伊朗大选周年记

THIS time a year ago, shortly before a presidential election, Iran seemed on the verge of momentous change. The streets of Tehran, its capital, as well as those of other towns, heaved with opposition supporters, and the ejection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the country’s firebrand president, seemed a distinct possibility.

去年此时，总统大选迫在眉睫，伊朗似乎正站在一场巨变的边缘。首都德黑兰，以及其它城镇的大街小巷挤满了反对派的支持者，艾哈迈迪-内贾德, 这个国家极具煽动性的总统，似乎很有可能被赶下台。

Yet the incumbent won by a landslide, apparently with the help of massive fraud, leading to months of tumultuous unrest. Now the president’s people boast that the “traitorous” opposition has been broken and the country is back to normal. This confidence is reflected internally, where the state’s policies, of repression galore and some selective clemency, have born bitter fruit.更多信息请访问：http://www.24en.com/

但结果却是现任总统大获全胜。很明显，艾哈迈迪-内贾德是靠大规模舞弊蝉联总统宝座的，这也导致了持续数月的社会动荡。现在，总统的支持者声称，那些“背信弃义”的反对派已经瓦解，伊朗已经返回正轨。这份信心在伊朗国内就反映在压迫无处不在，仁慈却鲜有耳闻。伊朗的政策已经结下了苦涩的果实。

Iran’s reformist opposition limps on, but is quiescent and demoralised. Street demonstrations seem to have ended, though there is talk of a protest on June 12th to mark the election’s anniversary. Former and potential dissidents are monitored by moles at their mainly public-sector workplaces. “The movement is going nowhere,” says a former campaigner who teaches at one of Tehran’s universities, where informers abound. “No one,” she adds, “wants to overstep the line and find themselves suspended and unable to find a job later on.”

伊朗的改革派还在艰难地前行，但是却无精打采，士气低落。街头游行似乎已经结束，尽管有人风传6月12日会有一场示威游行纪念选举一周年。在公共部门的工作场所，以前的和潜在的持异见者都处在隐蔽的监视之下。“这场运动不会成功的，”一位前集会组织者说。她在德黑兰的一所大学任教，那儿的间谍很多。她还说，“没有人敢越雷池一步，因为他们不想被停职，而且以后都找不到工作。”

The authorities have adroitly strained the bonds of communication that gave the demonstrators a sense of common identity. Thanks to government jamming devices, access to the BBC’s Persian-language channel, formerly a popular source of news, has become well-nigh impossible in most parts of Tehran. The censors work diligently; the news-stands are bereft of a single genuinely reformist newspaper, though anyone with anti-filter software can surf the anti-government sites.

当局还老练地作用于一些交流纽带，它们会赋予示威者一种认同感。英国广播电台波斯语频道一度拥有众多听众，但由于政府的干扰装置的作用，现在德黑兰的大部分地区都接收不到该频道。审查部门一刻也没有放松；报摊上买不到一份真正地同情反对派的报纸，但是只要有反过滤软件，任何人都可以浏览反政府网站。

The frenzied brutality of the second half of last year, when arrests took place in the hundreds and many dissidents were killed and tortured in custody, has given way to a duller repression. Some imprisoned senior reformists have been freed, although, having posted extortionate bail and been threatened with more horrors, they then tend to steer clear of dissident politics. Ordinary detainees are often “encouraged” to leave the country on their release. Many have done so.

去年下半年，数以百计的人被逮捕，许多的持异见者在监牢里被杀，或是饱受折磨。现在这种狂乱的暴行已经被一种更沉闷的压迫方式取代。一些被关押的改革派高层已经被释放，但是他们却不得不交纳几近敲诈的保释金，还被百般恐吓。一些人就此远离持异见者的政治活动。普通的被捕者在被释放时，常常被鼓励离开这个国家。许多人确实离开了。

Though riven by personal animosities and far from uniformly pro-Ahmadinejad, parliament unites in slavish praise for the deeply conservative Ayatollah Khamenei, who still has the last word on all affairs of state. Last month a majority of deputies tactfully turned down a chance to launch an inquiry, into atrocities committed by the security forces in government detention centres, which might have reflected badly on Mr Khamenei.

