假若2022年 一位穆斯林成为法国总统
Paris — The cover of this week’s Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical newspaper that was the target of a massacre on Wednesday by masked gunmen, featured a cartoon depicting Michel Houellebecq, whose polemical — some say prophetic — new novel, “Submission,” imagines a Muslim becoming president of France in 2022.
Under the headline “The predictions of the Great Houellebecq,” the celebrated novelist, wearing a magician’s hat and holding a cigarette, says, “In 2015, I will lose my teeth. In 2022, I will celebrate Ramadan.”
漫画标题是“了不起的维勒贝克的预言”，图中这位著名小说家戴着魔法师的帽子，手拿一支香烟，说：“2015年，我将失去牙齿。2022年，我就得过斋月了。”Even before its official release on Wednesday, “Submission” had already set off intense debates in France — about the line between satire and Islamophobia and between fantasy and realpolitik, about the novelist’s (and Islam’s) treatment of women, and about the political mainstream’s struggles to keep pace with the rise of both Islam and the far right — a debate that the attacks are certain to intensify.
甚至在星期三正式出版之前，《屈服》便已经在法国引起激烈争论——关于讽刺文学与恐伊斯兰之间的界限、关于幻想与现实政治之间的界限、关于这位小说家与伊斯兰教对待女性的方式，乃至关于政治主流如何努力跟上伊斯兰与极右势力的崛起——这场争论无疑将因恐怖袭击而继续升温。
Earlier this week, before the attack in Paris, President François Hollande said he would read it. Marine Le Pen, the leader of the right-wing National Front, whom the fictional Muslim leader defeats in the novel, cashed in, calling it “a fiction that could one day become a reality.” Late Thursday, Agence France-Presse reported that Mr. Houellebecq (pronounced WELL-beck) had stopped promoting the book.
本周早些时候，在巴黎的恐怖袭击之前，弗朗索瓦·奥朗德总统(President François Hollande)说自己会读这本书。右翼政党国民阵线的领导人玛丽娜·勒庞(Marine Le Pen)也抓住这个机会——书中的穆斯林领袖在竞选中击败了她——说，“这本小说有可能在某天成为现实。”上周四，法新社报道维勒贝克已经停止宣传这本书。With an ambitious initial print run of 150,000 copies, “Submission” is already the No. 1 seller on Amazon in France. It is likely to join another book with a similar theme on best-seller lists: “The French Suicide,” a 500-page essay in which the journalist Éric Zemmour, 56, argues that immigration, feminism and the 1968 student uprisings set France on a path to ruin. The top seller in France, the book has sold 400,000 copies since its release in October, according to its publisher, Albin Michel.
《屈服》的首印量高达15万册之多，在法国亚马逊网站上位居畅销榜头名。畅销榜上还有另一本书也有着类似的主题——《法国的自杀》(The French Suicide)，这本500页的书由56岁的记者埃里克·泽穆尔(Éric Zemmour)所著，称移民、女性主义和1968年的学生暴动令法国走向毁灭之路。其出版社阿尔宾·米歇尔称，这本书自去年10月出版以来已经售出40万册，Though Mr. Zemmour’s is a work of reactionary nostalgia and Mr. Houellebecq’s a futuristic fantasy, both books have hit the dominant note in the national mood today: “inquiétude,” or profound anxiety about the future.
尽管泽穆尔的作品是保守主义的怀旧，而维勒贝克的书是未来主义的幻想，两本书都直击当今法国的主要思潮：“焦虑”(inquiétude)，也就是对未来的深刻忧虑。Fueling this anxiety for many French are the fears of non-Muslims about Muslims, the threat posed by groups like the Islamic State and their recruiting in Europe, and rising anti-Semitism. More broadly, concern has grown that the political center is eroding and that extremes are rising in a way reminiscent of the 1930s, along with a sense that France, which prides itself on its republican tradition and strong, centralized state, has ceded too much power to the European Union.
