Obituary;Brian Haw
訃告;布萊恩·霍
Brian Haw, peace campaigner, died on June 18th, aged 62
布萊恩·霍——和平活動家,于六月十八日逝世,享年六十二歲
When Brian Haw sat in his old canvas chair in front of his banner-hung tent in Parliament Square, people kept coming by. Tourists with their cameras. Teenagers drinking beer. Commuters on their way to work. Taxis, vans, bicycles. Bloody big black cars with lying politicians in them. Buses with passengers all on their phones or buried in their papers. Drivers who wound down the car window, not stopping, and shouted “Get a job!”
國會廣場上懸掛著標語的帳篷前,布萊恩·霍坐在他那老舊的帆布椅子上,過往路人川流不息。有帶相機的游客,喝啤酒的少年,還有往返于工作路上的人群。的士、貨車、自行車,還有說謊的政客們乘坐的超長黑色轎車都從此經過。公交車上乘客都忙著打電話或埋頭于報紙。司機放下車窗,但沒有停車,沖他喊道:“找份工作吧!”
Wasn't that nice. But he had a job. He had it for ten years in sun, rain, sleet, snow. Never left the square. And his job was this. Get the people to wake up. Get them to realise that the USA and the UK were killing babies. Hundreds were dying every day in this place called Iraq and this place called Afghanistan. He had their photographs on his wall of shame. Bloated, pathetic, missing limbs. Sanctions were killing them. Sanctions and bombs. And especially, check out depleted uranium munitions. That poison was everywhere, in the air, in the water, even between the grains of sand. There wasn't a Hoover in the world big enough to suck up all that shit. And everyone was responsible. Everyone. Raping and pillaging and murdering the world. Just to get that stuff called oil. FOOD YES, BOMBS NO, his banners said. COLAT DAMAGE, NO. A GENOCIDE TOO FAR. STOP KILLING MY KIDS.
司機是出于好意。但他是有工作的。十年來不管是晴是雨,是霰是雪,他都堅守崗位,從未離開過廣場。他的工作就是喚醒大家。讓人們意識到美國和英國政府在殺害嬰孩。在一個叫伊拉克和一個叫阿富汗的地方每天都有成百上千的嬰孩死去。他把他們的照片貼在他的羞恥墻上。這些孩子或身體浮腫,或悲慘可憐,或缺胳膊少腿。制裁害死了他們。制裁和炸彈。特別地,看看貧鈾彈的威力吧。有毒物質散發到了各個角落,空氣中,水中,甚至沙土中。世界上可沒有足夠大的真空吸塵器能把那些毒物吸光。而且,每一個人都要負責。無一例外,人人都在榨取、掠奪地球的資源,使地球活力漸失。這一切都只是為了得到那個叫石油的東西。他的標語上書:“食物,可以,炸彈,不可以 ,蓄意破壞,不可以。這是大規模種族屠殺。停止殺害我的孩子們。”
People from the whole wide world filmed him on a regular basis. They liked to photograph his old corduroy hat—more badges than hat—which said THE WAR IS THE ENEMY OF THE POOR and SUPPORT US TROOPS—BRING EM HOME! They asked him how he slept. (Badly. How would you sleep if 200 babies were dying every day?) They fussed over how he ate. (Mostly chips people brought him and coffee with five sugars. He was lean as a twig. But you know what? People in Calcutta would think he was a king to have so much pavement to live on.) They asked about the mice. They had nested in his sheepskin coat once. He was far more worried about the rats across the road.
來自世界各地的人們經常拍攝他。他們喜歡拍他那頂舊燈芯絨帽子,更主要是為了拍上面的徽章,徽章上寫著:戰爭是窮人的克星,幫助美軍——讓他們回家!他們問他是怎么睡覺的。(很難入眠。如果每天有200個嬰孩死去,你還睡得著嗎?)他們對他的飲食大為驚異。(大部分來自人們給他帶的薯條和加五種糖的咖啡。他骨瘦如柴。但你知道嗎?印度加爾各答市的人們會覺得他有這么寬的人行道可以住,是國王般的待遇了。)他們問老鼠怎么處理。有一次老鼠在他的羊皮大衣上做窩。相比他更擔心馬路對面的老鼠們。
Last night I had the strangest dream, I'd ever dreamed before;
昨晚我做了一個奇特無比的夢,一個從未做過的夢;
I dreamed the world had all agreed, to put an end to war.
我夢見世界大同,再無戰爭。
He spoke like an evangelist, because he was one. His parents were Christian, and he'd found Jesus too at Sunshine Corner beach school in Whitstable. After the merchant navy, he went missionising round Redditch in a minivan. He moved to Parliament Square in 2001 to express his Christian outrage about sanctions. Bush's and Blair's wars kept him there. He loved his neighbour's kids as his own because he was a Christian. Other so-called Christians bombed them. Other “believers”, also in the square, didn't care. (WESTMINSTER ABBEY, WAKE UP!) If the people who had marched in 2003 against the Iraq war had stayed, like him, the politicians would have thought again.
