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The army sidelines Robert Mugabe, Africa’s great dictator The world should learn from his misrule, and help Zimbabwe recover from it sideline.v.remove from the centre of an activity or attention； misrule.n&v.苛政，治理不当 Print edition | Leaders Nov 18th 2017 CALIGULA wanted to make his horse consul. Robert Mugabe wanted his wife, Grace, to take over from him as president of Zimbabwe. The comparison is a bit unfair. Caligula’s horse did not go on lavish shopping trips while Romans starved; nor was it accused of assaulting anyone with an electric cable in a hotel room. Grace Mugabe’s only qualification for high office was her marriage to Mr Mugabe, a man 41 years her senior with whom she began an affair while his first wife was dying. Her ambitions were thwarted this week when the army seized power, insisting that this was not a coup while making it perfectly clear that it was (see article). 津巴布韦总统穆加贝被政变了。这位已达93高龄的总统本来打算 让其小41岁的妻子Grace继任，但随着军方本周掌控了政权，这一目标搁浅。军方称这次行动并非政变，但事实上明显就是。 注释： electric cable 电缆 high office 要职 高职位 Thus, sordidly, ends the era of one of Africa’s great dictators. Mr Mugabe has misruled Zimbabwe for 37 years. As The Economist went to press, he was in detention but unharmed. Even if he is allowed to keep his title, his power is gone. At 93, frail and forgetful, he has finally lost control of the country he ruined. The wonder—and the shame—is that he lasted so long. There is much to learn from the failure of his revolution. sordid.adj.卑鄙的，令人不齿的。 在这位孱弱又健忘的总统对津巴布韦长达37年的独裁统治之后，他的统治生涯结束了。即便他的头衔还留着，实际权利已经不在了。值得一提的是他相当长的在位时间，既是奇迹也是耻辱。从他的失败背后，有很多东西值得学习。 Coup de Grace Mr Mugabe was once widely admired (and still is, among those who think anti-imperialist rhetoric matters more than competence). He fought against white rule in the 1970s, in what was then called Rhodesia, and legitimately won an election in 1980. He preached reconciliation with the white former oppressors. Buoyed by aid, global goodwill and good harvests, the new country of Zimbabwe prospered for a while. coup de grace 最后的一击；致命的一击。 Rhodesia 罗得西亚，原非洲中南部一广阔地区。 preach. V. earnestly advocate reconciliation.n.a situation in which two people, countries, etc become friendly with each other again after quarrelling, buoy.V.cause sth to become or remain cheerful and confident. 穆加贝曾广受钦佩，在那些认为反帝国主义说辞比执政能力更重要的人中，他仍然很受欢迎。1970年代，在当时的罗得西亚，他反抗白人统治，最终在1980年顺利即位。世界多方援助加上良好的收成，津巴布韦繁荣了一段时期。 But like so many revolutionaries, Mr Mugabe could not tolerate any challenge to his rule. Viewing the second-largest ethnic group, the Ndebele, as disloyal, he used a minor insurrection as an excuse to crush them. In 1983 he unleashed his special forces (trained by North Korea) on the Ndebele, raping, torturing and murdering thousands of civilians. Survivors of village massacres were forced to dance on their neighbours’ mass graves, singing praise to the ruling party, Zanu-PF, in the language of the Shona majority. Unlike, say, Saddam Hussein or Idi Amin, Mr Mugabe did not particularly enjoy violence, but he never hesitated to use enough of it to stay in power. Ndebele.n.恩德贝勒族人/语（分布于津巴布韦和南非东北部）、 insurrection.n. a violent uprising against an authority or government. special forces 特种部队 ZANU-PF 津巴布韦非洲民族联盟 Shonas. 绍那人，居住在非洲南部，占津巴布韦人口的四分之三，另有少部分生活在南非。赞比亚和莫桑比克。 Idi Amin 伊迪·阿明，东非国家乌干达1970年代的前总统，自封苏格兰王，在位期间国内超过五十万人非正常死亡，直到1979年被推翻。 