非穆斯林对穆斯林的恐惧、IS等组织的威胁，乃至他们在欧洲招募成员的行为以及反犹太主义的崛起，这些现象令这种焦虑进一步升温。在更大的层面上，人们担心政治中心力量受到侵蚀，极端势力在崛起，和20世纪30年代的情况有些相像。此外，法国一贯为自己的共和政体传统，以及强大的中央集权国家感到骄傲，如今却将许多权力让渡给了欧盟，这也加深了焦虑之情。“I think this anxiety is the idea of seeing France give up on itself, of changing to the point of no longer being recognizable,” said the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, whose much-debated 2013 book, “L’identité Malheureuse,” or “The Unhappy Identity,” discussed the problems immigration poses for French identity and cultural integration. “People are homesick at home,” he added, speaking two days before the attacks.
“我认为这种焦虑是认为法国放弃了自己，变得让人认不出来了，”哲学家阿兰·芬基尔克劳(Alain Finkielkraut)说，2013年，他的书《不快乐的身份》(L’identité Malheureuse)探讨移民为法国人身份认同与文化整合所带来的问题，受到广泛讨论。“人们在自己家里，却患了思乡症，”他在恐怖袭击两天前这样说。Mr. Zemmour and Mr. Houellebecq wade into similar swampy waters, but reach different shores. “It’s the same book, in that both talk about the same subject: the irreversible rise of Islam in society and in politics,” said Christophe Barbier, the editor in chief of the newsweekly L’Express.
泽穆尔与芬基尔克劳涉入类似的泥沼，却在不同的地方登岸。“它们是同样的书，说的是同一个主题：伊斯兰力量在社会与政治中不可避免的崛起，”新闻周报《快报》(L’Express)主编克里斯托弗·巴尔比埃尔(Christophe Barbier)说。For the pessimistic Mr. Zemmour, “the final prognosis is civil war. One day there will be a clash between the French who aren’t Muslim and the French who think that a Muslim should be president of the republic,” Mr. Barbier said. Mr. Houellebecq “takes the opposite tack: the rise of Islam is not civil war, it’s civil peace,” Mr. Barbier added.
对于泽穆尔这样的悲观主义者来说，“最终的预测就是内战。总有一天在法国内部会有一场冲突，是那些非穆斯林与认为穆斯林应该当总统的法国人之间的冲突，”巴尔比埃尔说。而维勒贝克“方向正相反，他认为伊斯兰的崛起不会导致内战，而会带来国内的和平，”巴尔比埃尔补充。“Submission,” Mr. Houellebecq’s sixth novel, paints France as a vision of economic stability under the reassuring presence of Mohammed Ben Abbes, the son of a Tunisian grocer and graduate of the elite École Nationale d’Administration. He wants to emulate the Roman emperor Augustus and bring parts of the Maghreb and Turkey into Europe.
《屈服》是维勒贝克的第六部小说，书中把法国描述为一个经济稳定的国家，穆罕默德·本·阿贝斯的领导令人放心，他是一个突尼斯杂货商的儿子，从国家行政学院这个精英学府毕业。他希望努力赶上罗马帝国的君王奥古都斯大帝的功绩，把马格里布地区的部分国家和土耳其带入欧洲。With investment from the Middle East, the economically troubled France is in the black again. Shariah has come to the country of laïcité, where church and state are strongly separated. Polygamy is legal and women, now covered in public, take on the role of housewives.
由于在中东的投资，经济一度陷入困境的法国如今再度扭转了赤字。伊斯兰教法成了这个原本政教分离的国家的宪章。一夫多妻成为合法，女人要在公共场合蒙面，回归到家庭主妇的角色。The protagonist is François, a specialist on the 19th-century fin-de-siècle French novelist Joris-Karl Huysmans, a convert to Catholicism. François converts to Islam to keep his job teaching at the Sorbonne. (With France under Islamic law, his sometime girlfriend, Myriam, who is Jewish, emigrates to Israel, echoing a very real trend among French Jews today.)
