不應忽視亞洲面臨的恐襲威脅

The first self-styled Islamic state of the postwar era was established not in the Arab world but in south Asia, in Pakistan. It was followed by Mauritania in west Africa, Iran and then Pakistan’s neighbour, Afghanistan.

二戰後首個自封的伊斯蘭國家並非建立於阿拉伯世界，而是在南亞的巴基斯坦。其後是西非的毛里塔尼亞、伊朗，以及巴基斯坦的鄰國阿富汗。

While the world frets over the spread of violent Islamist extremism through the Middle East, most recently under the banner of Isis, there is a tendency to forget the menace of violence and creeping religious bigotry among the vast Muslim populations of Asia. It is in Asia, after all, that most Muslims live.

當全世界爲暴力伊斯蘭極端主義在整個中東地區擴散——近年來在“伊斯蘭國”(Isis)的旗幟下——而擔憂時，卻出現了這樣一種趨勢，即在亞洲廣大穆斯林人口中暴力行徑和日漸加深的宗教偏執的危害被忽視了。畢竟，亞洲有着世界最多的穆斯林人口。

In Asia, as in Europe and the Middle East, Isis is a popular brand among young Islamist militants. But the puritanical and bloodthirsty Sunni ideology it represents has been extending its influence there for decades under the guidance of other groups and governments, including al-Qaeda, Saudi Arabia and a plethora of local organisations.

同在歐洲和中東一樣，Isis在亞洲也受到了年輕伊斯蘭激進分子的歡迎。但Isis所代表的清教徒式、崇尚暴力的遜尼派宗教思想，幾十年來就已在其他組織和政府（包括基地組織、沙特阿拉伯以及大量地方組織）的引導下，不斷在亞洲地區擴大影響力。

Many westerners — because their own troops have been fighting and dying there in the recent past — are aware of the savagery of the civil war in Afghanistan between the ultra-conservative Taliban and the government in Kabul.

許多西方人——因爲本國軍隊過去幾年在阿富汗參戰並遭受傷亡——都見識到了極端保守的塔利班與喀布爾政府之間內戰的殘酷。

But how many recall that Sunni extremists in Bangladesh have in the past few months hacked to death liberal writers and attacked foreigners, police officers, Shia Muslims, Hindus and Christians? That scores of recruits from the Maldives have gone to fight for Isis in Syria? Or that Pakistani terror groups routinely slaughter the perceived enemies of Sunni puritanism at home as well as launching occasional murderous raids into neighbouring India?

但有多少人記得，過去幾個月在孟加拉國，遜尼派極端分子砍死自由派作家、攻擊外國人、警察、什葉派穆斯林、印度教徒和基督徒的事情？有多少人記得來自馬爾代夫的大量新成員已經趕赴敘利亞爲Isis戰鬥？有多少人記得巴基斯坦恐怖組織經常在國內屠殺他們認爲與遜尼派清教主義爲敵的人士、並不時向鄰國印度發動兇殘的突然襲擊？

East Asia is not immune either. Just as south Asians once revelled in their religious diversity and syncretic Hindu-Muslim culture, so it was long argued that the brand of Islam practised in Indonesia and its neighbours was “milder” than the harsh versions of the Gulf. Yet in recent decades we have seen terrorist bombings in Bali, Islamist separatism in the Philippines and Sumatra, the burning of churches in Java and increasing Wahabbi religiosity that runs counter to the tolerant and heterodox traditions of Islam in the east.

東亞也未能倖免。正如南亞人曾經陶醉於他們的宗教多樣性以及印度教和穆斯林文化的融合，很長時間都有一種聲音認爲，印尼及其鄰國所信奉的伊斯蘭教比波斯灣國家的“更加溫和”。但最近幾十年，我們見證了巴厘島恐怖爆炸事件、菲律賓和蘇門答臘的伊斯蘭分裂主義、爪哇島上教堂遭焚燬，以及與伊斯蘭教在東方的寬容傳統相違背的瓦哈比教派(Wahhbi)的壯大。

Analysing the role of postwar nation states and their constitutions is crucial for understanding the crisis of Islamist violence in Asia: the very name of the country is one reason why the problem is so severe in the pioneering Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

分析戰後民族國家及其憲法的作用，對於理解亞洲的伊斯蘭暴力危機至關重要：巴基斯坦伊斯蘭共和國(Islamic Republic of Pakistan)的名稱本身就是這一問題在這個開創性國家爲何如此嚴重的原因之一。

When Muhammad Ali Jinnah separated Pakistan from the rest of India in 1947, it was to protect the Muslim minority of the Raj. He envisaged a secular, tolerant state where Christians, Hindus and others could worship freely.

