在一个不怎么以高效率而著名的城市里，开罗的垃圾清理工，或者称为Zabbaleen（扎巴里人，阿拉伯语，意思是捡的垃圾的人），一直是了不起的劳动模范。Zabbaleen成员几乎都是信仰埃及基督教的Coptic（科普特人），埃及基督教是一个信徒刚过600万的少数教派。虽然不能保证这个埃及富裕的首都完全的清洁，但Zabbaleen垃圾处理工作，做的非常优秀。垃圾货运环绕城市居民区半打的垃圾回收点，他们仔细的挑选出可以循环再用的玻璃瓶子、旧报纸和塑料制品。余下的垃圾就喂给猪。

But in response to the global threat of swine flu, Egypt’s government has decreed that the pigs, perhaps 250,000 of them, must go. Teams of surgical-mask-wearing pig-hunters were met at first with a barrage of rocks, bottles and manure hurled by the angry Zabbaleen. Now, backed by riot police and promising compensation, they are systematically hauling the beasts off for slaughter, a process expected to take several months.

为了应对遍及全球的猪流感疫情，埃及政府下令处死约250,000头猪，起初戴着手术口罩杀猪的工作人员与Zabbaleen发生激烈冲突，招致愤怒的Zabbaleen投掷石块、瓶子、粪便。现在有了防暴警察的支援，加上有希望获得赔偿。他们才得以有序的将这些牲畜捕获并屠杀，这个过程预计要进行几个月。

With no cases of swine flu reported in Egypt to date, officials from both the UN and the World Health Organisation have condemned Egypt’s porcicide as a drastic overreaction. Some disgruntled Copts, who have long complained of petty discrimination and fear the influence of Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, say the move unfairly targets them. Others, noting that Egypt’s minister of health consulted Coptic clergy before announcing the cull, see it as a plot by wealthy businessmen to uproot the Zabbaleen and seize their valuable land on the edge of the city. Still more rumours explain the government’s swinophobia as a ploy to distract attention from other failings, such as not paying a promised salary bonus.

在开罗至今还没有猪流感病例报告，联合国和世界卫生组织的官员都谴责埃及屠杀猪的行为反应过激。一些不满的科普特一直抱怨政府对他们的歧视，并害怕伊斯兰群体的势力，如穆斯林兄弟会（Muslim Brotherhood），他们认为此次行动不公平的将矛头对向了他们 。另外一些人指出埃及的卫生部长是在咨询科普特教士之后宣布了捕杀行动，他们认为这是政府同富商密谋勾结想要把Zabbaleen彻底清除，并占领他们城市边缘的宝贵土地的阴谋。更有传闻指出政府的恐猪行为，只不过是为了转移公众在其失败之处的注意力的一个策略，例如不支付承诺过的工资和奖金。

Yet most of the 80m-odd Egyptians seem relieved. While Muslims shun pigs as ritually unclean, many Copts also fear them as disease-carriers, with panic over swine flu heightened as Egypt has suffered at least 26 deaths from avian flu since 2006, the most in any country outside Asia. Besides, the crowded pig pens, surrounded by mounds of self-combusting biodegradable slime and hemmed in by dense human settlement, are a stinky eyesore. But the question no one seems to ask is, if pigs are no longer there to munch away at them, where will Cairo’s giant piles of leftovers go?

然而余下的8000万中的大多数埃及人似乎松了口气，穆斯林的宗教信仰上都回避猪，认为猪是肮脏的，不纯洁的，很多科普特人同样担心猪会传染疾病，埃及禽流感的经历加重了其对猪流感的恐慌。自2006年以来，共有26人死于禽流感，为亚洲以外死亡人数最多的国家。此外拥挤的猪圈里，充斥着成堆散发沼气的猪粪，周围是密集的居民区，既散发恶臭，还影响市容。但是有个问题似乎没人问，假如猪不再继续咀嚼了，那么埃及成堆的剩菜怎么办？

《经济学人》（The Economist ( http://www.economist.com ))
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