The Seeds of Wrath

憤怒的種子

The world knows a great deal about apartheid. It knows it as a repressive political system which denies political representation to 14,000,000 South Africans because they are not white; it knows it as a divisive social system which keeps people apart, dividing them on colour lines and punishing those who try to cross these lines. But the effects of apartheid in term of social behaviour and on cultural development are less well known.

世人對種族隔離了解甚多。知道它是一種鎮壓性政治制度，在這種制度下，1，400萬南非人因為不是白人而被否認為政治代表；人們還知道它是一種使人們隔開的政治制度，它按膚色的界限把人們分開，并懲罰那些試圖越過那些界限的人。但人們對種族隔離就社會行為而言造成的影響所知甚少。

To understand the effects of apartheid it is necessary to think of the daily lives of the people and the ways in which their lives are regulated by apartheid.

要理解種族隔離的影響，有必要思考一下人們的日常工作以及他們在種族隔離制度制約下的生活方式。

It means standing for hours in a bus-queue, because there are too few buses specially set aside for black people; it means having to pass theatres and swimming pools with no thought of ever entering them, because they are set aside for white people; and because the restrictions extend to the thoughts people think, and because the laws apply to both black and white, it means that all people in South Africa are denied the right to read certain books because the government believes them to be subversive of its apartheid society.

這意味著站幾個小時等車，因為黑人乘坐的汽車太少了；意味著在不得不經過劇場和游泳池時，卻從沒想到要進去，因為它們是給白人準備的；因為這些限制已經延伸到人們思維之中，因為法律適用于白人和黑人，它意味著所有南非人沒有閱讀某些書的權利，因為政府認為他們會對種族隔離政策起破壞作用。

Apartheid means that sportsmen like Basil D’Oliviera, Steve Makone, and Precious Mackenzie could never represent their own country because they were not white; that singers and actors like Miriam Makeba and Lionel Ngamane would be restricted because of their colour to appearing in certain places and before certain audiences - a coloured cast could perform Verdi’s "La Traviata" but no nonwhites could attend a performance before the State President.

種族隔離意味著因為不是白人，像貝茲爾·戴里維爾拉、史蒂夫·馬孔和普萊舍斯·麥肯齊這樣的運動員根本不能代表自己的祖國參加比賽。因為膚色只能出現在一定場合和一定觀眾面前，像米亞姆·馬齊巴和萊昂納爾·恩卡納這樣的歌唱家和演員的演出就會愛到限制。一個有色人劇組可以上演威爾第的《茶花女》，但只要不是白人，就不能先于國家總統觀看演出。

The list of restrictions is endless - these are only a few small examples. But what they add up to is a division which breeds hostility. At sports events, if white and black are present, they support opposing sides and the result is friction - so much so that in many grounds only whites are allowed.

這種限制不勝枚舉--這里只是幾個小小的例子。但它們合起來就是一個產生敵意的隔離。在體育賽事中，如果白人和黑人都在場，他們會支持各自一方，結果就會發生磨擦--這種磨擦如此之在以至于有些場地只允許白人進入。

It is illegal for white and black to play chess together. And whites who tried to play football in a team with black members were prosecuted.

白人和黑人一塊下棋是非法的，試圖在有黑人的球員的球隊踢足球的白人會受到指控。

And in a society where these ugly barriers exist, it is better to pretend that they are not there. The result is that the writers and poets of white South Africa are incapable of producing any work which truthfully reflects their society; and so deep has this kind of blindness entered that no work of any real worth has been produced in South Africa for many years.

在這些丑陋的障礙存在的社會里，最好是佯裝不知它的存在。這樣做的結果是南非白人作家和詩人不能創作出真實反映其社會生活的作品，這種視而不見對人們生活的影響如此之大以至于多年來南非就根本沒有過真正有價值的作品。