他說話就像一名福音傳教士,因為他本來就是。他的父母都是基督教徒,呆在惠茨特布爾的陽光一角沙灘學校時他也投入了基督教門下。離開商船隊以后,他駕駛一輛小型貨車前往雷丁奇附近傳教。2001年他來到國會廣場以表達作為一名基督徒對于制裁的義憤。他留在那里是因為布什和布萊爾發起的戰爭。他愛其他國家的孩子就像愛自己的孩子一樣,因為他是一名基督徒。而另一些所謂的基督徒則用炸彈轟炸他們。其他同樣在廣場上的“信徒”則漠不關心。(西敏寺,醒來吧!)如果2003年反抗伊拉克戰爭的游行人群像他一樣堅守下去,也許政治家們會三思而后行。
Police abuse
粗魯的警察
His megaphone helped spread the message. ARREST GEORGE BUSH, WAR CRIMINAL! HI TONY! 45 MINUTES, MR BLAIR. MR B-L-I-A-R. They could hear him even in the Commons chamber. At first Tony Blair said good old Brian, what a champion of free speech. Yes, he was. He defended the right to free expression in front of Parliament: 350 years of peaceful protest. Some rapper boys from South London came up and hugged him once. They said they totally supported him, fuck Parliament, fuck 'em all. But he wouldn't have that. He just answered Love, Peace, Justice, stop killing my kids.
他借助擴音器來傳達信念。逮捕喬治·布什,戰犯!你好,托尼!45分鐘,布萊爾先生。布-萊-爾先生。即使在下議院會議廳里都聽得到他的聲音。起初,托尼·布萊爾評價他是個好老頭布萊恩,言論自由的贏家。是的,他的確是。他守衛了自己在國會面前自由表達思想的權利:有著350年歷史的和平抗議。曾有一次幾個倫敦南部來的饒舌歌手和他擁抱。他們說完全支持他的行為,去他的國會,去他們的。但他不會說臟話。他只用愛,和平,正義,停止殺害孩子來表達。
The authorities soon got tired of him, though. Westminster Council tried to remove him because he was a nuisance and “obstructing the pavement”. It failed. By 2005 Tony decided he'd had enough of the name-calling. The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act said Mr Haw had to give six days' notice, if you please, of any demonstration within a kilometre of Parliament. How could he do that? The High Court ruled against it, and said he was legal. But the police never acted as though he was. Any morning they might wake him up with a siren, whoop, whoop, Are you there Brian, yank up his plastic, rifle through his private property right in front of Parliament. Who was abusing whom then? In 2006 78 of them came to tear down his wall of pictures, smashed it, trashed it, left it like a bomb site. Left him with one sign. He stayed, of course.
然而,當局很快就對他厭煩了。西敏寺地方政府試圖把他趕走,因為他是他們的眼中釘,而且“阻塞了人行道”。行動沒有成功。到了2005年,托尼聲稱他聽夠了指責。嚴嚴重有組織犯罪和警察法規定霍先生如果一定要在距國會一千米內抗議的話就將被拘留六天。他要怎么辦呢?高級法院否決了這一法案,并且稱他的行為合法。但警察的行為就好像他是非法的一樣。每天早晨警察都用嗚嗚叫的警笛將他鬧醒,就在國會前面拉開他的塑料帳篷,迅速搜查他的私人財產。究竟是誰在譴責誰呢?2006年,78個警察拆倒了他的照片墻,將照片撕碎、丟棄,現場就像被炸彈轟炸了一樣。只給他留下了一個簽名。但當然,他還是留在那里。
People asked him about his own kids, seven of them. An off-limits topic. Family was left behind when he came to the square. His wife had divorced him, he'd learned. It wasn't his fault. He hadn't wanted to stay eight bloody years away from them, with the pollution and the drunks who broke his nose and the thugs who shouted “Wanker!” at him. He stayed because he wasn't finished yet. And you know what? It was never fundamentally about free speech and the rights of Englishmen and all that stuff. It was about the dead children. And not walking by.
他有七個孩子,人們問起他自己的孩子怎么樣,這是一個禁止談論的話題。自從他到廣場安家后,家庭就被拋之腦后了。他獲知,他的妻子同他離婚了。這不是他的錯。他也不想他媽的遠離親人八年時間,經歷污染,還被幾個醉漢打破了鼻子,還有暴徒沖他喊道:“蠢貨!”。他留下是因為他還沒有達成目標。你知道嗎?從根本上說,這絕不是關于自由言論和英國人的權利或其他這類的東西。根本上說是為了那些死去的孩子,而不是為吸引路人。