It began with one question: If Africa was a bar, what would your country be drinking or doing? I kicked it off with a guess about South Africa, which wasn't exactly according to the rules because South Africa's not my country. But alluding to the country's continual attempts to build a postracial society after being ravaged for decades by apartheid, I tweeted, #ifafricawasabar South Africa would be drinking all kinds of alcohol and begging them to get along in its stomach.
一切都從這個問題開始: 如果非洲是間酒吧, 你的國家會喝哪種酒、做什麼事? 我一開始先猜南非, 其實有點犯規, 因為南非不是我的國家。 但是要暗示這個國家 不斷在嘗試 建立一個後種族社會, 在數十年的種族隔離蹂躪之後, 我在推特上寫: 「#如果非洲是間酒吧, 南非大概什麼酒都喝, 還會求這些酒好好待在胃裡。」
And then I waited. And then I had that funny feeling where I wondered if I crossed the line. So, I sent out a few other tweets about my own country and a few other African countries I'm familiar with. And then I waited again, but this time I read through almost every tweet I had ever tweeted to convince myself, no, to remind myself that I'm really funny and that if nobody gets it, that's fine.
然後我就等著。 然後我有一種奇怪的感覺, 懷疑自己是不是有點超過。 所以我又推了幾個訊息, 講我自己的國家, 以及其它幾個我熟悉的非洲國家。 然後我再繼續等, 但是這次, 我幾乎把我推過的 每一則訊息都讀一遍, 來說服我自己, 不對,是提醒我自己我有多幽默, 如果沒人看得懂,那就算了。
But luckily, I didn't have to do that for very long. Very soon, people were participating. In fact, by the end of that week in July, the hashtag #ifafricawasabar would have garnered around 60,000 tweets, lit up the continent and made its way to publications all over the world.
但是幸好, 我不需要自我解嘲太久。 很快,大家就開始加入。 事實上,在七月的那週結束時, 推特標籤「#如果非洲是間酒吧」 就收到了將近六萬則訊息, 整片大陸如醉如痴, 並且開始在全世界的 出版品上出現。
People were using the hashtag to do many different things. To poke fun at their stereotypes: [#IfAfricaWasABar Nigeria would be outside explaining that he will pay the entrance fee, all he needs is the bouncer's account details.]
大家拿這個標籤做很多不同的事。 有的拿來取笑他們的刻板印象: 「#如果非洲是間酒吧, 奈及利亞會站在外面解釋 他會付入場費, 反正只要知道保鏢的銀行帳戶。」 (諷刺詐騙集團)
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
To criticize government spending: [#ifafricawasabar South Africa would be ordering bottles it can't pronounce running a tab it won't be able to pay]
有的拿來批評政府支出: 「#如果非洲是間酒吧, 南非會訂購叫不出名字的瓶裝水, 開無法支付的水站。」
To make light of geopolitical tensions: [#IfAfricaWasABar South Sudan would be the new guy with serious anger management issues.]
有的拿來蔑視地緣政治的緊張關係: 「#如果非洲是間酒吧, 南蘇丹會是那個 有嚴重憤怒管理問題的新傢伙。」
To remind us that even in Africa there are some countries we don't know exist: [#IfAfricaWasABar Lesotho would be that person who nobody really knows but is always in the pictures.]
有的拿來提醒我們即使在非洲, 還是有我們不知道的國家存在: 「#如果非洲是間酒吧, 賴索托就是那個 沒有人真的認識, 但老是出現在照片裡的人。」
And also to make fun of the countries that don't think that they're in Africa: [#IfAfricaWasABar Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco be like "What the hell are we doing here?!!"]
還有拿來取笑那些 自認不在非洲的國家: 「#如果非洲是間酒吧, 埃及、利比亞及摩洛哥 大概會說:『搞什麼鬼, 我們在這裡幹嘛?』」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
And to note the countries that had made a big turnaround: [#ifAfricawasabar Rwanda would be that girl that comes with no money and no transport but leaves drunk, happy and rich]
有的提到轉變很大的國家: 「#如果非洲是間酒吧, 盧安達會是那個 進來時沒半毛錢、沒車的女孩, 但離開時開心、有錢、醉茫茫。」
But most importantly, people were using the hashtag to connect. People were connecting over their Africanness. So for one week in July, Twitter became a real African bar. And I was really thrilled, mainly because I realized that Pan-Africanism could work, that we had before us, between us, at our fingertips a platform that just needed a small spark to light in us a hunger for each other.
