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发表于 2009-3-26 16:47
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透视西奈半岛:远处的宁静 The Sinai: A Separate Peace
The Sinai: A Separate Peace
透视西奈半岛:远处的宁静
Amid a sea of conflict, the Sinai offers pleasure, spiritual refuge, and—potentially—harmony.
和大陆隔着一片大海，西奈可以为人们提供快乐，精神避难，甚至是和谐。
大风车带你看精彩的世界
透视西奈半岛
西奈半岛 The Sinai
在塔巴这座海岸村落，一切似乎都很安静。这天夜晚就和其它所有的夜晚一样，夕阳西下、消失在西奈山后方；黑暗沿着山坡滑下，愈靠近海，速度就愈快。在希尔顿度假饭店，宾客们换下泳装，穿上了晚礼服和运动外套。10月夜晚的沙漠风带有寒意，因此饭店的管理部门在夜间排干了海水游泳池的水。
All seemed quiet in the coastal village of Taba. On this night, as on every other, the sun dropped west behind the Sinai mountains so that darkness slid downhill, gathering speed as it approached the sea. At the Hilton resort, guests shrugged off bikinis in favor of evening dresses and sport coats. The desert wind blew cold at night in October, so the hotel's management drained the seawater pool until morning.
红海度假村是西奈之梦的一个缩影——在这个梦里，中东地区的宿敌们以土地换取和平、用观光事业取代恐怖主义。这家饭店由英国人经营，员工是埃及人，而欧洲人与俄罗斯人——还有许多以色列人——则是这里的常客。饭店外头，埃及和以色列的国旗并排着在风中飘扬。确实，以色列政府在一个月前曾警告将会发生一场恐怖攻击，但这种警告总是来来去去。在这里，访客可以忘记这两个长久对立的敌国在过去约半个世纪以来，已经交相占领这个半岛好几次的事。在1956、1967与1973年的战争期间，以埃双方横扫这个半岛；1979年，双方签订了和平协议，以色列再次将控制权让给埃及。过了30年，这项协议仍然有效。
The Red Sea resort offered a miniature model of the Sinai dream—the dream of a Middle East where old enemies trade land for peace and terrorism for tourism. The British ran the hotel, Egyptians staffed it, Europeans and Russians—and many Israelis—frequented it. Outside, Egyptian and Israeli flags fluttered alongside each other. True, a month earlier the Israeli government had warned of an imminent terrorist attack, but such warnings always came and went. Here visitors could forget that the two longtime enemies had traded possession of the peninsula several times in the past half century or so. During wars in 1956, 1967, and 1973 Egypt and Israel stormed across the peninsula; in 1979 the two countries signed a peace deal, and Israel yielded control to Egypt once more. The pact still stands after 30 years.
西奈半岛一直存在着这种矛盾——这是一片超凡绝美却环境严酷的土地，既冲突又和谐。比如说，尽管这座半岛在政治地理上非常重要，当地最大人口却是最不在乎国族认同的族群：贝都因人。
Sinai has always been a place of such paradox—a harsh land of ethereal beauty, of both strife and symphony. Despite all the peninsula's geopolitical importance, for instance, its largest population is the group that cares least about national identity: the Bedouin. During the back-and-forth battling of recent decades, the tribal people blended so well into the landscape that they almost seemed a natural feature, like dunes trodden by conquerors.
随着夜色加深，宾客们从餐厅移往赌场、酒吧和夜总会。这个周末，大家都在庆祝和西奈有关的节日：埃及人纪念他们的军队于1973年的赎罪日战争中挺进西奈半岛，以色列人则纪念《圣经》里他们祖先穿越沙漠的旅程。最近几年，人们开始将这片海岸称作红海的蔚蓝海岸。这里拥抱着某种颓废和狂放，让它有别于埃及的其它地方。
As the evening deepened, guests migrated from the restaurants to the casino, bar, and discotheque. Everyone celebrated Sinai-related holidays on this weekend: The Egyptians remembered their army's thrust into the peninsula in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and the Israelis commemorated their ancestors' biblical journey through the desert. In recent years people had taken to calling this coast the Red Sea Riviera. It embraced a decadence and an abandon that set it apart from the rest of Egypt.
以色列边界就在几公尺外。在边界那头的埃拉特，非值勤中的消防员夏卡．扎伊尔德从电影院出来；他刚和妻子看了一部和消防队员有关的美国片。就在此时，一声闷响传遍了全城：轰。
The Israeli border lay just a few yards away. Beyond it, in Elat, off-duty firefighter Shachar Zaid emerged from a movie theater where he and his wife had just watched an American film about firefighters. That's when a muffled sound rolled through the town: whomp.
扎伊尔德和妻子朝着那声音，往边界跑去。途中他遇到同样不在值勤时间的消防队长，他正在车内换上制服；此外还有其它六个消防队员，驾着埃拉特的三辆消防车赶来。扎伊尔德和队长爬上其中一辆云梯车，朝边界前进，还搞不清楚边界那头到底出了什么事。同样一头雾水的埃及士兵则拿着自动步枪，挡在检查哨。
Zaid ran with his wife toward the sound, toward the border. Along the way he met his off-duty fire chief, changing into his uniform in his car, and six other firefighters arriving with the town's three trucks. Zaid climbed atop one of the ladder trucks with his chief, and they approached the border without knowing exactly what lay beyond. Egyptian soldiers, equally unsure what was happening, stood blocking the checkpoint with automatic rifles.
埃及人和以色列人站在一条隐形线的两侧互望着，身陷在突如其来的国际困境中。他们在2004年那个夜晚所采取的行动，将会成为西奈半岛过去一切与未来一切的转折点。埃及人必须决定是否要在宿敌面前捍卫主权，而以色列消防员也面临着抉择：是否要对阿拉伯人的土地进行一场八人的入侵。
Staring at each other across an invisible line, the Egyptians and Israelis encountered a sudden international dilemma. How they acted that night in 2004 would become emblematic of everything that had come before in Sinai's past and everything that lay ahead. The Egyptians had to decide whether to defend their sovereignty against an old enemy. And the Israeli firefighters faced their own choice: Whether to stage an eight-man incursion onto Arab soil.
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