马赛曲：这支曾团结过法兰西共和国的歌，已经开始制造分裂了吗？ [美国媒体]

Changes to French educational curriculararely make headline news in Britain. However, both The Times and the DailyTelegraph felt it worth reporting on a recent decision to make primary-schoolpupils learn, and sing, La Marseillaise.

法国教育课程的变化鲜少会上英国的头条。然而，泰晤士报和每日电讯报都感觉值得报道一项新近的决定，即让小学生学习和歌唱《马赛曲》。

At one level, it might seem perfectlynatural, if one is going to have a national anthem, to spend a little time inschool learning what it is. But opening up that basic question of what such asong is – and is for – reveals that nothing about such a choice is simple.

从某种层面上看，如果你打算拥有一首国歌，在学校里花点时间学习它看上去可能是相当自然的。但是，把这么一首歌是什么以及为的是什么这个基本问题讲透，就会揭示出：这样一个选择的背后绝不简单。

Unlike most national anthems, eithergeneric patriotic ditties adopted in retrospect, or specially composed banaldirges to national virtues, La Marseillaise served as a real rallying cry fornational survival. Written in 1792, when the French Revolution had just flungitself into war against the major powers of Europe, it speaks of the dread ofcounter-revolutionary invasion and the horrors it will bring:

和大部分国歌不同，要么采用回顾过去的通用的爱国小调，要么是特别创作的平庸挽歌，《马赛曲》则是在民族存亡之际，真正起到了鼓舞人心的呐喊作用。《马赛曲》写于1792年，当时法国大革命刚刚将自身投入到对抗欧洲列强的战争中，它流露出对反革命入侵及其带来惨状的恐惧：

Against us, tyranny’s
Bloody standard is raised,
Do you hear, in the countryside,
The roar of those ferocious soldiers?
They’re coming right into your arms
To cut the throats of your sons, yourwomen!

对着我们，
举起了暴君那染满鲜血的旗，
你们可曾听见？在祖国的土地上，
凶残的士兵在嗥叫
他们径直冲来，从你的怀中
夺走你的妻儿并割断其喉。

But this is also a “day of glory” to whichthe “children of the Fatherland” are summoned, and after raising this threat,the chorus bursts forth:

但这也是“祖国的儿女们”被召唤的一个“荣耀之日”，在渲染出这种威胁后，合唱突然爆发：

To arms, citizens,
Form your battalions,
Let’s march, let’s march!
Let an impure blood
Water our furrows!

公民们，武装起来，
严阵以待，
前进！前进！
让那污秽的血，
灌溉我们的田畦！

Man the barricades

筑起街垒

Thousands of volunteers marching to war onthe frontiers, and to topple the monarchy in Paris, hurled these words to theskies, heralding the birth of France’s republican tradition and its defencethrough years of ensuing combat. In the first half of the 19th century the songwas often suppressed in France by various monarchical regimes, but became partof the repertoire of international radical and revolutionary protest. It wasfinally anointed again as the official national anthem in 1879, after Francehad definitively become a republic once more.

成千上万的志愿军向战争前线进军，向着推翻在巴黎的君主制进军，向着天空慷慨高歌着这些歌词，宣告着法兰西共和传统的诞生，以及在长年接踵而至的战斗中屹立不摇。在19世纪上半页，这首歌在法国常常被各种君主政权禁止，但却变成了国际上激进和革命性抗争保留曲目的一部分。在法兰西最终又一次成为共和国后，它终于被再次指定为正式的1879年国歌。   

The moral weight of this tradition iscaptured in the famous scene in the film Casablanca, when the patrons of Rick’sbar, including several real refugees from Nazism, roar it out in defiance ofthe German officers singing their own, anti-French, patriotic hymn, Die Wachtam Rhein. If this were the real meaning of La Marseillaise, pure and simple,what right-thinking person could object to learning it off by heart and singingit every day?