但最重要的, 大家用這個標籤來連結。 大家用「非洲情」來連結。 所以七月的某一週, 推特真的成了一間非洲酒吧。 我激動得不得了, 主要是因為我意識到 泛非洲主義可以行得通, 在我們面前、我們之間、 我們的指尖上, 存在著一個平臺, 只要星星之火, 就可以燎起彼此的渴望。
My name is Siyanda Mohutsiwa, I'm 22 years old and I am Pan-Africanist by birth. Now, I say I'm Pan-Africanist by birth because my parents are from two different African countries. My father's from a country called Botswana in southern Africa. It's only slightly bigger than Germany. This year we celebrate our 50th year of stable democracy. And it has some very progressive social policies. My mother's country is the Kingdom of Swaziland. It's a very, very small country, also in southern Africa. It is Africa's last complete monarchy. So it's been ruled by a king and a royal family in line with their tradition, for a very long time.
我的名字是希妍妲·莫瑚茨娃, 我 22 歲, 我是泛非洲人出身。 我說我是泛非洲人出身, 因為我的父母來自非洲 兩個不同的國家。 我的父親來自非洲南部 一個叫波札那的國家。 只比德國大一點點。 今年我們慶祝國家 邁入穩定民主 50 年, 而且我們的社會政策也非常先進。 我的母親來自史瓦濟蘭王國。 它是個非常非常小的國家, 也在非洲南部。 它是非洲最後一個君主專制國。 被君王及王室統治, 實施他們傳統的王室繼承法 好長一段時間。
On paper, these countries seem very different. And when I was a kid, I could see the difference. It rained a lot in one country, it didn't rain quite as much in the other. But outside of that, I didn't really realize why it mattered that my parents were from two different places. But it would go on to have a very peculiar effect on me. You see, I was born in one country and raised in the other.
理論上看這兩個國家 似乎非常不一樣。 在我小時候,我還看得到不同點。 一個國家下很多雨, 另一個國家沒下那麼多雨。 但是除此之外, 我其實並不了解 我的父母來自不同的國家 有什麼大不了。 但是時間流逝, 它對我產生非常特別的影響。 你知道嗎,我在一個國家出生, 卻在另一個國家成長。
When we moved to Botswana, I was a toddler who spoke fluent SiSwati and nothing else. So I was being introduced to my new home, my new cultural identity, as a complete outsider, incapable of comprehending anything that was being said to me by the family and country whose traditions I was meant to move forward. But very soon, I would shed SiSwati. And when I would go back to Swaziland, I would be constantly confronted by how very non-Swazi I was becoming.
我們搬到波札那時, 我還在學步,說一口流利的史瓦濟語, 其它的都不會。 所以我在開始接觸我的新家, 我的新文化認同時, 完全是個外人, 無法理解人家告訴我的任何事, 即使這個家庭及國家的傳統 是我即將加入的。 但我很快就丟了史瓦濟語。 而且我回史瓦濟蘭時, 我不斷注意到自己 變得有多麼不像史瓦濟蘭人。
Add to that my entry into Africa's private school system, whose entire purpose is to beat the Africanness out of you, and I would have a very peculiar adolescence. But I think that my interest in ideas of identity was born here, in the strange intersection of belonging to two places at once but not really belonging to either one very well and belonging to this vast space in between and around simultaneously. I became obsessed with the idea of a shared African identity.
