外刊听读| 经济学人 梨泰院惨剧
Banyan
菩提树
Not enough to speak
言语苍白
When a disaster shakes, a country's political leaders face peril today
当灾难发生后，一个国家的政治领导人将会面临危机
1 TWO DAYS after the tragedy, the streets of Itaewon were silent, save only for the whirring clicks of news cameras. In their frame was the alleyway in which a crush of bodies left more than 150 people dead. At the subway-station entrance white chrysanthemums had been left in memory of the victims.
惨剧发生两天后，梨泰院的街道上一片寂静，只有新闻摄像机的呼啸声。在摄像机的镜头中，是一条小巷，在这条小巷里，曾有150多具死于拥挤的尸体。地铁站的入口处摆放着白色的菊花，来纪念遇难者。
2 South Korea remains in shock over the events of October 29th, when some 130,000 people flocked to a nightlife district of Seoul, the capital. Many more came than the authorities expected. As the night progressed and the numbers swelled, those crammed into steep, narrow streets were trapped. A weight of humanity caused some in the crowd to fall, triggering a domino effect. Others, unaware of what was happening, continued to pack in. No stewards were around to prevent the tragedy.
韩国仍然对10月29日的事件感到震惊，当时大约有13万人涌入首都首尔的一个夜生活区。来的人比当局预期的多得多。随着夜幕降临，人数激增，那些挤在陡峭、狭窄街道上的人被困住了。人群的重量导致其中的一些人率先倒下，从而引发了多米诺骨牌效应。其他人不知道发生了什么，继续往里挤。周围没有活动统筹人来阻止惨剧发生。
3 Few countries have not suffered similar—avoidable— tragedies. Yet Asia appears to have more than its fair share. One explanation is self-evident: the region has more than its fair share of the world’s people, so human disasters are more frequent. The day after the Itaewon calamity, a river bridge in Morbi in Gujarat, the home state of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, collapsed, killing at least 135, most of them women, children and the elderly. In early October a human crush at a stadium in Malang in Indonesia led to 131 deaths.
大多数国家都遭受过类似的--不可避免的--惨剧。然而，亚洲似乎遭受了超过其合理的份额的惨剧。有一个解释是不言而喻的：该地区拥有超过合理份额的人口数量，因此人为灾难的发生频率更加频繁。在梨泰院惨剧发生的第二天，印度总理纳伦德拉-莫迪的家乡古吉拉特邦莫尔比的一座桥梁坍塌，造成至少135人死亡，其中大部分是妇女、儿童和老人。10月初，印度尼西亚玛琅的一个体育场发生了人流拥挤，导致131人死亡。
4 In Morbi the colonial bridge had just been reopened with a view to attracting tourist crowds. In Malang police precipitated panic when they fired tear gas at fans invading the pitch—a response long banned by football’s global governing body. So another part of the explanation for so many Asian disasters flows from the pace of the region’s march to modernity. Poor infrastructure, safety protocols or policing practices fail to keep up with fast-growing economies and populations which are both more mobile and ready for more varied experiences.
在莫尔比，殖民时期建造的大桥刚刚重新开放，以此吸引旅游人群。在玛琅，警察向入侵球场的球迷发射催泪瓦斯，引发了恐慌--这是全球足球管理机构FIFA早已禁止的行为。这么多亚洲灾难的另一部分原因是该地区正在向现代化迈进。然而，糟糕的基础设施、安全协议或警务实践未能跟上快速增长的经济和人口，这些人口的流动性更强，并期望更多不同的体验。
5 It is in that gap that political peril lies. Nowhere was this clearer than with South Korea’s last big catastrophe. In 2014 a ferry, the Sewol, capsized on its way to the holiday island of Jeju. Some 300 people died, most of them schoolchildren. The vessel was overloaded. Corrupt regulators had turned a blind eye to unseaworthy modifications. The crew abandoned ship before the passengers. The then president, Park Geun-hye, failed to appear in public for hours. It turned out she even urged the national intelligence service to track critics of the official response. Public outrage led to protests and opened the door to ever greater anger against her. She never recovered politically.