1947年穆罕默德阿里真納(Muhammad Ali Jinnah)帶領巴基斯坦脫離印度，是爲了保護在英國統治下屬於少數族羣的穆斯林。他設想建立一個世俗、寬容的國家，基督徒、印度教徒以及其他信教者可以自由禮拜。

That was not the way it turned out. Pakistan has become a place where the supposed will of the religious majority is imposed by violence. By becoming an “Islamic” republic, it by definition discriminated against non-Muslims. Non-Muslims are vilified not only in madrassas but also in government school textbooks.

結果事與願違。在巴基斯坦，被認爲是宗教多數派的意志被通過暴力加以貫徹。作爲一個“伊斯蘭”共和國，巴基斯坦的國名就包含了對非穆斯林的歧視。非穆斯林不僅在伊斯蘭學校，而且在政府官方教科書中受到污衊。

Farahnaz Ispahani, a former member of the Pakistani national assembly, describes in her book, Purifying the Land of the Pure, how the non-Muslim share of the population dropped from 23 per cent at independence to 3 per cent today.

前巴基斯坦國民議會議員法拉赫娜茲伊斯帕哈尼(Farahnaz Ispahani)在《淨化聖潔之地》(Purifying the Land of the Pure)一書中講述了巴基斯坦非穆斯林人口比例如何從獨立時的23%下降到如今的3%。

But the “drip, drip genocide” — 60,000 Pakistanis, she says, have been killed by jihadis — did not stop there. Members of the Ahmadi movement were persecuted and declared non-Muslims. Extremists then started massacring Shia. Now the targets are Sufis and other “soft” Sunnis considered insufficiently orthodox by clerics.

但“這場慢性種族屠殺”——據她稱，有6萬巴基斯坦人被聖戰分子殺害——並未就此止步。艾哈邁迪教派(Ahmadi)運動的成員受到迫害，並被宣佈爲非穆斯林。隨後，極端分子開始屠殺什葉派。如今，蘇菲派(Sufis)與其他被宗教領袖視爲不夠正統的“溫和”遜尼派又成了極端分子的目標。

There is, nevertheless, a glimmer of hope that Pakistan might, one day, become a moderately open Muslim society. The army seems to have realised that violent Islamists who slaughter Pakistanis pose an existential threat to the state itself.

然而，巴基斯坦興許有一天會成爲一個適度開放的穆斯林社會。軍方似乎已經意識到，崇尚暴力的伊斯蘭主義者對巴基斯坦人民的屠殺將威脅國家的存亡。

Unfortunately, the generals make a specious distinction between “good” and “bad” jihadis, supporting the “good” who stage terror attacks on Pakistan’s neighbours. The four men who crossed the border and attacked the Indian air base of Pathankot this month were believed to be from a group supported by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

遺憾的是，該國將軍們對“好”與“壞”聖戰分子做了一個似是而非的區分，支持那些向其鄰國發動恐怖襲擊的“好”聖戰分子。本月，4名武裝分子越過邊界，襲擊了印度帕坦科特(Pathankot)空軍基地。據信他們來自一個得到巴基斯坦三軍情報局(Inter-Services Intelligence)支持的組織。

Yet, as Ispahani points out, the same people who kill Indians or Afghans in the summer will return home when the fighting season is over and murder Pakistani Shia or persecute the few remaining Hindus and Christians.

然而，正如伊斯帕哈尼指出的，戰鬥季節結束後，在夏季裏殺害印度人或阿富汗人的武裝分子將回到國內，繼續殘殺巴基斯坦什葉派，或者迫害人數已經不多的印度教徒和基督徒。

If Pakistan and other Asian nations want to survive as modern, constitutional states rather than descend into the communal violence now common in the Middle East, they will have to enforce a minimum level of religious and cultural tolerance and suppress all their extremists.

如果巴基斯坦與其他亞洲國家要成爲現代憲政國家，而非陷入如今中東常見的集體暴力衝突之中，他們將不得不實行最低限度的宗教和文化寬容政策，並打擊各路極端分子。