书中的主角是弗朗索瓦，一个专门研究19世纪末法国小说家乔里-卡尔·于斯曼(Joris-Karl Huysmans)的专家，于斯曼是天主教的皈依者。弗朗索瓦则皈依了伊斯兰教，以便保住自己在索邦大学的教职（由于法国在伊斯兰法治下，和他分分合合的犹太女友米亚姆只得移民以色列，她的状况颇能反映如今法国犹太人的真实趋势）。Mr. Houellebecq, 58, is no stranger to controversy. He was tried on defamation charges after he called Islam “the most stupid religion” in a 2001 interview. His 1998 novel “The Elementary Particles,” was about the dark side of sexual liberation, while “Platform” (2001) explored sex tourism and anti-Muslim sentiments. In 2010, his novel “The Map and the Territory” won France’s prestigious Goncourt Prize.
58岁的维勒贝克对争议并不陌生。2001年的一次访谈中，他说伊斯兰教是“最愚蠢的信仰”，被指控为诽谤。1998年，他的小说《基本粒子》(The Elementary Particles)写的是性解放中的黑暗面，2001年的《平台》(Platform)探索性旅游业与反穆斯林情绪。2010年，他的小说《地图与疆域》(The Map and the Territory)获得了法国极富声望的龚古尔奖。This week, before the attack, some critics said the novelist was playing with fire, that “Submission,” its title a play on the literal meaning of the word Islam, was more than a literary exercise in that it could have an impact on French politics and civil life.
这个星期，在恐怖袭击发生之前，有些评论家说这位小说家写《屈服》是在玩火，这个书名用“伊斯兰世界”的字面意义玩文字游戏，但它不仅仅是一个文学练习，也很可能对法国政治与公民生活发生影响。“Houellebecq uses his talent, if I may say so, to exalt or to highlight this aspect of a collective fear that is descending upon us,” the philosopher Malek Chebel, who is Muslim, said on France 2 television this week. “I reproach him for it, all the more so that he is a great writer, and when you are a great writer, you have more responsibilities.”
“维勒贝克使用他的才能——如果我可以这样说——去提高或强调突然袭上我们心头的集体恐惧中的这一方面，”穆斯林哲学家马莱克·切贝尔(Malek Chebel)本周在France2电视台的节目中说，“我谴责他的做法，尤其是因为，他是一位伟大的作家，如果你是一个伟大的作家，你就应该更负责任。”Mr. Houellebecq rejected the idea that literature could alter events.
维勒贝克不认为文学可以改变现实生活中的事件。“I don’t have other examples of a novel changing the course of history,” Mr. Houellebecq said on the same program. “Other things change the course of history. Essays, ‘The Communist Manifesto,’ things like that, but not novels. That has never happened.”
“我不知道有什么小说改变历史进程的例子，”维勒贝克在同一个节目中说，“历史的进程是由其他东西改变的，比如《共产党宣言》之类的文章，但不是小说。这样的事情从来没有发生过。”Through a spokeswoman for his publisher, Flammarion, Mr. Houellebecq declined to be interviewed for this article. Farrar, Strauss & Giroux has acquired the book in the United States but has not set a publication date yet. In an interview with The Paris Review, Mr. Houellebecq called the novel “a political fiction,” in the same vein as those of Joseph Conrad or John Buchan.
他通过自己的出版公司弗拉马里昂出版社的一位发言人拒绝了本文作者的采访要求。法拉·斯特劳斯与吉鲁科斯出版社获得了本书在美国的发行权，但还没定下具体出版日期。在接受《巴黎评论》(The Paris Review)访谈时，维勒贝克说自己的小说是“政治虚构文学”，和约瑟夫·康拉德(Joseph Conrad)与约翰·巴肯(John Buchan)的小说源自同一血脉。Some commentators see the book as a brilliant commentary on France’s collaborationist tendencies.
