A Message Too Powerful to Stop 论韩寒被删918博文：势不可挡的声音

A Message Too Powerful to Stop  论韩寒被删918博文：势不可挡的声音

By PERRY LINK 林培瑞

Published: September 29, 2010   2010年9月29日

Until recently, it has been very hard in China to say in public that the government, which calls itself the People’s Republic of China, in fact is something quite different from the people of China. No medium would carry such a message. But now, with the slippery Internet, such messages do get out, and do spread. They get partly blocked, but not stopped. 直到最近，在中华人民共和国公开谈论政府仍然是一件难事。事实上，中国政府和人民有一些不同的地方，但是过去没有媒体传递这样的信息。现在有了互联网，这样的信息能够出现并传播开来。虽然它们有一部分信息会被屏蔽，但是并没有被停止。

This month, Han Han, aged 28, a master of Aesopian wit and probably China’s most widely read blogger, wrote this: 28岁的韩寒，他可能是中国最受欢迎的博客写作者，本月在其机智堪比伊索寓言的博客上他写到：

The world over, a country is like a woman and the government is like the man who possesses her. Some couples live happily and feel satisfied. Some get along smoothly. Some have tense relations, some see domestic violence. In some cases the woman can divorce the guy and marry someone else, and in other cases she’s not allowed to. But whatever the case, when you love a woman you shouldn’t have to crank “loving her man” into the bargain. “对于任何国家来说，国家就是一个女人，执政者就是占有她的男人，有幸福美满的，有相处和睦的，有家庭暴力的，有关系紧张的， 有离婚再嫁的，有不能改嫁的，但无论如何，你爱一个女人总不能连她的男人也一起爱了去。”

Han Han is somewhat different from the “dissidents” in China. He writes in elusive, acerbic terms — the “cool” language of younger people, who are his main readership — and gets away with statements that are at least as devastating as anything dissidents say. He differs, too, in the numbers of his readers. An intellectual dissident feels lucky if an Internet essay draws 20,000 hits. Han Han’s essays often get more than a million, as well as strings of comments in the tens of thousands. Since its inception in November 2006, Han Han’s blog has had 421 mllion visits. His huge following protects him, too, because China’s rulers can imagine the size of the rebellion that a shut-down of his blog might trigger. 韩寒在某种程度上不同于中国的异见人士。他的文章隐晦深刻，喜欢用年轻人喜欢的词语，年轻人也是他博客的主要读者群。这样的写作可以侥幸逃脱官方审查机构的封杀，就像对待异见人士那样。他的不同还在于，巨大的读者数量。如果一篇发在互联网上的文章能得到20万的点击量，一位异见知识分子就会感到幸运了。韩寒的文章经常会得到超过100万的点击量，同时还有成千上万的读者评论留言。自从2006年11月，他开通博客以来，他的博客已经得到了4.21亿的访问量。他巨大的读者群对他也是一种保护，因为中国的统治者会考虑关闭他的博客可能会带来的反抗规模。

On Sept. 18, the anniversary of Japan’s invasion of China’s northeastern provinces in 1931, Han Han wrote a razor-sharp commentary on the protests against Japan that are taking place in China. On Sept. 8, a Chinese fishing boat collided with two Japanese coast guard vessels off barren rocks known as the Diaoyu Islands that are claimed as national territory by both China and Japan. Japanese officers arrested the Chinese boat captain and brought him to Japan, after which people took to the streets in many Chinese cities to defend China’s national pride and territorial integrity. 9月18日是1931年日本入侵中国东北的“九一八事件”纪念日，韩寒写了一篇言辞锋利的文章评论发生在中国的反日愤青。9月8日，一中国渔船在有中日双方争议的钓鱼岛海域与两艘日本海岸警卫队的巡逻艇相撞。日本官员将中国渔船船长带回日本并拘留，此后在中国的一些城市，有人上街游行捍卫民族自豪感和领土完整。

Anti-Japanese protests happen from time to time in China, and China’s rulers generally welcome them as ways to mobilize popular opinion behind the Communist Party leadership and to distract attention from domestic problems like corruption, inequality and environmental degradation. But such protests are a double-edged sword because they underscore the legitimacy of protest itself. 在中国反日抗议者不时会组织一些活动，中国的统治者通常会默许他们，并将它们当做一种中国共产党引导公众舆论的手段，并且可以转移民众对国内诸多矛盾的注意，例如：政治腐败、社会不公、环境危机。但是这些反日者也是一把双刃剑，因为他们强调了抗议这一行为本身的合法性。

In Han Han’s view, the anti-Japan protesters of the past month have been used. His blog post addresses his fellow citizens this way:。他在博客上评论了对本月钓鱼岛事件的反日抗议

