Turkey s Politics of Fatigue
土耳其政治倦怠感瀰漫
By Elif Shafak

Before a recent interview in Istanbul, I was talking to the journalist about Turkish politics. After about 15 minutes, she looked down and lowered her voice, as though confiding a secret: “It is so tiring to be Turkish sometimes.”
最近在伊斯坦堡一次採訪前，我和這位記者談及土耳其政治。約15分鐘後她眼看下方壓低嗓門，彷彿洩密般說：「身為土耳其人有時好累。」

That mental exhaustion is caused for the most part by politics. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his leading cadres have chosen a divisive strategy, pursuing hostility over compromise and a politics of duality over a culture of coexistence. Even the most trivial or absurd questions can provoke heated debate: “Would laughing in public endanger a Turkish woman’s modesty?” “Should Turkish Airlines female flight attendants be allowed to wear red lipstick, and if not, which color might be permissible?” “Should patriotic citizens consume ayran (a yogurt drink) instead of raki?” “Are all female drivers of red cars voting for the opposition party?”
這種精神疲憊多因政治而起。總統厄多岡和手下領導幹部搞分裂策略，要敵對，不要妥協，要二元政治，不要共存。再細微荒謬的事都成熱議，如「公然大笑有損土國女性謙卑？」「土國女空服員可否塗紅唇，若否，應塗何色？」「愛國公民應喝愛蘭（一種優格飲料），不喝拉基酒？」「開紅色轎車的女性票全投給了反對黨？」

The unbearable fatigue is particularly sharp among liberal intellectuals and women. The liberals do not represent huge numbers of Turks, but they are an important measure against which the Justice and Development Party’s political trajectory can be tracked. When the party first came to power in 2002, liberals supported it. A.K.P., the party’s initials in Turkish, was pro-reform and pro-European Union. It was expected to promote civil liberties, a heartening idea after three military takeovers since 1960, each worse than the previous one. But as the party swerved toward authoritarianism, liberals were cast adrift.
這種難以忍受的倦怠感，自由派知識分子和婦女感受最深。土國自由派人數不多，卻是「正義與發展黨」政治軌跡的重要指標。該黨2002年首次上台時獲自由派支持。土文縮寫為A.K.P.的該黨挺改革且親歐盟，一般預料公民自由有望提高，1960年以來土國已三度由軍方接掌政權，且每下愈況，這種想法令人振奮。孰料該黨快速走向專制，自由派中途棄船。

At a New Year’s dinner in Istanbul, I listened to my morose liberal friends: “There are two ways left for anyone who doesn’t sympathize with the A.K.P. today: Either we are going to become foolishly apolitical, or we’ll get to be bitterly political. And if you want to be neither foolish nor bitter, tough luck!”
在伊斯坦堡吃年夜飯，我鬱悶的自由派朋友說：「今天，不做A.K.P.同路人只剩兩條路：不是傻傻不問政治，就是挖苦政治。不裝傻也不挖苦，很難！」

Some liberals have gone silent, but some stand in sharp opposition, while others engage in self-criticism. “It wasn’t the support for more pluralistic and democratic developments ... where we went wrong. It was failing to see that the A.K.P.’s boundaries would turn out to be so narrow,” wrote the Turkish author and sociologist Oya Baydar. “Those who used to say that the A.K.P. was only pretending to be democratic and would eventually replace military despotism with a civilian one ... have been proved right.”
有些自由派變得沉默，有些針鋒相對，有些自我批判。土國作家與社會學家歐雅．貝達寫道：「我們的錯不在支持多元與民主發展，而在未能看出A.K.P.竟如此狹隘。曾說A.K.P.只是故作民主，最終會是文人專制取代軍事專制的那些人一語中的。」

Today, liberals are viewed with scorn by the anti-A.K.P. camp for being too soft and naïve. “In the end, weren’t they, as were some left-wing intellectuals in the 1950s and 1960s in the Soviet Union, the ‘useful idiots’ of the A.K.P. and Erdogan?” wrote Ariane Bonzon, a French journalist who covers Turkey and the Middle East.
如今，反A.K.P.陣營對自由派的柔弱天真嗤之以鼻。主跑土國與中東新聞的法國記者亞利安．邦桑寫道：「最後他們就像蘇聯1950、1960年的左派知識分子，成了A.K.P.和厄多岡『有用的白痴』？」