尽管议员之间彼此敌视，也远谈不上对艾哈迈迪-内贾德的一致支持，但是议会在对领袖霍梅尼的褒扬上却相当的一致。后者极度保守，仍然对国内的所有事务拥有最后的决定权。上个月，大多数的议员明智地拒绝了对安全部队在政府监禁中心的暴行进行问询的机会，因为问询的结果很可能对霍梅尼不利。

To judge by their ability to move around, attend weddings and visit just-freed allies, the two most prominent thwarted presidential candidates, Mir Hosein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, may be more comfortable than they were at the height of the crisis, when both were subjected to physical assaults. In truth, they were never more than figureheads for a movement whose demands for constitutional change exceeded their own more modest aims; fewer dissidents heed their public statements than they did before. There is a good chance they will be arrested just as soon as the authorities are confident of a muted public reaction.

侯赛因穆萨维和马赫迪卡鲁比现在可以自由行动，参加婚礼，看望新近释放的盟友。从这点看来，这两位在大选中表现最显眼的落选人现在要比在危机的风口浪尖时好过，那时，他们都饱受人身攻击。事实上，他们不过是这场要求修宪运动的傀儡，相比这一要求，他们的个人目标更温和，也不是这场运动的主要目的；越来越少的持异见者在发表公共言论时像过去那样谨小慎微。但是一旦当局确信公众不会有激烈反应，这些人很可能会被马上抓起来。

With the end of large-scale unrest, the authorities have resumed their efforts to “purify” Iranian society. Alcohol-fuelled parties attended by boys and girls are again being busted, though heavy fines rather than detention have become the penalty of choice. The morals police have returned to the streets, where they impound the cars of cruising lotharios and any young woman who shows her curves too candidly.

在大规模的动荡结束后，当局开始继续净化伊朗社会的努力。酒精泛滥的男女聚会重新被查禁，只不过这一次惩罚手段从拘禁变成了处以高额罚金。道德警察再次出现在街头，没收招花引蝶的浪荡子和任何把自己的身体曲线暴露得太明显的年轻女孩的汽车。

The border provinces of Kurdistan and Baluchistan, where members of Iran’s Sunni minority live, have experienced brutality of a different order. In May four Kurds and a Baluch were executed on charges of separatist terrorism, after trials (in the Kurds’ case) that were widely condemned. Parts of Kurdistan observed a general strike in protest.

伊朗的逊尼少数派聚居的边境省库尔德斯坦和俾路支经历了别样的残暴。五月份，四名库尔德人和一名俾路支人被以分裂恐怖主义的名义处以极刑，对他们的审判（库尔德人的案子）备受指责。库尔德斯坦的部分地区还爆发了示威游行。

In the capital all eyes are on the struggle between Mr Ahmadinejad and his sworn enemy, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president and the head of several government bodies, who has been repeatedly humiliated since he failed to prevent the president’s “re-election” last summer. The government is close to seizing control of an immensely profitable network of private universities that Mr Rafsanjani set up, and his eldest son faces trial on corruption charges if he returns home from exile in London. In May a pro-Ahmadinejad ayatollah obliquely denounced Mr Rafsanjani for aspiring to be part of a “leadership council” that could succeed the frail Mr Khamenei.

在首都德黑兰，所有人的目光都集中在艾哈迈迪－内贾德和他的死敌,前总统阿克巴尔 哈什米 拉夫桑贾尼的争斗上。作为几个政府机构的首脑，拉夫桑贾尼自去年夏天没能阻止艾哈迈迪－内贾德连任后就屡次三番被羞辱。拉夫桑贾尼一手建立的私立大学盈利性极强的网络差不多已经被政府接管，他在伦敦流亡的大儿子一旦返回伊朗也会因为腐败指控而被起诉。五月份，一位支持艾哈迈迪－内贾德的宗教领袖委婉地指责拉夫桑贾尼企图加入“领导议会”，从而接替虚弱的霍梅尼。

Abroad, Mr Ahmadinejad is also tirelessly chipper, parading his Islamist populism and declaring that Iran is the world’s most important nation. After witnessing a public-relations success he claimed to have scored recently over the American administration of President Barack Obama, his fans are happy to agree. Few images were more telling of Iran’s new bounce than those of a grinning Mr Ahmadinejad standing triumphantly between Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva, and Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on May 17th. The three had just clinched a nuclear deal which, they presumed, would force Mr Obama to reverse his decision to steer a new sanctions resolution against Iran through the UN Security Council.