但是跟大多数人一样，穆加贝无法忍受执政权力收到任何挑战。他认为第二大民族恩德贝勒族不忠于他，以一个小小的叛乱为由将其颠覆。1983年，他的特种部队在恩德贝勒族区烧杀抢掠了数千人。有幸活下来的人被迫在邻居们的坟头跳舞，用邵那族的语言给执政党津巴布韦非洲民族联盟唱赞歌。他不像萨达姆或伊迪阿明一样崇尚暴力，但为了维持政权也没少诉诸暴力。 His grasp of economics was revolutionary in the worst sense. He liked the language of socialism because it let him boss people around while posing as a champion of the poor. He spent public money wildly—some of it on good things like education, but much of it on patronage. When he ran out of cash, he started seizing things, such as white-owned commercial farms, and giving them to his supporters. His disregard for property rights scared off investors. He printed money to pay the army and the civil service, sparking hyperinflation so severe that, at one point, Z$1trn would not buy a boiled sweet. He tried to fight inflation with price controls, causing shops to run out of basic goods. All the while his cronies gleefully looted the country’s public purse and diamond mines. After nearly four decades of Mr Mugabe, Zimbabweans are on average a fifth poorer. This year a quarter of the population were short of food; perhaps 3m-5m out of 17m have emigrated in despair. 他给津巴布韦的经济带来了一些改变。他偏爱社会主义的语言，认为它们有助于控制人民，同时给自己戴上“穷人的支持者”的面具。对于公共资产他一直大手大脚的，有一部分确实花在了正道上，但大部分都拿去做赞助了。现金花完时，他会强制占有一些东西，比如白人的商业农场，再把它们赏给自己的支持者。由于他不重视保护财产权，投资者都不敢去投资。他大量印钱用于军队和行政机构，导致恶性通货膨胀，甚至一万亿津巴布韦元都买不到一个硬糖。他试图通过价格控制抑制通货膨胀，导致商店难以供应必需品。与此同时，他的同僚们欣然掠夺着公共财产和钻矿。穆加贝统治近40年后，津巴布韦人民比四年前贫穷了五分之一。今年，四分之一人口缺乏粮食，1700万中，300-400万人在绝望中移民。 boss around:颐指气使 disregard.n&v.不顾,忽视 blatant disregard for the law hyperinflation.n.恶性通货膨胀 public purse 国库，公共资金 diamond mines 钻石矿坑 Will the coup improve matters? It is hard to be optimistic. Coups are never legal and usually spread misery. The generals and ruling-party old guard who engineered this one are not reformers; they are part of the grubby system Mr Mugabe created. Many have profited handsomely from it, and intervened this week not out of principle but to stop Mrs Mugabe and her younger supporters from taking their places at the trough. Emmerson Mnangagwa, the 75-year-old man who may end up in charge, is a longtime Mugabe loyalist and every bit as nasty as his ex-boss. (He was security minister during the Ndebele massacres; during an election campaign in 2000 his supporters burned his opponent’s home down.) This bloodstained crew of plotters make unlikely national saviours. 政变会带来改变吗？不一定。政变从来都是非法的，而且结局通常并不美好。策划了这次政变的官员们并不是改革派，而是穆加贝糟糕统治下的产物。许多人已经从这个体系中大大获利，他们参与政变纯粹是为了防止穆加贝和他年轻的支持者们夺走自己的位置。75岁的姆南加古瓦可能是最终的掌权者，长期来都对穆加贝忠心耿耿，还和他一样惹人烦。（在恩德贝勒大屠杀中，姆南加古瓦担任安全部长；2000年的选举中，他的支持者烧掉了他竞争对手的房子）。如此残暴的一群人不太可能拯救这个国家。 trough.n,水槽，槽器，沟槽，低压槽，波谷，（经济周期的）低谷期，凹点，低谷。 EmmersonMnangagwa is a Zimbabwean politician. A longtime ally of President Robert Mugabe and a senior member of the ruling ZANU–PF party, Mnangagwa served as Vice President of Zimbabwe from 2014 until his dismissal in November 2017, shortly before the 2017 Zimbabwean coup d'état. bloodstained. adj. marked or covered with blood. plotter.N.someone who makes a secret plan to harm a person or an organization, especially a political leader or government. A big ditch to climb out of 爬出深沟 Nonetheless, there is a sliver of hope. Zimbabwe’s ruling elite have long honoured the forms of democracy, and have occasionally lost elections despite cheating on a grand scale. Mr Mnangagwa may be a thug, but he is a pragmatic one, free of the Messiah complex that caused Mr Mugabe to lose touch with reality. He knows that the treasury is empty, and that Zimbabwe needs urgent help from donors such as the IMF. He has put out feelers to the opposition. He talks of ending some of Mr Mugabe’s woeful policies, such as the law requiring all companies above a certain size to be majority-owned by black Zimbabweans (in practice, ruling-party fat cats). 