电影《卡萨布兰卡》中的着名场景捕捉到了该传统的道德份量，当里克酒吧的主顾们，包括若干个逃离纳粹统治的真正难民，为了公然挑战德国官员唱他们自己的反法爱国赞歌《保卫莱茵》而高唱出《马赛曲》。如果这就是马赛曲的真正含义，清白而单纯，头脑正常的人会怎么反对将它牢记心中并每天歌唱呢？
Imperial legacy

帝国遗产

But Casablanca is set in Morocco, asovereign monarchy transformed into a French “protectorate” in the years ofgreat power rivalry before 1914, by the usual imperialist combination of forceand guile. Its neighbour Algeria had been declared an integral part of Franceitself decades before. The very day, May 8 1945, that Europe was declared freeof Nazi tyranny, French soldiers attacked Algerians protesting forindependence, starting a wave of conflict that killed more than 100 Frenchsettlers and several thousand Algerians. The next two decades in the history ofFrance were stained by the brutal refusal to yield independence to its imperialterritories, in wars that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths.

但《卡萨布兰卡》是以摩洛哥为背景的，那是一个主权君主国家，在大国间长年的较劲中，以帝国主义者常用的巧取豪夺方式，于1914年之前变成了法国的“保护国”。它的邻国阿尔及利亚在几十年前，已经宣告成为法国不可分割的一部分。就在欧洲宣布从纳粹暴政中解放的1945年5月8日当天，法国军队攻击了为独立而抗争的阿尔及利亚人，肇始了冲突的浪潮，其中有超过一百个法国定居者和几千个阿尔及利亚人被杀。之后的二十年中，为了保全帝国领土，以造成成千上万人死亡的战争方式野蛮拒绝其独立，这在法国历史中留下污点。

The history of imperialism, and its legaciesof racism and inequality, haunt La Marseillaise. In the 21st century, it hasrarely been free of controversy. On some recent occasions, it has come to thefore once again as a symbol of a nation under attack. Twice, in January andNovember 2015, the French National Assembly united in singing it afterterrorist attacks – attacks which nonetheless have posed hard and unansweredquestions about the radicalisation of marginalised youths of African origins.

帝国主义的历史，及其留下的种族主义和不平等的遗产，与《马赛曲》如影随形。在21世纪，它很少能从争议中幸免。在近年的一些场合中，它已经又一次像从前那样逐渐成为国家受到攻击的象征。2015年一月和十一月，在受到恐怖攻击后，法国国民议会两次集合同唱《马赛曲》，虽然如此也已经提出了艰难而悬而未决的关于被边缘非洲裔青年的激进化问题。

More often, the anthem has become embroiledin controversies around sporting events – and particularly football matches –where, ironically and pervasively, the politics of national identity makeheadlines year after year. The French national team won the World Cup on homesoil in 1998 with what seemed at the time like an epoch-making display ofmulti-ethnic unity. But in 2001, when the Algerian team came to Paris for theirfirst ever encounter, La Marseillaise was greeted with a hurricane of booingfrom a crowd largely made up of the descendants of colonial subjects. The matchwas eventually abandoned after a pitch invasion.

这首曲子卷入体育赛事方面的争议已经变得更加频繁，尤其是足球赛，关乎国家认同的政治年复一年地上头条，讽刺而又普遍。法国国家队在本土赢得98年世界杯，从当时看似乎划时代地展现出了多元族群的团结。但在2001年，当阿尔及利亚队来到巴黎，开打两队史上第一场遭遇战时，迎接《马赛曲》的，是来自一群主要由被殖民者后裔组成的人飓风般的嘘声。这场比赛最终在一次球迷涌入球场后取消。

The historian Laurent Dubois has documentedthe emergence of these tensions. They began with inflammatory comments in 1996by the then-leader of the far-right Front National, Jean-Marie Le Pen, aboutnon-white footballers not singing the anthem, and who were thus “fakeFrenchmen”. In vain did players of a previous generation point out that nobodyreally sang the anthem. Le Pen made it such a touchstone that he launched his2002 presidential campaign in front of the stadium where the Algeria game hadbeen played, referencing the non-white crowd’s booing specifically as he didso. And, of course, Le Pen succeeded in getting through to the final round ofthat election, pushing aside the candidates of the left, as his daughter Marinedid in 2017.

