美国国家公共电台 NPR--An Iranian American writer makes a case against censorship and for Rushdie

An Iranian American writer makes a case against censorship and for Rushdie

Transcript²

Following the attack on author Salman Rushdie, NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to Iranian American writer Azar Nafisi about attempts to silence writers. Her latest book is: Read Dangerously.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Writers are paying tribute to Salman Rushdie. He's the novelist attacked and seriously injured this month while talking in New York state. Supporters spoke³ up for him on the steps of the New York Public Library. Here is the British novelist Hari Kunzru.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

HARI KUNZRU: Someone once wrote that the role of the writer is to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, stop it from going to sleep. And that's why we're here - because we owe it to him to stay awake and to use our words to shape the world.

INSKEEP: Now, the threats against Rushdie are so old that we have to review a bit here. His book "The Satanic Verses" was published in the U.K. in the fall of 1988. Months later, Iran's then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini declared the book blasphemous⁴ and issued a fatwa, a religious order saying that Rushdie should be killed. He's often been in hiding since but has published more than a dozen more books. He's been welcomed worldwide at speaking events, was knighted by Britain's queen and embraced by his literary peers. The Iranian American writer Azar Nafisi is also among Rushdie's admirers, and her latest book is titled "Read Dangerously." When we talked, she made a case against censorship.

AZAR NAFISI: What is it about a man or a woman whose only weapon is words? What is it about these words that become so dangerous that some of the most powerful men on Earth, with army and guns and even nuclear weapons, cannot live securely knowing that these people, these - the writers exist?

INSKEEP: It's tempting⁵ to think of Rushdie's case as exceptional because he happened to come to the attention of a particular government at a particular time, and it went on for so long. But in your mind, does it reflect something more widespread?

NAFISI: Oh, it's definitely something more widespread. In the case of Rushdie, it went to the extreme. But any totalitarian mindset, even totalitarian mindsets in democracies, the first thing that they rely on in order to control the people and to preserve their power is lying. They feed and grow on lies. And the whole idea behind fiction, the whole idea behind journalism⁶, actually, is seeking for truth no matter where it leads you. And truth is always dangerous because once you hear it, if you remain silent, you become complicit. Look at banning books and censoring⁷ books and even burning books, taking them off the shelves in libraries. Fiction humanizes what the tyrants⁸ dehumanize. And that is why writers like Rushdie are so dangerous.

INSKEEP: You mentioned efforts to ban different books in the United States, and of course, there's this entire political debate over what should be taught in schools, what should be allowed in schools, what should be allowed in school libraries. What advice would you give a parent who hears these debates and is concerned about what their kids are reading in school and wants to have some control over it? What advice would you give them?

NAFISI: I would bring the debate to schools and talk about the fact that what we are scared of, we should be more scared if our children do not know the truth. Some books like Margaret Atwood's "Handmaid's Tale," Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye," were banned because, for example, Toni Morrison talked about incest and rape⁹. But the whole point is that if we cannot tolerate reading about reality in books, how can we tolerate standing¹⁰ up to ugly realities that are happening every day? We want to arm our children with this independence of mind that can stand up to terrible things that happen every day.

INSKEEP: I don't want to say the political right and the political left in the United States are the same because they each have their own programs, their own approaches. Right now the political right has been using state power to limit what is taught or read in schools. People on the political left tend more often to use cultural power to push against expressions that they...

NAFISI: Yeah. Yeah.

INSKEEP: ...Don't like. But is there something in common there, some common lack of interest in other points of view that says something larger about the country?

NAFISI: Yes. Actually, the interesting thing is that both left and right have different political positions, but they demonstrate the same kind of mindset. It's a mindset that is ideological¹¹, that only hears itself. I have this anecdote¹² from Iran where the chief censor¹ for theater in Iran was blind - I mean, literally¹³ blind. He would sit in on rehearsals¹⁴, and somebody would sit beside him and tell him what the actors are doing, and he would censor them.

And that blind censor became a metaphor¹⁵ for me for all censorship, for all mindsets that censor. They don't want to see. They don't want to hear. They don't want to connect to those who are not just opposed to them but different from them. And therefore, they have this white-hat, black-hat mentality¹⁶. And it is a comfortable way of living because you don't have to think. You don't have to doubt. Somebody else is thinking and formulating¹⁷ what you need to say, to think. And so both on the far left and far right, there is this danger of becoming like a blind censor.

