译者 luoxt10
Egypt at the Tipping Point
临界点中的埃及
The honeymoon between the rebellious youth of Egypt and the military council that took power after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak last February is over. The renewed massing of (largely secular) protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the killing by riot police, sent in by the council, of at least three dozen youngsters and the injury of hundreds more in the past three days may be a milestone or watershed in the ongoing Egyptian revolution. Mass demonstrations also occurred in outlying cities, including Asyut, Port Said and Alexandria, and the council-appointed interim cabinet has resigned.
打倒穆巴拉克后革命青年与接手政权的军事委员会的蜜月期宣告结束。最近解放广场上的大规模抗议，军事委员会派来的防暴警察的镇压，近三天至少36人的死亡和数百人的受伤，可能是埃及革命的里程碑和转折点。群众游行也在包括艾斯尤特、塞得港和亚历山大等边远城市爆发，军事委员会任命的临时内阁也宣布辞职。
Some have compared the situation to Russia in 1917, when in February the tsarist ancien régime was toppled by popular protest and the interim Keresnsky government was then, in turn, overthrown by the Bolsheviks in the "October" Revolution—which, actually, also took place in November.
有些人将现在这个情形与1917年的俄罗斯相比，在1917年2月，沙皇旧政权被有广泛群众基础的革命推翻，但接着过渡政府也在十月革命中被布尔什维克党人推翻，恰好，十月革命也是在11月。
The question is who will emerge on top. There are really three possibilities: The military will succeed in crushing the rioters, who are demanding an immediate transfer of power to a civilian government; there will be an abdication by the military, which announced a few weeks ago that it intends to continue "overseeing" whatever government emerges from the scheduled general elections, due to begin on 28 November and to be followed, at some indefinite date, by presidential elections; or a state of bloody, indefinite chaos will ensue.
问题是谁最终会站在权利最高点。有三个可能：军方成功镇压要求军方马上交权于平民政府的骚乱者；军方退位，虽然军方几周前宣布，它将等着看谁会在既定的大选中获胜，大选从11月28开始，直至还未确定的总统选举；或者，再来一场血腥的、没有预期的暴乱。
If the elections go ahead, most observers predict the Islamists will emerge as the dominant bloc in a civilian-coalition government. This explains why the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest and best-organized Islamist party, appears to have remained on the sidelines in the current troubles: The Brotherhood wants the elections to go ahead and doesn’t want the military to have an excuse to crush the protests (and their own party) or to cancel the poll. But the elections are now in doubt, as it seems unlikely they can go forward in a condition of mass rioting and repression.
如果大选能进行，多数观察者预测伊斯兰教徒会在联合政府中成为主导政治集团。这也是为什么直到现在穆斯林兄弟会——最大、组织最好的伊斯兰党派——还在混乱中做旁观者。兄弟会希望大选能顺利进行，它不希望军方有借口镇压抗议者（甚至是兄弟会）或者取消投票。但是，在现在这种平民暴乱军方镇压的情况下，大选能否进行真的是个未知数。
The largely secular military council under General Tantawi appears bent on retaining power in order to preserve the officer corps' privileges (good wages; money-making industries and monopolies; relative immunity from civilian oversight and prosecution) and preventing the emergence of a dominant Islamist government that could wish to curtail those privileges and perhaps purge the officer corps and even put on trial officers connected to the persistent repression of dissent. Since February, many thousands of Egyptians have been jailed by military tribunals or simply slung in jail without trial. It is said that some protesters have "disappeared."
军事委员会似乎打算为了保持官方军团的特权（高薪；赚钱和垄断的行业；相对较少的人民监督和控告）下定决心抓牢权利，并防止任何希望收回军方特权和审判与异教徒有联系的官员的伊斯兰政府上台。从2月份开始，成千上万的埃及人就经军事法院甚至不经审判直接投进监狱。甚至有传闻，一些抗议者“失踪”。
An attempted coup by the Islamists, though well organized and popular, seems unlikely, given the army's firepower and the Brotherhood's longtime policy of avoiding open confrontation with the state. But the army's hold on power following the mass return of the protesters to Tahrir Square is beginning to look fragile at best. A standoff between an army that refuses to relinquish power amid mass protests is likely to result in chaos and possibly civil war. Such an outcome would result if the army, which includes many conscripts, begins to fall apart and divide (as some reports suggest is beginning to happen in Syria).
伊斯兰教徒的政变，即使组织良好、广受支持，也不太可能会成功，因为军方的火力太强大，兄弟会也一向不愿意与军方政权直接冲突。但是随着群众重回解放广场抗议，军方想继续抓住权力也不容易。不愿意放弃权力的军方和抗议民众再僵持下去，可能会导致暴乱甚至内战发生。当军队内部的征兵分化时，这种情况就很可能发生（就像某些报道的在叙利亚发生的一样）。
The United States, which helped the Egyptians oust Mubarak but now is merely calling for an end to the violence, appears powerless to affect events. Israelis are looking on with apprehension, mainly worried that the Islamists—who have traditionally vowed to tear up the bilateral 1979 peace treaty and even eradicate the Jewish state—will emerge on top. At the same time, a state of chaos in Egypt is seen as a recipe for renewed friction, including violence, along the Sinai-Israel border.
Benny Morris is a professor of history in the Middle East Studies Department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. His most recent book is One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict (Yale University Press, 2009).
曾经帮着埃及打倒穆巴拉克的美国现在只会呼吁结束暴乱，对现在的形势显得并没有什么影响力。以色列也担心一直以来都想撕裂1979年双边和平协议和消灭犹太政权地伊斯兰教徒会掌权。同时，埃及的骚乱也可能成为西奈—以色列边境不稳定的导火线。
Benny Morris是Ben-Gurion University of the Negev中东历史研究部门的教授。
from 译言-每日精品译文推荐 http://article.yeeyan.org/view/267882/234724