在国外，艾哈迈迪－内贾德也是不知疲倦，大谈他的伊斯兰民粹主义并宣称伊朗是世界上最重要的国家。在见证了他最近声称的在公共关系上战胜美国的奥巴马总统后，他的支持者们也乐得同意。5月17日，艾哈迈迪－内贾德笑逐颜开地站在巴西总统卢拉和土耳其总理艾尔多甘中间，像一位胜利者。很少有比这个画面更能说明伊朗的强劲反弹了。他们刚刚达成了一个核协议，认为这样将迫使奥巴马总统回心转意，放弃在联合国安理会通过一项新的制裁伊朗的决议。

The Americans, along with the Europeans, Russians and Chinese, were, however, unimpressed with the Brazil/Turkey deal. Unlike an American, Russian and French one put to Iran last October, whereby it would give up much of its under 5%-enriched uranium (which can be further enriched to 90% to make a bomb without too much bother), in return for 20%-enriched fuel rods for use in a research reactor, the May 17th deal would still leave Iran with enough uranium for a bomb’s worth, and leave it enriching on regardless, to 20% itself, as it started doing earlier this year.

然而，美国人，还有欧洲人，俄国人和中国人似乎并不为这份协议所动。不同于美国，俄罗斯和法国去年10月向伊朗提出的协议---根据这份协议，伊朗必须放弃浓度低于5%的浓缩铀（这种浓缩铀还可以继续浓缩到90%，从而轻而易举地造出核弹），以换取20%浓度的燃料棒用于研究型反应堆---5月17日的这份协议允许伊朗保留制造一颗核弹的铀当量，并允许它浓缩到20%，就像伊朗年初就开始做的那样。

On June 9th the Obama administration duly pushed through a fourth round of sanctions at the UN Security Council. Hillary Clinton, the American secretary of state, called these the most “significant sanctions that Iran has ever faced”. They ban the sale of heavy weapons, extend travel bans and asset freezes on Iranian companies and officials, and give countries the right to examine suspect Iranian cargoes at their ports and airports.

6月9日，奥巴马政府又适时地在安理会推动通过了第四轮针对伊朗的制裁。美国国务卿，希拉里克林顿，称这一轮制裁是“伊朗面对的最意义重大的制裁”。该决议禁止向伊朗出售重武器，延长旅游禁令和冻结伊朗公司和官员资产，并授权各国检查停留在它们港口和机场的可疑的伊朗货物。

Russia and China, both traditionally Iran’s supporters, had watered these down but still voted for them. Only Brazil and Turkey voted no, and Lebanon, where Hizbullah has close ties to Iran, abstained. Iran had worked hard to widen the opposition to sanctions, but Mr Ahmadinejad seemed untroubled. Iran may not necessarily be unhappy to be uncoupled from Russia, a country it now sees as untrustworthy.

在传统上，俄罗斯和中国一直是伊朗的支持者。尽管它们曾试图削弱制裁的效力，但最后还是投了赞成票。只有巴西和土耳其投了反对票，还有黎巴嫩投了弃权票，因为黎巴嫩真主党和伊朗有着密切联系。伊朗政府努力争取反对制裁的国家，但是艾哈迈迪－内贾德似乎并不以为意。伊朗可能也乐得和俄罗斯划清界线，因为现在伊朗觉得俄罗斯并不值得信任。

An historic meddler in Iranian affairs, Russia had recently been Iran’s main nuclear ally, only to disappoint its southern neighbour. With Iran defiantly refusing to suspend its uranium-enrichment work, despite a string of UN resolutions calling on it to do so, Russia has found endless pretexts to delay the commissioning of a nuclear reactor that it has built at Bushehr, on Iran’s southern coast, and to stall delivery of a sophisticated missile-defence system. The Iranians also suspect Russia of holding up their application to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a six-country mutual-security outfit led by China, Russia and Kazakhstan.

在历史上，俄罗斯就曾多次干涉伊朗事务。最近，它又成了伊朗的核伙伴，但合作的结果却让这个南方的邻居很失望。在伊朗不顾一连串的联合国制裁，执意继续铀浓缩活动的时候，俄罗斯却想尽百般借口，迟迟不肯开始它在伊朗西海岸建设的布什尔核反应堆的试运行，并安装送达的复杂的导弹防御系统。伊朗还怀疑俄罗斯在它加入上海合作组织（一个由中国，俄罗斯和哈萨克斯坦主导的六国安全合作组织）的事情上从中作梗。

It is all a far cry from the chaotic aftermath of last summer’s poll. Then, as Tehran teemed with demonstrators demanding Mr Ahmadinejad’s resignation, Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, welcomed him to Moscow and congratulated him fulsomely on his re-election.

