译者 JACKIEXIA
Censorship in Pakistan - Sense of humour failure
巴基斯坦的审查制度 - 幽默感的失败
AN OFTEN overlooked perk of being a country with a large population and relatively low wages is the capacity to employ people to carry out silly tasks. In India, for example, some people spend their days pasting white stickers onto maps of Kashmir printed in foreign publications (such as The Economist). In neighbouring Pakistan, the regulatory body for telecommunications dreamed up an equally unlikely, if altogether more entertaining, assignment for its staff: to compile a list of “undesired words” that could be used to block offensive text messages. In a remarkable show of efficiency (to say nothing of creativity), the agency managed to find 1,100 words and phrases in English and nearly 600 in Urdu. (Admittedly they may have padded it out a bit—how else to explain the presence of “robber”, “oui” or “k mart” in a list that otherwise places rather more emphasis on sexual adventurism?)
一般来说，一个人口庞大，由此造成人均收入低的国家都有这样一个特点，他们会雇很多人去做一些愚蠢的工作。以印度为例，一些人每天的工作就是向国外出版物(例如《经济学人》)上的克什米尔地图贴白色贴纸。在它的邻国巴基斯坦，电信管理机构想出另一种同样愚蠢的事情，也许在它的职员眼中看来这更有趣些，更像工作：编写一份“敏感词”列表用来封锁敏感的侵犯性的短信。在他们令人咂舌的高效下(尽管毫无创造性可言)，这个机构总算列入了1,100个英语单词及短语和接近600个乌尔都语词。(就算承认他们可能有点排斥这些——那怎么解释“robber”，“oui”或者“k mart”这些词在名单里的出现？随便找个别的地方，都会比它更突显出性冒险主义)
Last week, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s (PTA) memo and accompanying list of the words sent to mobile-phone service providers were leaked on the internet. Pakistanis were aghast and amused in equal measure. Previous bans have targeted Facebook, Rolling Stone magazine’s website and the use of encrypted networks. These met with limited opposition. But the directive to block text messages containing certain words was seen as an attack on free speech.
上个星期，巴基斯坦电信局(PTA)发给移动电话服务提供商的备忘录以及随附的敏感词列表在互联网上被披露。巴基斯坦人对此感到即震惊又好笑。之前的封禁指向Facebook,滚石杂志的官网和加密网络的使用。这些仅遭到了有限的反对。然而将封锁对象直指包含特定词语的短信则被视为对言论自由的攻击。
The official reason for the ban was “to control the menace of spam in the society”. Far more likely, the authorities finally grew tired of rude anti-government jokes that circulate widely via text message. Many feature the president, Asif Ali Zardari, in a starring role. (A tame example: “The post office issued new stamps with Zardari’s face on them but they had to be withdrawn because the public found them too confusing: it was impossible to tell which side to spit on.”) Texting is perhaps the most effective means of mass communication in Pakistan: two of every three Pakistanis have a mobile phone and the cost of sending an SMS is among the cheapest in the world. Following public uproar, damning editorials and the threat of legal action from NGOs, the authority sheepishly announced that “implementation of previous PTA instructions have been withheld” after it “received input from customers, government and other quarters on this issue”.
官方给出的封禁理由是“控制社会上流传的威胁性垃圾信息”。实际原因更像是政府受够了那些刻薄的通过短信广为流传的抨击政府的笑话。其中许多都在嘲讽总统阿西夫.阿里.扎尔达里(一个相对温和的例子：“邮局发行了以扎尔达里的头像为图案的新邮票，但不久就不得不收回，因为他们发现公众都很迷惑：他们根本就不知道该往哪面吐唾沫。”)在巴基斯坦，短信也许是大范围交流的最有效方式：三分之二的巴基斯坦人拥有一部手机，而且短信的费用在全世界都是最便宜的。在得到民众的骚动，诅咒性的社论，以及非政府组织合法活动上发出的威胁后，政府怯懦的宣布“在收到来自用户，政府和其他人关于此问题的意见后”，“巴基斯坦电信局之前的指令搁置实施”。
The government’s inability to take a joke isn’t restricted to text messages. In an interview with the state broadcaster on November 21st, the UN’s “world television day”, the information minister, Firdous Ashiq Awan, stressed the need for a code of conduct to help broadcast media through an “evolutionary phase”. There is little doubt that Pakistan’s news channels could do with some restraint, especially when it comes to coverage of terrorist attacks, which tends towards the gory. But critics fear that an enforced code of conduct would use obscenity as an excuse to target the hugely popular political satire programmes that make fun of the nation’s ruling classes. “It’s anti-government stuff, impersonations of Zardari and company—they don’t leave anyone alone. They make all kinds of jokes, some of them quite lewd,” said Murtaza Razvi, a senior editor at Dawn, a leading English-language newspaper.
政府接受不了这种玩笑不止体现在短信上。在11月21日，联合国“世界电视日”与国家电视台主持人的一次访谈中，信息部长费尔都斯.阿什克.阿旺，暗示需要制订一部法规来引导巴基斯坦广播媒体度过“过渡阶段”。几乎可以肯定的是，巴基斯坦电视的新频道都会采取一些限制措施，尤其是当报道到日渐血腥的恐怖袭击的时候。但是批评家担心一部强制性的引导法规会被下流的用于针对极度流行的取笑统治阶级的政治讽刺事件。“这是反政府的问题，主角有扎尔达里和其他领导人——他们一个都没放过。他们编造各种各样的笑话，有些是相当粗俗的，”一份有影响的英文报纸的资深编辑，穆塔扎.拉齐夫这样说道。
Pakistan’s broadcasting rules were liberalised under Pervez Musharraf soon after he took power in a military coup in 1999, and the number of television channels quickly grew from a single state broadcaster to nearly a hundred channels. The government would do well to draw a lesson from the experience of Mr Musharraf, who tried to clamp down on press freedom in 2007 and found himself out of office soon after. Mr Zardari may not enjoy being the butt of jokes every night but it certainly beats having angry protesters on the streets of Islamabad.
巴基斯坦的广播电视法在佩雷兹.穆沙拉夫于1999年发动军事政变夺权后不久得以放宽，电视频道的数目迅速从单个的国家电视台上升到接近一百个频道。政府也许会从2007年压制自由，随后下台的穆沙拉夫先生那好好地学导一课。扎尔达里先生也许不会喜欢每天晚上都成为那些笑话的笑柄，可这总比伊斯兰堡的大街上全是愤怒的抗议者要好。
from 译言-每日精品译文推荐 http://article.yeeyan.org/view/161775/235499