英语美文：The Seeds of Wrath（愤怒的种子）

The Seeds of Wrath

愤怒的种子

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.

世人对种族隔离了解甚多。知道它是一种镇压性政治制度，在这种制度下，1，400万南非人因为不是白人而被否认为政治代表；人们还知道它是一种使人们隔开的政治制度，它按肤色的界限把人们分开，并惩罚那些试图越过那些界限的人。但人们对种族隔离就社会行为而言造成的影响所知甚少。

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.

要理解种族隔离的影响，有必要思考一下人们的日常工作以及他们在种族隔离制度制约下的生活方式。

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.

这意味着站几个小时等车，因为黑人乘坐的汽车太少了；意味着在不得不经过剧场和游泳池时，却从没想到要进去，因为它们是给白人准备的；因为这些限制已经延伸到人们思维之中，因为法律适用于白人和黑人，它意味着所有南非人没有阅读某些书的权利，因为政府认为他们会对种族隔离政策起破坏作用。

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.

种族隔离意味着因为不是白人，像贝兹尔·戴里维尔拉、史蒂夫·马孔和普莱舍斯·麦肯齐这样的运动员根本不能代表自己的祖国参加比赛。因为肤色只能出现在一定场合和一定观众面前，像米亚姆·马齐巴和莱昂纳尔·恩卡纳这样的歌唱家和演员的演出就会爱到限制。一个有色人剧组可以上演威尔第的《茶花女》，但只要不是白人，就不能先于国家总统观看演出。

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.

这种限制不胜枚举--这里只是几个小小的例子。但它们合起来就是一个产生敌意的隔离。在体育赛事中，如果白人和黑人都在场，他们会支持各自一方，结果就会发生磨擦--这种磨擦如此之在以至于有些场地只允许白人进入。

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.

白人和黑人一块下棋是非法的，试图在有黑人的球员的球队踢足球的白人会受到指控。

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.

在这些丑陋的障碍存在的社会里，最好是佯装不知它的存在。这样做的结果是南非白人作家和诗人不能创作出真实反映其社会生活的作品，这种视而不见对人们生活的影响如此之大以至于多年来南非就根本没有过真正有价值的作品。

需要加入英语学习交流群的请扫微信
或微信搜索jiemingpan