economist经济学人文摘(中英双语)：No sign of a rainbow.doc

No sign of a rainbow风雨之后，难见彩虹Aug 19th 2010 Badly governed and short of the foreign help it needs, Pakistans people deserve a new covenant 在失败的领导和不及所需的国外援助的情况下，巴基斯坦人民理应达成新的盟约LABOURING under so many curses, Pakistan is as ill-equipped as anywhere to deal with one of the most far-reaching natural disasters the world has seen for decades. Mired in poverty, misruled by soldier and civilian alike, and prey to insurgency, Islamist-inspired terrorism and sectarian strife, Pakistan has now suffered flooding that has deluged between one-fifth and one-third of the countrys land mass, and affected up to 20m people. The gloomiest pundits think Pakistan simply cannot cope: they foresee mounting social unrest and further usurpation of the functions of government by either the army or Taliban militants. 在一场堪称近几十年以来世界上最严重的自然灾害面前，经历了众多诅咒般的磨难的巴基斯坦就像世界上的任何地方一样表现的措手不及。从深陷贫困，被军人和民选政府不当统治，到成为叛乱、伊斯兰主义恐怖组织和宗派纷争的牺牲品，如今的巴基斯坦正遭受着一场肆虐了全国五分之一到三分之一土地并影响2000万人生活的洪水的打击。最悲观的专家认为巴基斯坦再无力承受如此的灾难了：他们预计到将有激增的社会不安，更进一步的是政府的职能将被军队或者塔利班取代。Ultimately, they predict the total collapse of a state with 180m people and a nuclear arsenal, whose soil provides al-Qaeda with its global headquarters. Comparisons are drawn to the devastating cyclone in the then East Pakistan in 1970, when the governments botched response was a factor behind the war that led to Bangladeshs independence the following year.他们预计，最终，这个有着1亿8千万人口和核武器，并为基地组织和其全球总部提供活动土壤的国家将会完全崩溃。人们把这次跟1970年当时的东巴的那场灾难性的飓风作类似比较，当时政府的笨拙反应正是除了战争以外导致第二年孟加拉独立的一个因素。There is a note of desperate attention-seeking in the pleas of relief officials as they talk up the scale of the latest catastrophe. But they are right that, in terms of its impact, if not its immediate death toll, it dwarfs the awful Kashmir earthquake of 2005. They may even be right that it has affected more people than the December 2004 tsunami. And it is no more than the plain truth that the worst is yet to comein terms of hunger, disease, looting and violence as victims scramble to save themselves and their families. Over 700,000 homes have been destroyed. The United Nations thinks that 8m people need immediate food aid. For them “collapse” is not an abstraction. It has already happened.当赈灾官员们谈论这场灾难的规模的时候，他们的借口中有一点近乎绝望的想吸引关注的味道。就其影响来说，如果不是直接死亡人数，这次洪水相比2005年的惨烈的克斯米尔地震规模较小，这一点上官员们是正确的。洪水影响的人数超过2004年的海啸，这点上他们甚至也可能是对的。而这相对显而易见的事实来说不算什么，最困难的将要到来饥饿，疾病，灾民们争先恐后地为了自己和家人的生存而产生的劫掠和暴力事件。超过70万房屋被毁。联合国认为有800万人需要立即的食品援助。对于他们来说，“崩溃”不是个抽象的概念，而是正在发生的事情。The institution that sees itself as the bulwark against worsening chaos has always been the army. And, sure enough, as at any time of crisis, some in the military and bureaucratic establishments are beginning to blame democracy. There is talk of a “national government”the usual euphemism for a coup. Certainly Pakistans president, Asif Ali Zardari, has done little to inspire confidence. Swanning off to his chateau in France was the act of a political clodhopper. (And he has a tin ear, to boot: witness the cringe-making unintended puns in his Independence Day message on August 14th. He said the day was a “watershed mark”, though enthusiasm had been “dampened” by the floods.) 军队一直视自己为防止事态进一步恶化的堡垒。而且，可以肯定的是，像在任何危机时一样，一些军方和官僚机构里的人就开始指责民主制。有个“国家政权”的说法一般是政变的委婉说法。肯定的是巴基斯坦总统阿瑟夫阿里扎尔达里在激发信心方面做得很不足。此时去他在法国的庄园闲逛是政治乡巴佬的行为。（而且他的听觉已不太灵敏：在8月14号国家独立日的致辞中他无意间说的双关语就是他畏缩不前的见证。他说这一天是一个“分水岭”（流域标志），虽然人们的激情已被洪水“打湿”。）