历史学家洛朗·杜布瓦记录了这些紧张关系的涌现。它们始于1996年时任极右的国民阵线最高领导人让·玛丽·勒庞的煽动性评论，关于非白人的足球队员不唱国歌，因此他们是“假法国人”。上一代球员指出没人真的唱过国歌也是徒劳无用。勒庞以此为试金石，就在那场和阿尔及利亚比赛的体育场前，发起了他的2002年总统选战，当他这么干时，还特别引用了非白人群体的嘘声。当然了，勒庞成功地挺进到了那场选举的最终轮次，把左派候选人挤到了一旁，就如同他女儿马丽娜在2017年做的那样。

Racist and xenophobic?

种族主义者和排外？

Through these controversies, theassociation between La Marseillaise and race has been reinforced. In 2014, thejustice minister Christiane Taubira, of Afro-Caribbean descent, was sucked intoa social media row with the conservative opposition after being seen notsinging along at a ceremony marking the abolition of slavery. Supportersproduced video of many other politicians doing likewise, but it formed part ofa pattern of attacks on Taubira, one of France’s most prominent blackpoliticians.

经过这一系列的争议，《马赛曲》和种族之间的关联已经被强化了。黑人-加勒比后裔的司法部长克里斯蒂安·陶比拉，在她被人看到在一个纪念废奴的典礼中没有跟着唱国歌，而被卷入一场保守反对党的社交媒体攻伐。支持者制作了许多别的政治家同样没有跟唱的视频，但这也部分构成了对陶比拉这位法国最显耀的黑人政治家之一的攻击模式。  

From the other side, the song’s lyrics, andparticularly the line about “impure blood”, have increasingly been seen asessentially racist – in the wake of the Taubira incident, the actor LambertWilson called them terrible, bloody, racist and xenophobic". There havebeen campaigns to change them or to change the whole song, while others arguethat altering a few words will not deal with the underlying racism of society.

另一方面，这首歌的歌词，尤其是关于“污秽的血”的部分已经日益被看成是实质上的种族主义，紧随着陶比拉事件，演员兰伯特·威尔森称呼他们为“烂人、血腥、种族主义和排外”。已经有运动想要改掉那些歌词，或者改掉整首歌，与此同时，其他人主张改变几个单词是处理不了社会中潜在的种族主义的。

The series of shocking terrorist outragesin Paris and elsewhere since 2015 have, in some senses, put these squabblesinto perspective. Christiane Taubira can be seen, just about singing along, inthe video of the November 2015 parliamentary Marseillaise. In other senses,however, they have heightened the tensions which lie behind the disputes.Taubira herself resigned from the government two months later, unwilling toendorse a proposal to strip French citizenship from convicted terrorists.

自2015年开始在巴黎和其他地方，这一系列对于骇人听闻恐怖分子的愤慨，在某种意义上已使得这些口角受到了全面公正地看待。2015年11月议会唱马赛曲的视频上能看到陶比拉几乎是在跟着唱了。然而从另一种意义上看，潜藏在这些争端背后的紧张升高了。两个月后，因为不认可剥夺被判有罪的恐怖分子法国公民身份的提案，陶比拉自己从政府中辞职了。

The 2017 presidential election was foughtin part on a clearly right-wing terrain over the merits of France’s colonialhistory, and whether both revolutionary and imperial pasts had to be acceptedfor one to be truly French.

2017年法国总统选举，部分是在明显为右翼的地盘上开打的，针对的是法国殖民历史的功过，以及，一个人是否必须接受革命和帝国的过往，才能成为真正的法国人。
In the meantime, the non-white descendantsof imperial subjects continue to inhabit the deprived estates of the urbanperiphery – the famous banlieues – and to experience economic neglect andpolice brutality under governments of every colour. Alongside the neweducational focus on La Marseillaise the French president, Emmanuel Macron, hasjust announced a policy of universal national service for all 16-year-olds: itremains to be seen whether this or anything else will be enough to unite thechildren of the Fatherland – and where they are supposed to march.

与此同时，成功被殖民人群的非白人后裔继续居住在城市边缘那些被剥夺的房产里，着名的暴力街区，并且在所有肤色组成的政府治下遭受着经济上的忽视，以及警察的野蛮行径。与此并行的是，新的教育方针聚焦于马赛曲，法国总统马克龙刚刚宣布了一项让所有16岁的人去服兵役的政策：该政策或是任何其他政策是否足以团结祖国的孩子们，乃至他们将向哪里进军，都有待观察。