There are three roles on China’s stage today: master, lackey, and dog. Most of us switch between two of the three. (Which two? Well, you can hardly expect yourself to be the master, can you?) Normally what the master wants from the lackeys is craven docility, but right now he needs some yipping dogs. No problem! Because in a dog’s mind, no matter how the master treats you, when an outsider shows up it’s your job to guard the homestead. ...Deep inside, our leaders aren’t really angry. They just feel emasculated. And so, in their view, we are supposed to feel emasculated, too. But who ever took to the streets shouting “I’ve been emasculated!”? That only makes things worse. During times when the leaders’ face is intact, they smack us in the mouth; when they lose face, we’re supposed to earn it back for them. How do we take this? “我认为在现代中国社会中，分为三个阶级，那就是主子，奴才和狗，而我们往往一人饰两角，至于饰演哪两个角色，我想不会有人觉得他在演主子吧。前一阵子，主子需要奴才去附和和伺候，但是现如今，主子需要狗去吼两声，因为在狗的逻辑里，无论主子怎么对待它，只要有外人来犯，狗总是该看家护院的。。。。。。纵观事态发展，领导的内心似乎并不愤怒，领导只是觉得窝囊，那自然，我们也只能跟着觉得窝囊，你哪有上街去表达窝囊的，那岂不是更窝囊。领导没面子的时候，我们给他们长脸，但领导有面子的时候，我们被他们掌嘴。我被欺负，我不能游，你被欺负，你让我游，我又情以何堪。”

Han Han then addresses the government, this way: 韩寒接着对政府评论道：

Don’t tell me that you and I are equally hurt by these “motherland” issues. ... In our country the common people do not own one inch of the land; all the land, as you know, is rented from you. So from where I sit this issue resembles a tiff between my landlord and my neighbor over a tile that is lying on the ground. I know that the tile was blown off my landlord’s roof during a high wind, and also know that the landlord, who is afraid to fight the neighbor, has never dared to go fetch the tile. But what does that have to do with me, the tenant? Why should somebody with no land fight to get somebody else’s land back? Why should a tenant with no dignity fight for his landlord’s dignity? How much are people like that worth, per pound? How many would it take to add up to one pound? “你也别说这种民族国土大事应该是 我们一起被欺负了。。。。。。在我国，老百姓自己都没有一寸土地，所有的一切，都是问政府租的，所以，理论上，这事对我来说，就是我的房东在和别人就一块在地上的瓦而争执，这块瓦的确是风大的时候从房东的房顶上掉下来的，但房东也不敢去捡，因为可能要和隔壁人家打架。那我等租客在里面搅和什么呢。无土地者要去为他人争取土地，无尊严者要去为他人捍卫尊严，这样的人多少钱一斤？一斤多少个？ ”

At the end of his essays Han Han drops the allegorical mode and states plainly that 此文最后韩寒抛弃了寓言地方式，直接表达了自己的观点：

“Protests against foreigners by people who are not allowed to protest at home are utterly worthless. They are nothing but a group dance.” “一个对内不能和平游行的民族，他的对外任何游行是完全没有价值的，那只是一场集体舞。” 

The authorities apparently do not dare to shut Han Han’s blog down. But they did erase this particular item, about 50 minutes after he posted it. Those 50 minutes, though, were enough to get it onto Chinese Twitter, where it was a hit all last week and from where it has spread around the world. 当局似乎不敢关闭韩寒的博客，但它们将这篇特殊的文章删除，在它被韩寒贴上网50分钟之后。虽然只有五十分钟，但足以在推特中文圈里传播。在推特中文圈，它很受欢迎并且在推特上传遍全球。

Perry Link is chairman of Teaching Across Disciplines at the University of California, Riverside, and author of “Evening Chats in Beijing,” as well as co-editor of “The Tiananmen Papers.” 林培瑞（Perry Link）是美国加利福尼亚大学河滨分校教育纪律委员会主席，《北京夜话》的作者、《天安门文件》英文版的编辑之一。

Ps:林培瑞简介：

　　林培瑞（Perry Link），美国著名汉学家，1944年出生于南卡罗来纳州，1976年获哈佛大学哲学博士。学术涉猎广泛，主要研究中国现代文学、社会史、大众文化、二十世纪初中国通俗小说，及1949年以后的中国文学。精通中文、法文、日文，曾任美国加利福尼亚大学洛杉矶分校东亚系教授、普林斯顿大学东亚研究系教授， 现为加利福尼亚大学河滨分校教授。林培瑞是美国汉学家中与中国社会联系最为密切的一位“中国通”之一。1972年，在有着“乒乓外交”之称的中国乒乓球代表团访美时，林担任中文翻译，此后不久，他到中国访问一个月1970年代末。1989年 “六四”期间，林培瑞担任美国科学院中国办事处主任。他是《中国“六四”真相》英文版的编辑之一。自1996年以来他被中国政府列入拒绝入境的名单。

原文链接：http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/opinion/30iht-edlink1.html?_r=1