The governments early relief efforts were inept. Conditions in its camps are often appallingthey are overcrowded, filthy and desperately short of food and drinking water. Sporadic protests about the lack of help have hit flooded areas such as Sukkur, in the southern province of Sindh. An emergency relief-fund set up by the prime minister attracted donations of just 117m rupees ($1.4m) in its first two weeks, partly because people suspect that the government might pocket or waste their money. It is not just elected politicians who are to blame for this. They rely on bureaucratic machinery that is now so politicised and corrupt that it is scarcely capable of delivering basic services at the best of times. 政府先前的安抚救灾工作是无能的。救灾营地的状况差的令人震惊 太过拥挤脏乱，而且极度缺乏食品和饮用水。如在南部信德省的苏库尔市，不时有因缺乏援助引发的抗议冲击着受灾区域。由总理设立的应急救灾基金在前两周仅仅募集了1亿1700万卢比（1400万美金），部分是由于人们怀疑政府可能私吞或者浪费资金。而这一切不应仅仅归咎于当选的政客们。他们所依赖的官僚机器如今已太过的体制化和腐化，而在最需要的时候却几乎无力向人民提供基本的服务。The army, however, is hardly a neutral arbiter. Some suggest that it has even helped to orchestrate some of the anger directed at Mr Zardari. The generals were cross that he went ahead with a visit to Britain so soon after its prime minister, David Cameron, while in India, had criticised Pakistans antiterrorist credentials. In lambasting the governments cack-handedness, the press has also helped foster the armys image as the only competent official provider of relief work. But it was only in 2008 that the latest ill-fated military-installed government gave way to civilian rule. The generals are still aware of the advantages of prompting from the wings, as opposed to stepping into the limelight.然而，军队却称不上一个中立的仲裁者。有些人表示其在有些针对总统扎尔达里的愤怒活动起到了协助指挥的作用。将军们因总统直接去了英国访问而动怒，而此次访问刚刚在英国首相大卫卡梅隆在印度时指责巴基斯坦的反恐资格的言论之后。除了严厉斥责政府的软弱行为，媒体还强化了军队才是救灾工作中唯一有能力的一员的形象。但仅仅就在2008年，最后一届不走运的军政府让位于民选政府。将军们仍然明白从侧翼下鼓动的好处，而这是在踏入聚光灯之下所没有的。If the army is one political beneficiary of the catastrophe, another is militant Islam. Rescue efforts will divert the army from its campaign against the Pakistani Taliban in Waziristan. And, as after the Kashmir earthquake, Islamist charities performing heroic aid work in areas the government may not reach have a chance to proselytise, impress and argue that the floods are indeed the wrath of God, and only they can find the rainbow.如果军队是从灾难中受益的一方，那另一方就是伊斯兰激进分子了。救援行动将会使军队从在瓦济里斯坦的针对巴基斯坦塔利班的战役中分散精力。而且，就像在克斯米尔地震后的那样，伊斯兰主义的慈善团体在政府所力不能及的地域发挥了关键援助作用，这使他们有机会来使人们改变政治观点，强化信仰，并宣称洪水确是因神的愤怒，而只有他们能够发现彩虹。Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani writer and influential expert on the Taliban, rang alarm bells in Western capitals arguing that, without huge amounts of aid, “large parts of the country that are now cut off will be taken over by the Pakistani Taliban and affiliated extremist groups, and governance will collapse.” Mr Rashid highlights what many Pakistanis consider to be a new curse to add to the litany: what they see as the stinginess of the outside world in response to their plight. This they blame on the unfair perception that Pakistan is full of fundamentalists plotting death and destruction in the West. Rather, they rightly point out, it is a moderate and tolerant country with a dangerous extremist fringe. However, if Western fears of the Islamists did indeed hamstring the aid effort, they might be partially self-fulfilling.阿哈默德拉希德，一个巴基斯坦作家兼塔利班问题有影响力的专家，在西方的中心敲响了警钟。他宣称，如果没有大量的援助，“这个国家大部分的被切断联系的地区将会被巴基斯坦塔利班和极端主义分支团体所接管，而政府的统治将会崩溃。”拉希德先生强调了一条很多巴基斯坦人认为是在一系列艰难问题之上增加的新诅咒：他们所看到的是外界对于他们身处逆境时表现出的小气。他们把这归咎于巴基斯坦在西方所受的不公平印象：这是个充满了策划死亡和破坏的原教主义者的国家。相反，他们正确的指出，这是一个谦和而有忍耐性的国家，虽然有少部分的危险的极端分子。然而，如果西方担心伊斯兰主义者会阻碍到救援行动，这种担心在某种程度上正在成为现实。Muddling through Even the optimistic case for Pakistans survival is downbeat. It has long been “the most dangerous place on earth”, on the brink of some apocalypse. Yet it is more resilient than it looks. “This is Pakistans fifth last chance,” quips a government minister. Or, in the words of Husain Haqqani, Pakistans ambassador to America: “Well muddle through again.” Even if he is right, as Banyan hopes and believes, it is not just a que