Among Turkey’s nonconservative women – at least half of the 48 percent who did not vote for Mr. Erdogan in the last election – there is a growing concern about the A.K.P.’s meddling in their private lives. In the past, sexist statements from male politicians were regarded as spontaneous outbursts.
土國非保守女性占48％，半數未在上次大選中投票給厄多岡，她們對A.K.P. 插手私生活日益不安。以往，男性的性別歧視言論常被視為脫口而出。

Today, they are seen as part of a systematic and sinister ideological campaign to confine women to traditional gender roles. After the minister of health, Mehmet Muezzinoglu, visited the first baby born in 2015, he said, “Mothers should not put any career other than motherhood at the center of their lives.”
如今這些言論被視為系統性、邪惡的思想運動，意圖將女性框進傳統的性別角色。衛生部長穆齊諾格魯造訪2015年第一個新生兒後說：「除了母職，母親不該把任何生涯當做生活重心。」

The backlash was immediate. Turkish women have heard top government officials weigh in on subjects like abortion, cesarean-section deliveries, contraception and style of dress. “I am fed up with all these sexist comments, constantly telling us women how to live our lives,” Ayse Arman wrote in the newspaper Hurriyet. Protests were organized around the country. When I talked about the need for an independent women’s movement and a new narrative of sisterhood to bridge political divides, some conservative head-scarved women said it would be hard to work with feminists since their interests had been ignored in the past.
此話立刻招來反撲。土國婦女已聽到政府高官想左右墮胎、剖腹產、避孕、穿著等議題。艾茜．亞曼在自由報寫道：「我受夠了性別歧視言論，不斷告訴女性該如何生活。」抗議在全國展開。當我談及土國需要獨立的婦女運動，賦予姐妹關係新定義，以彌合政治分歧時，一些保守的戴頭巾女性說，很難和女性主義者合作，因為她們的利益過去未受重視。

This reaction speaks to one of Turkey’s greatest obstacles: how the past shapes the future. A sense of victimhood plagues society, and there is a constant cycle of retribution that creates new victims.
這種反應說明土國最大障礙：土國的過去會形塑未來。受害感充斥社會，持續的報應循環，不斷製造新的受害人。

After the horrible shootings in Paris at the magazine Charlie Hebdo, and amid a rise in both Islamopobia and anti-Westernism, Turkey could have stood as a unifying voice, a modern, democratic, pluralistic Muslim country with a strong secularist tradition. But that is not the prevailing mood.
巴黎查理周刊發生可怕槍擊後，恐伊斯蘭症和反西方情緒上升，身為現代、民主、多元，且有強大世俗傳統的穆斯林國家，土國本可成為團結的聲音。但這不是普遍的氛圍。

Mr. Erdogan blamed the West for the killings. “As Muslims we have never taken part in terrorist massacres,” he said. “Behind these lie racism, hate speech and Islamophobia. Games are being played with the Islamic world – we need to be aware of this.”
厄多岡將殺戮歸咎於西方。他說：「身為穆斯林，我們從未參與恐怖屠殺。這背後是種族歧視、仇恨言論和恐伊斯蘭症。他們正和伊斯蘭世界玩遊戲。我們須有這種意識。」

Those who criticize the government are accused of not being patriotic, or worse, a pawn of Western powers trying destroy Turkey. The latest victims include Miss Turkey of 2006, Merve Buyuksarac, who was questioned for insulting President Erdogan on her Instagram account; and Sedef Kabas, a journalist and anchorwoman, who was held by the police for tweeting about a cover-up of a government corruption scandal.
批評政府者被控不愛國，甚至被指為西方強權摧毀土國的棋子。最新的受害人包括2006年土耳其小姐梅薇．布尤沙拉克。她因在Instagram 帳戶侮辱厄多岡遭到偵訊；記者兼女主播塞德芙．卡巴斯因推文談論遭掩蓋的政府貪汙醜聞而被捕。

One of the country’s most popular actors, Tamer Karadagli, said, “Artists, businessmen ... we are all scared.”
土耳其最受歡迎演員之一坦默．卡拉達格里說：「藝術家，商人...人人自危。」

The fatigue lingers. The gap between Turkey and the West widens. If as Turks we cannot find a way to embrace the ideals of free society, open debate, pluralistic culture and gender equality, it won’t be just a failure of democracy, but it will be a failure of imagination and will.
倦怠感徘徊不去。土耳其和西方的鴻溝擴大。如果我們和土耳其一樣，無法找到途徑去擁抱自由社會、公開辯論、多元文化和兩性平等理想，它不單是民主的敗筆，還是想像力和意志的潰敗。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/opinion/turkeys-politics-of-fatigue.html

2015-01-27聯合報/G9版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 王麗娟譯 原文參見紐時週報四版上