尽管如此，还是有一线希望。津巴布韦的统治精英们一直以来都崇尚民主。姆南加古瓦可能是个恶人，但他是很务实的一个人，不像穆加贝有种常常与现实脱节的“救世主情结”。他知道国库空虚，津巴布韦急需IMF这样的机构的援助。他也试图给反对派提意见。他还提出要废除穆加贝的一些政策，比如要求达到一定规模的公司都必须由津巴布韦黑人掌控大部分股权。（实际上是执政党大腕）。 thug.n.恶棍,暴徒,罪犯. messiah.a leader or savior of a particular group or cause. woeful.a.悲哀的，悲伤的，悲惨的。 fat cat. A wealthy and powerful person especially a businessman or politician. An election is due to be held by the middle of next year. Any aid to a new, transitional government should be conditional on a free and fair ballot. Exiles, whose remittances have saved countless Zimbabweans from destitution, should be allowed to vote. The polls should be monitored by neutral observers such as the UN and the EU. South Africa will no doubt play a role in the transition, but it may not be a constructive one under Jacob Zuma—another ruler who tolerates grotesque corruption and wants to put his former wife on the throne. China, which propped up Mr Mugabe for a while but then decided he was a deadbeat, has not made its intentions known. 明年中期，津巴布韦将举行大选。对一个新的、过度型政府的任何援助都应该以公正而自由的民意投票为基础。流亡者的补助金帮助了无数津巴布韦人脱离贫困，他们也应当有投票权。投票过程应该由中立者监督，比如联合国和欧盟。南非必然会在津巴布韦政治转变中发挥一些影响，但不会是主导影响。南非腐败同样严重，领导人祖玛也希望把妻子送上王位。中国有段时间支持穆加贝统治，后来也认为他无能，所以中国的倾向也不得而知。 remittance.n.汇款，汇款额 exiles.n.被流放者，流亡者 destitution.n.state of being deprived of or lacking something； destitute condition deadbeat.N.游手好闲的人,无能的人。 There are two morals to draw from Mr Mugabe’s long, ignominious career. The first is that bad policies, corruptly implemented, can wreck a country with alarming speed and go on wrecking it long after you would have thought there was nothing left. Venezuela has little in common with Zimbabwe culturally, but has also achieved disastrous results by embracing a Latin version of Mugabenomics. By contrast, Botswana, Zimbabwe’s culturally similar but well-governed neighbour, was roughly as rich in 1980 but is now seven times richer. 从穆加贝漫长悲剧的统治生涯中能学到两点，一是错误的政策一旦和腐败相结合就可能会以惊人的速度毁掉一个国家，直到你认为什么也不剩下的时候，它还是会继续带来破坏。委内瑞拉和津巴布韦在文化上有很大差异，但它通过实行“拉丁版”的“穆加贝经济学”，同样导致灾难性后果。相反，博茨瓦纳与津巴布韦文化相通，但国家治理的非常好，1980年时跟津巴布韦不相上下，如今富裕程度是那时的七倍。 ignominious,a.deserving or casuing public disgrace or shame. moral.n.a lesson, especially one concerning what is right or prudent, that can be derived from a story, a piece of information, or an experience. The second moral is that, for all its disappointments, democracy remains the best antidote for bad rulers. Had Zimbabweans been allowed to choose, they would have tossed Mr Mugabe and his henchmen out long ago. Were there an honest vote now, his successor would start out with real legitimacy. 第二点是，民主永远是糟糕领导人的良药。如果津巴布韦人能投票的话，穆加贝早就被踢下台了。 antidote.n.解毒药，解毒剂。 henchman.心腹，亲信。荣誉侍卫（或随从）。首席侍卫。 The world has abandoned Zimbabwe to its fate too many times before. This time, outsiders should offer a hand to help it climb out of the ditch into which Mr Mugabe drove it. 世界已对津巴布韦放任自流了很久，这次，各国应当帮助它从穆加贝挖的泥潭中爬出来。 |
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