正是在这种差距中，政治上的危机才会出现。这一点在韩国上一次的大灾难中表现得最为明显。2014年，一艘名为 "Sewol "号的渡轮在前往度假胜地济州岛的途中倾覆。约300人死亡，其中大部分是学童。这艘船是超载的。腐败的监管机构对不适海航的改装视而不见。船员在乘客之前弃船而去。当时的总统朴槿惠有几个小时没有出现在公众面前。事实证明，她甚至敦促国家情报部门跟踪那些批评当局反应的民众。公众的愤怒引发了抗议，并为对她个人的愤怒创造了契机。朴槿惠至今也没在政治上恢复过来。
6 Few leaders are as detached from their electorate as was Ms Park. Others responding to a calamity acknowledge its scale but seek to find fault elsewhere. Mr Modi visited a local hospital in Morbi and chaired a meeting there to review the disaster. At the same time, the state government, also run by his party, was quick to shift the blame onto the town government and private contractors. Gujaratis will have the chance to express their views in an election next month.
很少有领导人像朴槿惠女士那样与他们的选民脱节。其他人在应对灾难时也承认灾难的规模，但也寻求在其他地方寻找错误。莫迪先生访问了莫尔比的一家当地医院，并在那里主持了一次会议，以回顾这场灾难。与此同时，同样由他的政党管理的州政府很快将责任推给了镇政府和私人桥梁承包商。当地居民将有机会在下个月的选举中表达他们的观点。
7 Pressure for accountability mounts in ways that can pose risks for leaders. Many questions surround the Malang disaster in Indonesia: what were the police thinking by using tear-gas? Why were only four paramedics on duty? The Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, has forged close ties with the national police, who have helped him politically. At first he seemed to favour an internal police inquiry. That led many Indonesians to think that, absent such ties, he would have acted differently to ensure accountability, says Aaron Connelly of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. The president did then change course, approving a more independent inquiry. But it was not enough to prevent a sharp slide in his ratings.
追究责任的压力越来越大，可能会给领导人带来风险。许多问题围绕着印度尼西亚的玛琅惨剧：警察使用催泪瓦斯的想法是什么？为什么只有四名医护人员在岗？印尼总统佐科-维多多（Joko Widodo）与国家警察建立了密切的联系，国家警察在政治上也对他有所帮助。起初，他似乎赞成警方进行内部调查。总部设在伦敦的国际战略研究所(International Institute for Strategic Studies)的阿伦-康纳利(Aaron Connelly)说，这让许多印尼人认为，如果没有这种关系，他将采取不同的行动来确保问责制的运行。总统后来确实改变了调查方向，批准了一项更加独立的调查。但这并不足以阻止他的民众支持率急剧下滑。
8 Back in Seoul, and reflecting the national mood, the South Korean president, Yoon Suk-yeol, said that “my heart is heavy and I struggle to cope with my grief.” He has promised a memorial to Itaewon’s victims, as well as an inquiry. Yet more questions are raised about the tragedy than are yet being answered. Above all, how could a police force that dispatches dozens of officers to even the smallest protests be so unprepared?
回到首尔后，韩国总统尹锡悦的发言反映了全国的情绪，他说："我的心情很沉重，我在努力应付我的悲痛。" 他承诺为怡泰院的受害者建立纪念碑，并进行事故调查。然而，关于这场惨剧，人们提出的问题比得到的答案要多。最重要的是，即使面对最小的抗议活动，警察部门也会派出几十名警察。然而在这次事件中，他们怎么会如此毫无准备？
9 As for Mr Yoon himself, he has needlessly squandered political capital and goodwill during the few months he has been in office. That makes his job harder now. Still, a leader who applies balm to a country’s wounds, and who provides reassurance that lessons will be learned, can unite a country. How Mr Yoon acts now will shape the rest of his presidency.
至于尹先生本人，在他上任的几个月里，他已经毫无必要地浪费了政治资本和民众善意。这使得他现在的工作更加困难。不过，一个能对国家创伤进行抚慰的领导人，以及一个能让民众确信会吸取教训的领导人，可以让一个国家团结起来。尹先生现在的表现将塑造他余下的总统任期。
