每日英語跟讀 Ep.906: 推倒雕像 美國重新檢視歷史 Reconsidering the past, one statue at a time

The boiling anger that exploded in the days after George Floyd gasped his final breaths is now fueling a national movement to topple perceived symbols of racism and oppression in the United States, as protests over police brutality against African Americans expand to include demands for a more honest accounting of all American history.

在喬治．佛洛伊德掙扎嚥下人生最後幾口氣之後，美國民眾的怒火四處爆發，如今正激起全國性運動，要推翻美國境內具有種族歧視和壓迫意涵的象徵。反對警察對非裔美國人施暴的抗議已擴大其訴求，要求對美國全部歷史做更誠實的敘述。

In Portland, Oregon, demonstrators protesting against police killings turned their ire to Thomas Jefferson, toppling a statue of the Founding Father who also enslaved more than 600 people.

在奧勒岡州的波特蘭，抗議警察殺人的示威者將憤怒轉向湯瑪斯．傑佛遜，推倒這位曾蓄養600多名奴隸的開國之父的雕像。

In Richmond, Virginia, a statue of Italian navigator and colonizer Christopher Columbus was spray-painted, set on fire and thrown into a lake.

在維吉尼亞州的里奇蒙，義大利探險家兼殖民者克里斯多福．哥倫布的雕像被噴漆、縱火且推入湖中。

And in Albuquerque, New Mexico, tensions over a statue of Juan de Oñate, a 16th-century colonial governor exiled from New Mexico over cruel treatment of Native Americans, erupted in street skirmishes and a blast of gunfire before the monument was removed.

在新墨西哥州的阿布奎基，胡安．德．奧納特的雕像引發緊張，這位16世紀的殖民地州長因殘酷對待美國原住民，自新墨西哥流亡。在雕像被移除之前，曾發生街頭小規模衝突和一波槍火。

Across the country, monuments criticized as symbols of historical oppression have been defaced and brought down at warp speed in recent days. The movement initially set its sights on Confederate symbols and examples of racism against African Americans but has since exploded into a broader cultural moment, forcing a reckoning over such issues as European colonization and the oppression of Native Americans.

在全國各地，這些被批評為歷史上壓迫象徵的紀念物，近日以極快的速度被毀損及拆下。這波運動起初聚焦於南方邦聯象徵和歧視非裔美國人的典型事例，但之後爆發為更廣泛的文化事件，促成對歐洲人殖民和壓迫美國原住民等等議題的清算。

In New Mexico, it has surfaced generations-old tensions among indigenous, Hispanic and Anglo residents and brought 400 years of turbulent history bubbling to the surface.

在新墨西哥，原住民、西語裔和盎格魯白人居民間，數個世代之久的緊張關係因而浮上檯面，400年來紛亂不安的歷史也沸騰起來。

“We’re at this inflection point,” said Keegan King, a member of Acoma Pueblo, which endured a massacre of 800 or more people directed by Oñate, the brutal Spanish conquistador. The Black Lives Matter movement, he said, had encouraged people to examine the history around them, and not all of it was merely written in books.

「我們正處於這個轉折點上。」阿科馬普韋布羅成員吉干．金恩說，這個部落曾經歷由殘暴西班牙征服者奧納特主導的一場屠殺，有800多人死亡。他說，「黑人的命也是命」運動鼓勵民眾檢視他們周遭的歷史，而並非所有事都只寫在書裡。

“These pieces of systemic racism took the form of monuments and statues and parks,” King said.

「這些系統性種族歧視的片段，以紀念物、雕像和公園的形式存在。」金恩說。

The debate over how to represent the uncomfortable parts of American history has been going on for decades, but the traction for knocking down monuments seen in recent days raises new questions about whether it will result in a fundamental shift in how history is taught to new generations.

關於該如何呈現美國歷史上這些令人不舒服的部分，已爭論數十年，但是近日所見拆毀雕像大行其道，卻引發了新的問題：就如何將歷史教授給新世代而言，這是否會導致根本性的改變。

“It is a turning point insofar as there are a lot of people now who are invested in telling the story that historians have been laying down for decades,” said Julian Maxwell Hayter, a historian and associate professor at the University of Richmond.

「這是個轉捩點，因為有許多人現在投注心力於訴說被歷史學家擱置幾十年的故事。」歷史學家、里奇蒙大學副教授朱利安．麥斯威爾．海特說。

He said that statues removed from parks and street corners could be teaching points if they are placed in museums, side-by-side with documents and first-person accounts from the era.

他說，從公園和街角移除的雕像可以成為授課重點，如果它們改放到博物館，和那個時代的文件及第一手陳述並列。

Source article: https://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0067/354879/web/