每日英語跟讀 Ep.881: Today’s Activism: Spontaneous, Leaderless, but Not Without Aim 沒單一領導人卻迅速聚人潮 社群媒體成現代抗爭最強領袖

In the sea of hundreds of protesters who gathered one evening near the intersection where George Floyd was killed, a lone voice rose from the crowd.“Everybody sit down,” it urgently ordered.Others chimed in — “Sit down! Sit down!” — scolding those, even journalists, who were slow to comply.

某個夜晚，數百名抗議者聚集在明尼亞波利斯市、黑人佛洛伊德被白人警察以膝蓋壓頸致死的十字路口附近，人群中響起一個孤單的聲音。它急切命令道：「大家坐下。」另有些人附和道「坐下！坐下！」，並責罵那些沒有立刻配合的人，甚至包括記者在內。

A few minutes later, Tony Clark, wearing a black face mask and an earring with the inscription “Not today Satan,” bounded toward the center of the circle of seated bodies and took the megaphone.“Everybody stand up,” he commanded, contradicting the earlier speaker’s instructions.The crowd rose.

幾分鐘後，戴著黑色口罩、耳環刻有「不是今天，撒旦」字句的湯尼·克拉克，朝席地而坐的人群中間跳過去拿起了擴音器。他命令道：「所有人都站起來。」這跟稍早擴音器傳出的指令相反。大家都站了起來。

“The moment y’all sit down, the moment they’re going to step on y’all,” Clark, 27, said to rousing applause. But a half-hour later, he reversed his stance and told everyone to sit down again.

27歲的克拉克朝著熱烈鼓掌的人們說：「你們坐下的時刻，就是他們踐踏你們的時刻。」但半小時後，他改變了立場並告訴大家坐下。陸戰隊退伍的

“Stop barking orders,” said Davi Young, a Marine veteran, twisting his face. “You’re not the police.”

戴維·楊恩歪曲著臉說：「別再發號施令了。你又不是警察。」

Welcome to 21st-century activism, where spontaneous and leaderless movements have been defined by their organic births and guided on the fly by people whose preferences, motivations and ideas may not always align.

歡迎來到21世紀的街頭抗爭運動，這些自發且沒有領袖的運動，是由它們的有機出生所定義，並由那些喜好、動機與想法可能並不總是一致的人所導引。

But the absence of organized leadership does not mean the movements — from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter — are rudderless.

然而缺乏有組織的領導，並不代表從「阿拉伯之春」到「占領華爾街」再到「黑人的命也是命」這些運動沒有方向。

Leveraging technology that was unavailable to earlier generations, the activists of today have a digital playbook. Often, it begins with an injustice captured on video and posted to social media. Demonstrations are hastily arranged, hashtags are created and before long, thousands have joined the cause.

拜先前世代無法獲得的科技所賜，今日的社運人士握有一本數位教戰手冊。通常，它是從以影片捕捉到不公正事件並發布在社群媒體開始。示威活動在極短時間內安排就緒，主題標籤同時創立，不久後，成千上萬人加入了這項運動。

At the core is an egalitarian spirit, a belief that everyone has a voice, and that everyone’s voice matters.

運動的核心是一種平等精神，一個人人有權說話，每個人的意見都很重要的信念。

But leaderless movements have their challenges.It can be difficult to keep protests from spilling out of control, and difficult to maintain a clear and focused message. Disputes over the best strategies can easily emerge.

可是沒有領袖的運動也有其挑戰。要讓抗議活動不失控很難，維持一個明確集中的訊息也不容易，經常會因何者才是最佳策略而起爭執。

These days, social media is the strongest, most prominent leader. Young activists announce the location of an action or protest on Twitter or Instagram, and within an hour, scores of people are there.

現下，社群媒體是最強大、最突出的領袖。年輕的社運人士在推特或Instagram上宣布活動或抗議的地點，一小時內就有數十人到場。

“I think it kind of does make it hard to manage because you don’t know who’s coming,” said Maryan Farasle, a 17-year-old high school senior who lives in the Minneapolis suburbs and is an activist organizer. “You don’t know the people showing up and what their intentions are.”But at the same time, she added, “I think it is a way to get a lot of people together quickly.”

住在明尼亞波利斯市郊的17歲高三學生、同時也是個抗爭活動主辦者的瑪芮恩．法拉斯勒表示，「我認為這確實有點難管理，因為你不知道會來些什麼人。你不認識出現的人，也不知道他們的意圖」，但同時她又說「我認為這是讓很多人迅速聚集的一個辦法」。

But today’s young activists also avoid singular leaders. “We’ve seen what happens to people in the past when they’re the lead of anything,” Farasle said, referring to civil rights leaders who have been slain.

不過，今天的年輕社運人士也避免出現單一領導人。法拉斯勒說：「我們看到了過去有人成為任何活動的領袖時，他們的下場。」她指的是遇害的民權領袖。

Source article: https://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0067/354160/web/