有些评论家认为这本书是对法国存在的卖国主义趋势的精彩评论。In Le Figaro on Thursday, the writer Chahdortt Djavann asked, “Is it out of misogyny that he makes all women submit to the veil and polygamy and expulsion from public spaces, without their offering the least resistance, or does he really think that Frenchwomen will be less courageous than Egyptian and Tunisian women?”
在周四的《费加罗报》(Le Figaro)上，作家沙多尔·德亚万(Chahdortt Djavann)问道：“他在书中让所有女人屈服于面纱、多配偶婚，甘于被放逐出公共空间，全无丝毫反抗，这是不是有点太厌女了，抑或他觉得法国女人不像埃及和突尼斯女人那样勇敢？”There are few such distinctions in “The French Suicide,” in which Mr. Zemmour argues that women should stay home and have more children. His essay examines moments in French culture since the death of Gen. Charles de Gaulle in 1970, with an unrepentant nostalgia for a past with strong leaders, and the peace and prosperity of “Les Trente Glorieuses,” or the 30 years from the end of World War II until the mid-1970s.
《法国的自杀》中有些不同，泽穆尔认为，女人应当呆在家里，多生孩子。他的文章审视了1970年夏尔·戴高乐将军(Gen. Charles de Gaulle)去世后法国文化史上的重要时刻，对强硬的领导者与“荣耀30年”（从“二战”后到70年代中期）抱有坚定的怀旧情绪。There are complex dissonances at work. Mr. Zemmour, the grandson of Algerian Jews, is fairly apologetic for Vichy France, and argues that people in France should give their children French names.
书中有着复杂的不和谐。泽穆尔的祖父辈是阿尔及利亚犹太人，却为维希法国政府辩解，还认为身在法国的人就应该给自己的子女起法国名字。Through an assistant, Mr. Zemmour declined to comment.
泽穆尔通过助手拒绝了本文作者采访。In his daily editorial on the popular French radio station RTL, on Thursday, Mr. Zemmour called the attacks on Charlie Hebdo France’s Sept. 11. “We aren’t fighting a war for free expression, we’re fighting a war, period,” he said. The peace of postwar France had been a rare parenthesis. “France has always been a country of civil wars and wars of religion,” he added.
泽穆尔在法国颇受欢迎的广播电台RTL中有一个每日社论栏目，星期四，他在这个栏目中称《查理周刊》的遇袭是法国的911事件。“我们不是在为言论自由而战，我们是在打一场战争，就是这样，”他说。法国战后的和平不过是一个宝贵的间歇期，“法国总是处于内战与宗教战争之中，”他补充说。Commentators said that both “The French Suicide” and “Submission” would ultimately shore up the political fortunes of the National Front, a growing if incoherent mix of anti-establishment nativism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and anti-NATO and anti-European Union fervor.
评论家说《法国的自杀》和《屈服》最终都有利于国民阵线的政治利益，迎合了一股反体制的本土主义、反移民情绪，乃至反北约和反欧盟狂热，这股狂热虽在不断增长，但却支离破碎。“The left has nothing to propose or to respond, and Zemmour and Houellebecq profit from this absence,” said Eric Naulleau, Mr. Zemmour’s more left-leaning co-host on a weekly television program and the author of a 2005 essay critical of Mr. Houellebecq.
“左派没有什么建议或回应，而泽穆尔和维勒贝克从这种缺席中获利，”埃里克·诺尔洛(Eric Naulleau)说，他和泽穆尔共同主持一档每周电视节目，不过和泽穆尔相比立场偏左，2005年，他还曾撰文批评维勒贝克。“One flees to the past and the other flees to the future,” Mr. Naulleau added of the two authors, “but neither offers any answers.”
“一个逃往过去，一个逃进未来，”诺尔洛这样评价这两位作家，“但他们都没给出任何答案。”
