在电视和广播里，每个人都在向我们讲述阿拉伯世界正在发生的事，但事实是我们不可能了解，只是谁都不愿意承认。《像我们一样的人：曲解中东》(People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East)一书的作者、前荷兰驻外记者约里斯•卢因迪克(Joris Luyendijk)说，开罗革命的例子就说明，记者要了解这个地区是何其困难。解放广场上聚集了可能有25万名示威者，数以千计的外国记者为他们欢呼喝彩，整个世界都在关注。然而我们却无法回答一个基本的问题：这是一场人民革命吗？
正如卢因迪克所指出的：“广场上汇集了开罗地区1%的人口，你不禁会对没来的1980万人感到好奇。”可能多数不在场的人支持示威者，但也可能他们大多认同埃及国家电视台的立场，认为革命只是外国势力对埃及的最新攻击。然而鲜有西方媒体问及不在场者。没有人这样报道：“今天，开罗的1980万人再次决定不参加示威。”我们无法知道这1980万人的想法，就像我们无法知道有多少埃及人支持穆斯林兄弟会(Muslim Brotherhood)，或者穆斯林兄弟会是不是暴力的原教旨主义者。我们的无知与认为阿拉伯人深不可测的老式“东方主义”观点无关。相反，我们之所以无知，部分原因在于我们当中很少有人曾花时间了解阿拉伯国家，部分在于我们对阿拉伯人通常只问一个问题，另一部分在于我们不可能看到这些专政国家内部的情形。
我们最根本的问题是彻底的无知。较贫穷的阿拉伯国家几十年来都没有上过“新闻”。留在当地的少数外国记者（比如奔赴解放广场进行报道的那些）很少能讲阿拉伯语，而且活动范围大多局限在驻外人员聚居区。巴塞罗那智库CIDOB北非问题专家弗朗西斯•吉莱斯(Francis Ghiles)表示，如今的西方专家很少有能力解读突尼斯和阿尔及利亚的局势。伦敦政治经济学院(LSE)埃及历史专家约翰•查尔克拉夫特(John Chalcraft)称，如果西方人和西方媒体对中东有更多了解，可能就会对政府最近的一些主张予以驳斥：例如，萨达姆•侯赛因(Saddam Hussein)与他的敌人基地组织(al-Qaeda)是一伙的，再比如伊拉克人会欢迎艾哈迈德•沙拉比(Ahmed Chalabi)担任总统。可惜西方人的无知一直贯穿到了最高层，乔治•W•布什(George W. Bush)力主在加沙地带举行选举，结果哈马斯(Hamas)的胜选让他十分震惊。埃及革命似乎每天都让奥巴马政府感到惊讶。我们只是在盲目地围绕着阿拉伯世界奔走而已。
我们的另一个问题是看待阿拉伯世界的视角。自9/11事件以来，西方政府和媒体对于阿拉伯世界问得最多的一个问题是：“怎么能让他们不再搞爆炸？”如果你的问题是安全，那答案恐怕就是稳定。于是埃及总统穆巴拉克(Mubarak)被视为替我们抵挡伊斯兰狂热分子的防波堤。
法国著名的伊斯兰问题专家奥利维耶•鲁瓦(Olivier Roy)写道：“欧洲舆论是透过30年前的格栅解读人民起义的：伊朗的伊斯兰革命。”然而，我们审视阿拉伯国家时或许应该透过另一个非阿拉伯国家的视角：土耳其，一个由和平的穆斯林领导的民主国家。
最近的起义促使我们透过拉丁美洲的视角看待阿拉伯国家。卢因迪克说：“穆巴拉克就是新的皮诺切特(Pinochet)。”如果把穆巴拉克放在美国支持的众多腐败军人恶棍的行列中，伊斯兰教就不再是理解埃及问题的关键因素了。西方媒体长期以来将阿拉伯世界描绘成一个伊斯兰原教旨主义占据半壁江山的棋局，然而实情可能更像是黑手党经营的济贫所。卢因迪克五年前写道，阿拉伯国家的问题与其说是宗教和以色列，不如说是独裁、腐败和贫困。现在，我们就见证了反独裁、腐败和贫困的非宗教的革命，这让很多人惊讶不已。原来解放广场示威民众的诉求与我们提出的问题并不相同。
但卢因迪克认为我们的无知其实更为严重。他说，我们无法知道独裁政权内部发生着什么。阿拉伯国家缺少自由的选举、自由的媒体和民意调查。居住在这些国家的人几乎没人能自由地讲话。阿拉伯国家的学术界人士受到秘密警察的严密监视，这也是我在此只引述西方专家观点的一个原因。吉莱斯这样描述突尼斯的恐惧：“父母要把孩子哄去睡觉后才敢在家说真话。”
因此，我们只能猜测阿拉伯世界的公众舆论。迪克•切尼(Dick Cheney)曾说伊拉克人会捧着鲜花欢迎美军，但他当时其实并不知道。这种环境下，即使阿拉伯人也很难了解本国人的观点。埃及革命不仅让奥巴马感到吃惊，也完全出乎穆斯林兄弟会的意料。
记者的职责是讲述自己知道的事实，而不是讲述不知道的事，而他们现在却在大谈埃及人想要什么。或许现在应该承认：我们其实不知道。当我请吉莱斯对埃及和突尼斯的选举进行预测时，他说：“目前完全没有意义。”
不过多亏了这些革命，我们也许总算对阿拉伯国家有了一些了解。民主就是一个信息系统。
译者/王柯伦
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001037195
On the airwaves, everyone is telling us what is happening across the Arab world. The truth (if only anyone would admit it) is that we cannot possibly know. Take the revolution in Cairo, says Joris Luyendijk, a Dutch former foreign correspondent and author of People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East, which examines how difficult it is for journalists to understand the region. Tahrir Square was packed with perhaps 250,000 demonstrators. Thousands of foreign journalists cheered them on. The world was watching. Yet we cannot answer a basic question: was this a popular revolution?