再加上我進入非洲的 私立學校系統, 它全部的目的就是 要把你「去非洲化」, 而且我有一段 非常特殊的青春期。 但是我想我對身分認同的概念 產生興趣就是從這裡開始, 在一個很奇怪的十字路口上, 同時歸屬於兩個地方, 卻又對兩邊都沒有真正的歸屬感, 同時存在於這片無際的 交錯環繞空間裡。 我開始迷上共享非洲身分這個想法。
Since then, I have continued to read about politics and geography and identity and what all those things mean. I've also held on to a deep curiosity about African philosophies. When I began to read, I gravitated towards the works of black intellectuals like Steve Biko and Frantz Fanon, who tackled complex ideas like decolonization and black consciousness. And when I thought, at 14, that I had digested these grand ideas, I moved on to the speeches of iconic African statesmen like Burkina Faso's Thomas Sankara and Congo's Patrice Lumumba. I read every piece of African fiction that I could get my hands on.
從那時候開始, 我一直在讀有關政治、 地理、身分認同 及這一切意義的文章。 我也一直對非洲哲學 抱持深切的好奇心。 我開始讀的時候, 我深受黑人知識份子文章的吸引, 像南非的史蒂芬·比科 及法國的法蘭茲·法農, 他們著手在複雜的觀念, 如去殖民化及黑人的意識問題。 在我 14 歲,認為自己 已經消化了這些偉大的想法後, 我就進一步去看 非洲政治代表人物的演講, 像是布吉納法索的 托馬斯·桑卡拉, 及剛果的帕特里斯·盧蒙巴。 我讀每一本我拿得到的非洲小說。
So when Twitter came, I hopped on with the enthusiasm of a teenage girl whose friends are super, super bored of hearing about all this random stuff.
所以當推特出現時, 我以青少女的熱情 一踴躍上這班列車, 因為我的朋友都被我這些 無關緊要的話題搞到無聊到爆。
The year was 2011 and all over southern Africa and the whole continent, affordable data packages for smartphones and Internet surfing became much easier to get. So my generation, we were sending messages to each other on this platform that just needed 140 characters and a little bit of creativity. On long commutes to work, in lectures that some of us should have been paying attention to, on our lunch breaks, we would communicate as much as we could about the everyday realities of being young and African.
那是 2011 年, 整個非洲南部及整片大陸上, 平價的智慧型手機上網方案 及網路瀏覽 變得更容易取得。 所以我這個世代, 我們都用這種平臺彼此送簡訊, 你只需要 140 個字及一點點創意。 在去上班的漫長路途上、 在我們應該注意聽講的課堂上、 在午休時間, 我們都盡可能多通訊, 聊著非洲青年的現實生活。
But of course, this luxury was not available to everybody. So this meant that if you were a teenage girl in Botswana and you wanted to have fun on the Internet, one, you had to tweet in English. Two, you had to follow more than just the three other people you knew online. You had to follow South Africans, Zimbabweans, Ghanaians, Nigerians. And suddenly, your whole world opened up. And my whole world did open up.
但是當然,不是每一個人 都享受得到這種奢華。 所以這意味著 如果你是波札那的青少女, 而且你想在網路上玩得開心, 一,你得用英文發訊息。 二,除了你在網上認識的那三個人, 你得跟隨更多帳號, 你得跟隨南非人、辛巴威人 迦納人、奈及利亞人。 忽然間,你的整個世界大大開展。 我的世界的確開展了。
I followed vibrant Africans who were travelling around the continent, taking pictures of themselves and posting them under the hashtag #myafrica. Because at that time, if you were to search Africa on Twitter or on Google or any kind of social media, you would think that the entire continent was just pictures of animals and white guys drinking cocktails in hotel resorts.
我跟隨了幾個活躍的非洲人, 他們在整片大陸上旅行, 常常拍自己的相片, 還貼出來, 標上「#我的非洲」標籤。 因為當時, 如果你在推特或 Google, 或在任何一種社群媒體上搜尋非洲, 你會以為整個非洲大陸 就是動物的照片, 及白人在飯店渡假村喝雞尾酒。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
But Africans were using this platform to take some kind of ownership of the tourism sectors. It was Africans taking selfies on the beaches of Nigeria. It was Africans in cocktail bars in Nairobi.
