Scotland’s Muslims
苏格兰的穆斯林

Islam in tartan
身着格子呢的穆斯林

May 7th 2009 | GLASGOW
From The Economist print edition

Changing identity and nationalism north of the border
国境之北的穆斯林——身份和民族的改变

MUSLIMS in Scotland have historically given their allegiance to the Labour Party, long seen as the champion of the underdog. That may now be changing. Last month the Scottish National Party (SNP) picked a Muslim activist to fight the Westminster constituency of Glasgow Central. Osama Saeed, a former spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain, which is ideologically close to the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, is not everyone’s cup of tea. But his selection says much about Scottish Muslims’ evolving identity.
有史以来，苏格兰的穆斯林一直效忠工党，一直被视为这一时运不济党派的支持者。但是现在局面恐怕有变。上月，苏格兰民族党挑选了一名穆斯林激进分子，来对抗格拉斯哥中央选区。乌萨马.赛义德原是英国穆斯林协会发言人，这一协会在观念上很接近伊斯兰教穆斯林兄弟会。但并不是人人都认同赛义德。然而这一选择却反映，苏格兰穆斯林的身份逐渐得到了认同。

Muslims in England tend to abhor nationalism, associating it with the British National Party (BNP) and its white-supremacist nonsense. Not so in Scotland, where the BNP has failed to win a foothold. The SNP favours immigration and has crossed swords with the Home Office over better treatment of asylum-seekers.
英格兰穆斯林憎恶民族主义，将其与英国国家党及其荒谬的白人至上理论视为同流。但是，英国国家党无立足之地的苏格兰却并非如此。苏格兰国民党对移民友好相待，并曾与内务部对峙，要求为这些庇护寻求者们提供更好的待遇。

But the attractions of the SNP for Muslims go much deeper than this. Only 5% of non-white people in England describe themselves as English (many more go for British). But 42% of non-whites in Scotland, most of them Muslim, are happy to declare themselves Scottish. Partly, that is because Scottish nationalism is not ethnic but civic, and bound up with institutions such as Scotland’s distinctive school system. And although Glasgow’s Muslims suffer plenty of racist slurs and attacks, these seem to be milder than south of the border. A study by academics at Glasgow University found that 49% of white Scots showed some degree of Islamophobia (fears about national identity or economic resentment), compared with 63% of English whites.
但是苏格兰国民党对穆斯林的吸引力没那么简单。在英格兰，只有5%的非白种人称自己英格兰人（更多的人称自己不列颠人）。但是在苏格兰的非白种人中（其中大部分是穆斯林），愿意称自己是苏格兰人。这一部分是因为“苏格兰”并非种族概念，而是文化概念，而且与苏格兰独特的学校体制等机构相关。尽管苏格兰的穆斯林也忍受诸多种族诽谤和攻击，但终究要好过南部的英格兰。格拉斯哥大学教授展开的一项研究表明，苏格兰49%的白种人都表现出不同等的伊斯兰恐惧症现象（即担心缺乏民族认同或经济方面的怨恨）；而在英格兰，该数据高达63%。

Another reason, says Peter Hopkins, a geographer at Newcastle University, is that Scotland’s cultural iconography is much more vivid and more popular than England’s. The demotic poetry of Robert Burns or the skirl of bagpipes at Highland gatherings are easily appreciated by immigrants. Warm beer and cricket on the green, cited by a former prime minister, John Major, as the essence of Englishness, do not much move England’s white population, never mind its Muslims, he says.
纽卡斯尔大学地理学者彼得.霍普金斯是说，另一个原因是苏格兰的文化意象相比英格兰更生动，更深入人心。罗伯特.彭斯德通俗的诗句，高地集会上悠扬的风笛，更容易为移民所欣赏。前英首相约翰.梅杰曾经援引暖啤酒和草地上的蟋蟀作为英格兰文化的精髓，霍普金斯认为，这连英格兰白种人都打动不了，何况穆斯林。

It is a short, sympathetic step from identifying with Scottishness to accepting the SNP’s central tenet: that Scots are a disregarded minority within Britain (contrary to evidence that they are over-represented in positions of power, from the prime minister on down), who really ought to put that right by claiming independence.
从让他们认识自己是英格兰人，到让他们接受苏格兰国民党的中心原则，这只不过是引起共鸣的一小步：在英国国内，苏格兰是一个不为人所重视的少数群体（虽然自首相而下，苏格兰人占大多数），他们只有通过要求独立，才能使得情势有所扭转。

Mr Saeed says that first-generation immigrants, many of whom come from Kashmir or whose parents lived through Pakistan’s struggle for independence, easily relate to the SNP’s cause. His conversion came at a lecture by Alex Salmond, the SNP leader and Scotland’s first minister, which, he says, “blew away the myths that Scotland was too small and poor to be independent”. Mr Salmond has toiled to convince Scottish Muslims that the SNP is on their side. It seems to have paid off—in 2003 after the Iraq war (vehemently opposed by the SNP), they were twice as likely to vote Nationalist as were white Scots.
第一代移民中许多都是来自克什米尔，或者父母曾经经历巴基斯坦的独立抗争，赛义德先生认为这些人很容易同苏格兰国民党产生共鸣。他是听了国民党领袖、苏格兰第一任首相阿莱克斯.萨尔蒙德的讲座之后发生了这样的转变。讲座中，萨尔蒙德曾说，“揭开神秘面纱，其实苏格兰只是因为太穷太小，才无法独立。”他费了九牛二虎之力终于说服穆斯林，苏格兰国民党与他们站在同一条战线。这似乎收到了成效——2003年伊拉克战争之后（苏格兰国民党强烈反对伊战），国民党的潜在选民达到了白人的两倍。

All the same, Mr Saeed—selected, says an SNP spokesman, not just because he was Muslim but also because he was one of a generation of bright, young pro-independence Scots—has a tough task ahead. The sitting Labour MP for Glasgow Central, Mohammad Sarwar, was the first British Muslim to be sent to Westminster, in 1997. In 2005 he won 48% of the vote, well ahead of his rivals, while the SNP came third with 15%. (Muslims make up almost a tenth of all voters in the constituency.)
一位苏格兰国民党发言人称，赛义德当选并非仅仅由于他是穆斯林，同时也因为他属于聪明、年轻的亲独立派一代苏格兰人。虽然得到了广泛支持，他前方的道路仍漫漫而修远。现任格拉斯哥中央的工党议员穆罕默德.沙尔瓦在1997年成为首个被送去威斯敏斯特的英国穆斯林。2005年他以48%的选票数远远超过竞争对手，而苏格兰国民党仅仅得到15%，屈居第三。（选区中穆斯林选民约占1/10。）

But Mr Sarwar does not plan to stand again; he received death threats after helping police to find the Pakistani perpetrators of a particularly ugly murder of a white youth in 2004. Labour has chosen his son Anas, a dentist, to take his place. Given current outrage at MPs feathering family nests with taxpayers’ funds, voters may not take kindly to such dynastic succession.
但是沙尔瓦并不打算重出江湖。2004年他帮助警方缉捕了一起白人少年谋杀案中巴基斯坦罪犯之后，受到了死亡威胁。工党选择了他的牙医儿子艾纳斯来接替他的位置。鉴于现议员家中窝藏税款引起众人震怒，票民们对这样的“王朝接任”，恐怕不会欣然接受。

 

译者/rhineyuan:  http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=19198

 

 

 

 
《经济学人》（The Economist ( http://www.economist.com ))
仅同意本网站翻译其杂志内容，并未对上述翻译内容进行任何审阅查对。