As Luyendijk points out, “One per cent of the Cairo region was on the square. You do get curious about the 19.8 million people who weren’t there.” Perhaps most absentees supported the demonstrators. Alternatively, perhaps most agreed with Egyptian state TV: that the revolution was merely the latest foreign attack on Egypt. However, few western media asked about the absentees. Nobody reported, “And again today, 19.8 million people in Cairo decided not to demonstrate.” We cannot know what the 19.8 million thought, just as we cannot know how many Egyptians support the Muslim Brotherhood, or whether the Brothers are violent fundamentalists. Our ignorance has nothing to do with the old “orientalist” notion that Arabs are unfathomable beings. Rather, we cannot know partly because few of us have spent much time learning about Arab countries, partly because we usually ask only one question about Arabs, and partly because seeing inside these dictatorships is impossible.
Our most basic problem is dumb ignorance. The poorer Arab countries haven’t been “news” for decades. The few foreign correspondents who remained (such as those flown in to cover Tahrir Square) rarely spoke much Arabic and mostly stuck to expat ghettoes. Few western pundits today are equipped to interpret Tunisia or Algeria, says Francis Ghiles, expert on north Africa at the CIDOB think tank in Barcelona. John Chalcraft, historian of Egypt at the London School of Economics, says that if western citizens and media knew more about the Middle East, they could have dismissed certain recent claims made by their governments: for instance, that Saddam Hussein was in league with his enemy al-Qaeda, or that Iraqis would welcome Ahmed Chalabi as president. But western ignorance goes right to the top. George W. Bush pressed for elections in Gaza but was astounded when Hamas won. President Obama’s White House appeared surprised almost daily by the Egyptian revolution. We galumph around the Arab world blindfolded.
Our next problem is the prism through which we see the Arab world. Since 9/11, western governments and media have asked one main question about Arabs: “How can we stop them from blowing us up?” If your question is security, then your answer is likely to be stability. So Egypt’s President Mubarak was understood as our bulwark against crazed Islamists.
Olivier Roy, a great French expert on Islam, writes: “European opinion interprets the popular uprisings through a grille that’s over 30 years old: the Islamic revolution in Iran.” Instead, we might just as well see Arab countries through the prism of another non-Arab country: Turkey, a democracy headed by peaceful Islamists.
The uprisings are nudging us towards seeing Arab countries through a Latin American prism. Luyendijk says: “Mubarak is the new Pinochet.” If you place Mubarak in the long parade of corrupt American-backed militarist thugs, then the key to understanding Egypt ceases to be Islam. Western media have long depicted the Arab world as a chessboard, with Islamic fundamentalists playing in black. But perhaps it’s more like a poorhouse run by mafiosi. Luyendijk wrote five years ago that the story about Arab countries was not so much religion or Israel as dictatorship, corruption and poverty. Now, to general amazement, we’ve had non-religious revolutions against dictatorship, corruption and poverty. It turns out the people in Tahrir Square were asking different questions from us.
But Luyendijk thinks our ignorance is even more profound. He says we cannot know what is happening inside dictatorships. Arab countries are short on free elections, free media and opinion polls. Hardly anyone living in these places could speak freely. Academics in Arab countries serve at the pleasure of the secret police, which is one reason I’ve only quoted western pundits here. As Ghiles describes fear in Tunisia: “Parents would send their children to bed before daring to utter home truths.”
Consequently, we can only guess at Arab public opinion. When Dick Cheney said Iraqis would welcome American troops with flowers, there was no way of knowing. In this climate it’s hard even for Arabs to know what their own countrymen think. Egypt’s revolution didn’t only surprise Obama. It surprised the Muslim Brotherhood too.
Journalists get paid for saying what they know, not what they don’t know, and so they are now telling us what Egyptians want. Perhaps it’s time to admit: we don’t know. When I asked Ghiles for predictions about voting in Egypt and Tunisia, he said: “At this stage it’s completely pointless.”
But thanks to these revolutions, we might now actually find out something about Arab countries. Democracy is an information system.
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