但是非洲人用這種平臺 取回觀光部分某種程度的所有權。 是非洲人在奈及利亞的海灘上自拍。 是非洲人在奈洛比的 酒吧裡喝雞尾酒。
And these were the same Africans that I began to meet in my own travels around the continent. We would discuss African literature, politics, economic policy. But almost invariably, every single time, we would end up discussing Twitter. And that's when I realized what this was. We were standing in the middle of something amazing, because for the first time ever young Africans could discuss the future of our continent in real time, without the restriction of borders, finances and watchful governments.
他們就是我在環遊大陸的旅程中。 開始遇到的同一批非洲人, 我們會討論非洲文學、 政治、經濟政策。 但是幾乎無一例外,每一次 我們最後都會討論推特。 那也是我明白 這代表什麼意義的時刻。 我們正站在奇妙的東西之中, 因為這是第一次 非洲青年能夠即時討論 自己大陸的未來, 沒有邊界、財務及政府監控的限制。
Because the little known truth is many Africans know a lot less about other African countries than some Westerners might know about Africa as a whole. This is by accident, but sometimes, it's by design. For example, in apartheid South Africa, black South Africans were constantly being bombarded with this message that any country ruled by black people was destined for failure. And this was done to convince them that they were much better off under crushing white rule than they were living in a black and free nation. Add to that Africa's colonial, archaic education system, which has been unthinkingly carried over from the 1920s -- and at the age of 15, I could name all the various causes of the wars that had happened in Europe in the past 200 years, but I couldn't name the president of my neighboring country. And to me, this doesn't make any sense because whether we like it or not, the fates of African people are deeply intertwined.
因為鮮為人知的事實是 許多非洲人 對其它非洲國家所知極少, 甚至比西方人 對非洲整體的了解還少。 這是意外造成的, 但是有時候也是刻意的。 譬如在種族隔離的南非, 黑人會不斷被疲勞轟炸, 說任何一個黑人統治的國家 都注定要失敗。 這麼做是為了說服他們 被白人壓倒性統治, 會比生活在一個全黑 又自由的國家要好得多。 再加上非洲的殖民式、 古老的教育體制, 自 1920 年代 不假思索地沿用至今—— 在 15 歲時,我就可以說出所有 過去 200 年中 歐洲發生過的戰爭的各種起因, 但是我無法說出鄰國總統的名字。 對我而言,這一點道理都沒有, 因為無論我們喜歡與否, 非洲人民的命運 都深深交織在一起。
When disaster hits, when turmoil hits, we share the consequences. When Burundians flee political turmoil, they go to us, to other African countries. Africa has six of the world's largest refugee centers. What was once a Burundian problem becomes an African problem. So to me, there are no Sudanese problems or South African problems or Kenyan problems, only African problems because eventually, we share the turmoil.
災難來臨,時局動盪時, 我們同當後果。 在蒲隆地人逃離政治動亂時, 他們逃向我們, 逃向其它非洲國家。 非洲有六個世界上最大的難民中心。 曾經只是蒲隆地人的問題, 現在變成非洲人的問題。 所以對我而言, 沒有蘇丹人的問題, 或南非人的問題,或肯亞人的問題, 只有非洲人的問題, 因為最終,我們共同擔當動亂。
So if we share the problems, why aren't we doing a better job of sharing the successes? How can we do that? Well, in the long term, we can shoot towards increasing inter-African trade, removing borders and putting pressure on leaders to fulfill regional agreements they've already signed. But I think that the biggest way for Africa to share its successes is to foster something I like to call social Pan-Africanism.
所以如果我們可以有難同當, 為什麼我們不能也有福同享? 要怎麼做呢? 長遠來看, 我們可以朝增加非洲內的貿易邁進, 消除邊界及對領袖施壓, 以落實他們已經簽署的區域協定。 但是我認為非洲 要同享成功最大的方法, 是促進我所謂社群泛非洲主義。
Now, political Pan-Africanism already exists, so I'm not inventing anything totally new here. But political Pan-Africanism is usually the African unity of the political elite. And who does that benefit? Well, African leaders, almost exclusively. No, what I'm talking about is the Pan-Africanism of the ordinary African. Young Africans like me, we are bursting with creative energy, with innovative ideas. But with bad governance and shaky institutions, all of this potential could go to waste. On a continent where more than a handful of leaders have been in power longer than the majority of the populations has been alive, we are in desperate need of something new, something that works. And I think that thing is social Pan-Africanism.