INSKEEP: The latest book by Azar Nafisi is called "Read Dangerously: The Subversive¹⁸ Power Of Literature In Troubled Times." Thanks so much.

NAFISI: Thank you very much. Pleasure.

1 censor   

n./vt.审查，审查员；删改

参考例句：

• The film has not been viewed by the censor.这部影片还未经审查人员审查。
• The play was banned by the censor.该剧本被查禁了。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

4 blasphemous   

adj.亵渎神明的，不敬神的

参考例句：

• The book was declared blasphemous and all copies ordered to be burnt.这本书被断定为亵渎神明之作，命令全数焚毀。
• The people in the room were shocked by his blasphemous language.满屋的人都对他那侮慢的语言感到愤慨。

5 tempting   

a.诱人的, 吸引人的

参考例句：

• It is tempting to idealize the past. 人都爱把过去的日子说得那么美好。
• It was a tempting offer. 这是个诱人的提议。

6 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

7 censoring   

删剪（书籍、电影等中被认为犯忌、违反道德或政治上危险的内容）( censor的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Therefore, exhibitors shall not make use of these materials before censoring. 展商在审查前不可使用这些资料。
• The company then said it would end self-censoring search results, putting it at odds with Beijing. 随后该公司表示，将停止自我审查搜索结果，从而与中国政府发生对抗。

8 tyrants   

专制统治者( tyrant的名词复数 )； 暴君似的人； （古希腊的）僭主； 严酷的事物

参考例句：

• The country was ruled by a succession of tyrants. 这个国家接连遭受暴君的统治。
• The people suffered under foreign tyrants. 人民在异族暴君的统治下受苦受难。

9 rape   

n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸

参考例句：

• The rape of the countryside had a profound ravage on them.对乡村的掠夺给他们造成严重创伤。
• He was brought to court and charged with rape.他被带到法庭并被指控犯有强奸罪。

10 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

11 ideological   

a.意识形态的

参考例句：

• He always tries to link his study with his ideological problems. 他总是把学习和自己的思想问题联系起来。
• He helped me enormously with advice on how to do ideological work. 他告诉我怎样做思想工作，对我有很大帮助。

12 anecdote   

n.轶事，趣闻，短故事

参考例句：

• He departed from the text to tell an anecdote.他偏离课文讲起了一则轶事。
• It had never been more than a family anecdote.那不过是个家庭趣谈罢了。

13 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

14 rehearsals   

n.练习( rehearsal的名词复数 )；排练；复述；重复

参考例句：

• The earlier protests had just been dress rehearsals for full-scale revolution. 早期的抗议仅仅是大革命开始前的预演。
• She worked like a demon all through rehearsals. 她每次排演时始终精力过人。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 metaphor   

n.隐喻，暗喻

参考例句：

• Using metaphor,we say that computers have senses and a memory.打个比方，我们可以说计算机有感觉和记忆力。
• In poetry the rose is often a metaphor for love.玫瑰在诗中通常作为爱的象征。

16 mentality   

n.心理，思想，脑力

参考例句：

• He has many years'experience of the criminal mentality.他研究犯罪心理有多年经验。
• Running a business requires a very different mentality from being a salaried employee.经营企业所要求具备的心态和上班族的心态截然不同。

17 formulating   

v.构想出( formulate的现在分词 )；规划；确切地阐述；用公式表示

参考例句：

• At present, the Chinese government is formulating nationwide regulations on the control of such chemicals. 目前，中国政府正在制定全国性的易制毒化学品管理条例。 来自汉英非文学 - 白皮书
• Because of this, the U.S. has taken further steps in formulating the \"Magellan\" programme. 为此，美国又进一步制定了“麦哲伦”计划。 来自百科语句

18 subversive   

adj.颠覆性的，破坏性的；n.破坏份子，危险份子

参考例句：

• She was seen as a potentially subversive within the party.她被看成党内潜在的颠覆分子。
• The police is investigating subversive group in the student organization.警方正调查学生组织中的搞颠覆阴谋的集团。