南非的抗議爲何常常變得暴力

TO PROTEST the redrawing of municipal boundaries earlier this year, residents in apoor part of Limpopo province set fire to their schools.

爲了抗議今年早些時候重新劃定的市政邊界，林波波省一個貧困地區的居民放火燒了他們的學校。

More than three dozen schools were damaged; many were burned to the ground.

共有三十餘所學校受損；許多被毀爲廢墟。

Service delivery protests over the shoddy provision of electricity and basic sanitation regularly see major highways barricaded with burning tyres.

服務交付抗議——對質量低劣的電力和衛生基礎設施的抗議經常在高速公路主幹道焚燒輪胎堵塞道路。

Inprotests at universities, where students are seeking free tuition, libraries and lecture halls have been torched.

在大學中，學生們爲了追求免學費而抗議，把圖書館和報告廳燒掉了。

Why do South African protests readilydescend into violence?

爲什麼南非的抗議經常變得暴力？

South Africans have plenty to feel angry about.

南非人有很多理由感到憤怒。

Public services are patchy.

公共服務支離破碎。

Youth unemployment runs at around50%.

青年失業率徘徊在50%的高位。

The economy is both stagnant and lopsided.

經濟結構畸形，發展趨於停滯。

A majority of black SouthAfricans are still poor.

大多數的南非黑人依舊貧窮。

Many feel frustrated with the lack of fundamentalchange in their lives, 22 years after the introduction of universal adultsuffrage.

很多人對普選制度22年來依舊沒能從根本上改變他們的生活感到沮喪。

Researchers at the University of Johannesburg reckon there are onaverage 11 protests a day, many of them over labour issues.

約翰內斯堡的研究人員估算每天平均有11個抗議活動，許多是關於勞工問題。

Other research hasfound an increasing number of service delivery protests in recent years.

其他研究發現，服務提供抗議近年來持續增長。

The vast majority of protestsare peaceful.

其中絕大多數是和平的。

Yet they are largely ignored by the government and media, and socitizens up the ante (burn to beheard, is one refrain).

然而，他們很大程度上被政府和媒體所忽略，所以居民們選擇了加碼（燒到讓我們的聲音被聽到爲止）。

Moreover, some demonstrationsget co-opted by opportunistic looters, while others are fuelled by factionalpolitics.

此外，一些示威混入了機會主義的搶劫者，還有一些被派系政治鼓動。

There is also a sense of impunity, caused by the rarity ofconvictions for burning buildings or stone-throwing.

還有一種不受懲罰的感覺，源於人們對放火扔石頭沒有負罪感。

The violence begets a vicious gish protests draw heavy-handed responses by police.

暴力造成了惡性循環。暴力抗議引發了警察的重拳迴應。

Tactical units, set upto deal with serious crimes such as car-jackings, have been dispatched touniversity campuses to quell student protests.

戰術小分隊被派出解決劫車等嚴重犯罪事件，並派往大學校園以彈壓學生抗議活動。

Poorly trained private securityguards are often deployed as well.

沒有受過嚴格訓練的私人保安也經常被安排以應對抗議。

Students throw stones at security guards,who hurl them right back.

學生們對着保安扔石塊，保安再扔回去。

Last week police shot one student leader 13 timeswith rubber bullets.

上週，警察用橡皮子彈射中了一個學生領袖13次。

A broader worry is that legitimate complaints are tarredas thuggish disorder.

更廣泛的擔憂是，合法的投訴被視爲混亂無序。

And arson and looting cause billions of rand in damage—something South Africa can ill afford.

縱火和搶劫造成了數十億蘭特的損失（譯註：南非蘭特兌人民幣大概2:1）——這是南非難以承受的。

Even by the standards of Africa’s blood-soaked colonial history, SouthAfrica has an especially brutal past.

即便以非洲沾滿鮮血的殖民歷史爲標準，南非的過去依然顯得相當殘酷。

The apartheid regime metdissent with live fire.

種族隔離時期的政權直接將異見者燒死。

The African National Congress eventually resorted toviolent tactics in its struggle.

非國大最終採取暴力來鬥爭。

In the early 1990s South Africa stood on theverge of civil war.

在20世紀90年代初，南非處在內戰的邊緣。

Today the country is plagued by a high rate of violentcrime.

今天，南非深受頻繁的暴力犯罪困擾。

Yet recent local elections saw South Africans express their anger at theballot box rather than on the streets; the opposition Democratic Alliancegained power in several major cities.

然而，最近的地方選舉使南非人在投票箱前而不是街道上表達憤怒；反對黨民主聯盟在幾個主要城市獲得了權力。

Whether this leads to improved publicservices remains to be seen.

不過這是否意味着公共服務將得到改善還有待觀察。

But if South Africans feel they are being heardand that democratic institutions are working for them, perhaps the cycle ofviolence can at last come to an end.

但如果南非人感到他們的聲音正在被聽到，民主的機構正在爲他們工作，或許這個暴力的循環可以最終走向終結。