Dine and Boko Haram grow popular in West Africa, it's that spirit of truly indigenous, dynamic, intellectual defiance that holds ancient traditions in good stead. When Mansa Musa made Timbuktu his capital, he looked upon the city as a Medici looked upon Florence: as the center of an open, intellectual, entrepreneurial empire that thrived on great ideas wherever they came from. The city, the culture, the very intellectual DNA of this region remains so beautifully complex and diverse, that it will always remain, in part, located in storytelling traditions that derive from indigenous, pre-Islamic traditions. The highly successful form of Islam that developed in Mali became popular because it accepted those freedoms and that inherent cultural diversity. And the celebration of that complexity, that love of rigorously contested discourse, that appreciation of narrative, was and remains, in spite of everything, the very heart of West Africa.
今天,在“伊斯兰卫士” 和“博科圣地”等鲁莽的势力 在西非扩张的同时, 那种完全土生土长的, 积极的,智慧的抗争精神 也在维持着古老的传统。 当曼萨·穆萨把廷巴克图 变成他的首都的时候, 他像一个美第奇仰望佛洛伦萨一样 仰望那座城市, 将它看作一个开放的,智慧的, 有企业精神的帝国的中心, 因吸纳世界各地的 伟大思想而兴旺发达。 那座城市,那个文化, 那个地区智慧的基因, 如今还是那么复杂,那么多元, 在某种程度上,它将永远保留 源自本土的、前伊斯兰传统的 讲故事的传统。 由马里帝国发展而来的伊斯兰教派别 之所以那么受欢迎, 是因为它接受了这些自由 和内在的文化多元性。 而那种对复杂性的颂扬, 那种对严谨的激烈争论的热爱, 那种对传说的欣赏, 虽然面对重重障碍, 却依然深深扎根于西非。
And today, as the shrines and the mosque vandalized by Ansar Dine have been rebuilt, many of the instigators of their destruction have been jailed. And we are left with powerful lessons, reminded once again of how our history and narrative have held communities together for millennia, how they remain vital in making sense of modern Africa. And we're also reminded of how the roots of this confident, intellectual, entrepreneurial, outward-facing, culturally porous, tariff-free Africa was once the envy of the world.
而今天,曾经被“伊斯兰卫士” 所摧毁的寺庙 已经得到了重建, 造成这些破坏的 罪魁祸首已经入狱。 我们学到了重要的教训, 再次提醒我们,我们的历史和传说 在几千年来团结了各个群体, 要了解现代非洲,就必须 先了解那些故事和历史。 这也提醒了我们: 这个自信的,智慧的, 有企业精神的, 开放的,包容的, 无关税的非洲文化根基 如何曾经被全世界所仰慕。
But those roots, they remain.
而这些根基今天依然存在。
Thank you very much.
谢谢大家。
(Applause)
(鼓掌)