He showed off Cserdi, where the population was three-quarters Gypsy, to prove that it could be as ordinary as anywhere else. But he knew it was not. The stereotype that most non-Gypsy Hungarians carried in their heads was all too often true: his people (“us”, not “they”, for his people’s sins were his, he took them on himself) were work-shy, cheated, stole, and lived on handouts if they could. The jails were full of dark faces.
他炫耀了擁有四分之三吉普賽人口的切爾迪，以證明這里可以和其他任何地方一樣尋常。但他知道事實(shí)并非如此。大多數(shù)非吉普賽人的匈牙利人腦子里的刻板印象往往是正確的：他的人民(“我們”，而不是“他們”，因?yàn)樗娜嗣竦淖镞^是他的，他選擇自己承擔(dān))是不愿工作的，他們詐騙，偷竊，如果可能的話，靠救濟(jì)生活。監(jiān)獄里全是漆黑的臉龐。
Of course, 600 years of history in Hungary had not been kind. Poverty and discrimination, fear of the Other, had stalked his people wherever they went. Under Communism everyone, including Gypsies, was meant to work. Yet it took his father some years to find a job as a miner. Until then, they lived in a shack; he had no shoes of his own until he was 13, and was sent down to scavenge for chewy, rotten meat in the pits where farmers threw the carcasses of their animals. His strongest childhood memory was hunger. Yet that was no excuse to play the victim.
當(dāng)然，匈牙利600年的歷史并不是一帆風(fēng)順的。貧窮、歧視和對他人的恐懼一直困擾著他的人民，無論他們走到哪里。在共產(chǎn)主義制度下，每個(gè)人，包括吉普賽人，都應(yīng)該工作。然而，他的父親卻花了好幾年時(shí)間才找到一份礦工的工作。在那之前，他們住在一間小屋里；他直到13歲才有了自己的鞋子，被送到深坑里去尋找有嚼勁的腐肉，農(nóng)民們把動(dòng)物尸體扔在那里。他最強(qiáng)烈的童年記憶是饑餓。然而，這并不是扮演受害者的借口。
He had never moaned, taking any job he could get after a few indifferent years of school: sweeping floors, packing monitors, eventually becoming production manager in a mobile-phone company. Here was the lesson for “all of us”: Gypsies had to work! If they took responsibility, gained self-respect, hauled themselves up by their bootlaces, prejudice might begin to fade away. This was the task he set himself as mayor of Cserdi. It was heavy, but he set about it logically. Gypsies belonged nowhere, but if they got land, they could farm it. There was unused land in the village, a rubbish tip; once they had cleared away 15-20 lorryloads of rubble, they could plant potatoes. They then rented 1,200 hectares more.
他從來沒有抱怨過，在學(xué)校里過了幾年無關(guān)緊要的生活后，他能找到的任何工作他都干：掃地、包裝顯示器，最后在一家移動(dòng)電話公司擔(dān)任生產(chǎn)經(jīng)理。這是給“我們所有人”的教訓(xùn)：吉普賽人必須工作!如果他們負(fù)起責(zé)任，獲取自尊，努力向上的話，偏見也許就會(huì)開始消失。這是他作為切爾迪村長給自己定下的任務(wù)。它很重大，但他開始地很有條理。吉普賽人不屬于任何地方，但如果他們有土地，他們就可以耕種。村子里有一塊未被利用的土地，一個(gè)垃圾場；一旦他們清理掉15到20卡車的碎石，他們就可以種植土豆了。然后他們又租用了1200公頃的土地。
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