現在,政治泛非洲主義已經存在, 所以我沒有發明什麼全新的東西。 但是政治的泛非洲主義 通常是指非洲政治菁英的聯合。 這樣是誰得到好處? 嗯,幾乎完全是非洲領袖。 不是這樣的,我在說的 是普通非洲人的泛非洲主義。 像我這樣的非洲青年, 我們充滿了創意能量, 創新思想。 但是有不好的政府 與不穩定的機構, 所有的潛能終將成為浪費。 在這片大陸,大多數政要 掌權的時間, 都超過大多數人口的壽命, 我們迫切需要新的東西, 能行得通的東西。 我認為那個東西就是社群泛非主義。
My dream is that young Africans stop allowing borders and circumstance to suffocate our innovation. My dream is that when a young African comes up with something brilliant, they don't say, "Well, this wouldn't work in my country," and then give up. My dream is that young Africans begin to realize that the entire continent is our canvas, is our home. Using the Internet, we can begin to think collaboratively, we can begin to innovate together. In Africa, we say, "If you want to go fast, you go alone, but if you want to go far, you go together." And I believe that social Pan-Africanism is how we can go far together.
我的夢想是非洲青年 不再允許邊界與環境 窒礙我們的創新。 我的夢想是當一名非洲青年 想出了絕妙的東西, 他們不會說: 「唉,這在我的國家行不通,」 然後放棄。 我的夢想是非洲青年開始了解 整片大陸都是我們的畫布, 是我們的家。 透過網路,我們可以開始集體思考, 我們可以開始一同創新。 在非洲,我們說, 如果你想走得快,就要一個人走。 但是如果你想走得遠, 你就要跟人一起走。 我相信社群泛非主義 就是我們一起走遠的方式。
And this is already happening. Access to these online networks has given young Africans something we've always had to violently take: a voice. We now have a platform. Before now, if you wanted to hear from the youth in Africa, you waited for the 65-year-old minister of youth --
這已經發生了。 使用這些社群網路, 讓非洲青年取得 一直只能用暴力奪取的東西:聲音。 我們現在有平臺。 在這之前,如果你想要 聽非洲青年的心聲, 你要等 65 歲的青年團契牧師
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
to wake up in the morning, take his heartburn medication and then tell you the plans he has for your generation in 20 years time. Before now, if you wanted to be heard by your possibly tyrannical government, you were pushed to protest, suffer the consequences and have your fingers crossed that some Western paper somewhere might make someone care. But now we have opportunities to back each other up in ways we never could before.
一早醒來, 吞下他的胃灼熱藥, 然後告訴你他對你這個世代 未來 20 年的計畫。 在這之前,如果你想讓非常可能 是專政的政府聽到你的心聲, 你會被迫走上街頭抗議, 承擔後果, 並祈求好運, 某處的西方世界報紙 或許會打動某些人。 但是現在我們有機會支持彼此, 用從所未見的方式做到。
We support South African students who are marching against ridiculously high tertiary fees. We support Zimbabwean women who are marching to parliament. We support Angolan journalists who are being illegally detained. For the first time ever, African pain and African aspiration has the ability to be witnessed by those who can empathize with it the most: other Africans.
我們支持南非學生 上街頭抗議高得離譜的 高等教育學費。 我們支持遊行到議會的辛巴威婦女。 我們支持被非法拘禁的安哥拉記者。 這是第一次, 非洲的痛苦與非洲的抱負 可以被最能感同身受的人見證: 其他非洲人。
I believe that with a social Pan-Africanist thinking and using the Internet as a tool, we can begin to rescue each other, and ultimately, to rescue ourselves.
我相信藉著社群泛非主義的想法, 並使用網路當工具, 我們可以開始拯救彼此, 而最終,拯救我們自己。
Thank you.
謝謝!
(Applause)
(掌聲)