这和去年夏天大选后的情形大相径庭。那时，德黑兰到处是示威者要求艾哈迈迪－内贾德下台。而俄罗斯总统，梅德韦杰夫却邀请他访问莫斯科并谄媚地恭喜他连任成功。

As non-permanent members of the Security Council, aspiring medium-sized powers Turkey and Brazil have no veto. All the same, they do offer a path away from pariahdom. Even before the attempted May 17th fuel deal, hard-line newspapers in Tehran had shrugged off their old contempt for Turkey’s secular model, treating Mr Erdogan, a moderate Islamist, with new respect. The Iranians were gratified by Turkey’s furious reaction to Israel’s killing of nine Turks on Gaza-bound aid-carrying vessels on May 31st, though they will not easily give up their own self-appointed status as the Palestinians’ best friend. Iran said its own Red Crescent charity would be sending aid by boat to Gaza soon.

作为联合国安理会的非常务理事国，新锐的中等国家巴西和土耳其没有否决权。尽管如此，它们的地位还是不容忽视。即使在5月17日的协议之前，德黑兰支持强硬路线的报纸已经摈弃了过去对土耳其世俗模式的鄙视，像尊重温和的伊斯兰主义者一样尊重艾尔多甘。5月31日，以色列杀害了前往加沙的救援船上的九名土耳其人。伊朗很是赞赏土耳其对此事的愤怒反应，但是伊朗人还是认为自己才是巴勒斯坦人最好的朋友。伊朗说它的红十字协会不久就会通过海运的方式向加沙运送救援物资。

Meanwhile, Iran’s declining friendship with Russia prefigures an even greater reliance on China. Although China also voted for tougher sanctions on June 9th, this time Mr Ahmadinejad will probably bite his tongue. He can probably live without Russia. China, he needs badly. This week he was off to Beijing after a short stop-over in Turkey.

同时，伊朗和俄罗斯关系转冷喻示着它将会更加伊赖于中国。6月9日，中国也投票支持更严苛的制裁，也许这次艾哈迈迪-内贾德就不会那么无所谓了。没有俄罗斯，也许他还可以支撑；但是没了中国，他就有麻烦了。本周，他在土耳其短暂停留后就去了中国。

The Iranians and the Chinese started cosying up in the late 1990s. Since then, combined trade has vastly increased; it is expected to reach $30 billion this year. China’s burgeoning energy needs and the West’s policy of isolating Iran explain this. Apart from buying oceans of Iranian crude, China has benefited from the gradual withdrawal of European oil companies from Iran; unilateral American sanctions have long prevented American outfits from working there. Chinese contractors have scooped up cancelled contracts and won new ones, though few have yet taken effect. For as long as China opposes measures against Iranian hydrocarbons, on which the economy depends, the Islamic Republic will probably be able to ride out the challenges posed by other sanctions.

伊朗和中国的关系是在90年代后期开始升温的。此后，双边贸易总额快速增长，今年有望达到300亿美元。中国旺盛的能源需求和西方孤立伊朗的政策是原因所在。除了从伊朗大量输入原油，欧洲石油公司从伊朗的逐渐撤出也让中国从中受益。美国的单边制裁让美国的石油公司无法进入伊朗市场。中国的承包商已经接手了被取消的合同并赢得了新合同，尽管大多还没有生效。只要中国反对对经济赖以发展的伊朗石油采取措施，这个伊斯兰共和国就很可能战胜其它制裁带来的挑战。

Thus, despite this week’s UN vote, Iran feels more comfortable than at any time since the election. For the millions of Iranians who turned out last summer to unseat their president, it is painful to watch him strutting on the world stage. All the same, says one campaigner, Mr Ahmadinejad is perfectly capable, by some of act of coarseness or brutality, of bringing people into the streets again. “All it would take”, he says, “is one spark.” But the fire of democracy has been doused before.

因此，尽管本周联合国投票制裁它，伊朗反而觉得比大选以来任何时候都舒服。对于在去年夏天走上街头要把艾哈迈迪－内贾德赶下总统宝座的伊朗民众来说，看着他在世界舞台上高视阔步是一件痛苦的事。尽管如此，一位集集会组织者说，艾哈迈迪－内贾德的一次粗暴行动很可能让人们再次走上街头。他说，“需要的只是一个火花。”但是民主的火焰已经熄灭。