法国和伊斯兰之间争端登上畅销榜

　　David Thomson was one of the first to declare religion a part of the problem in France’s war on terror. Now he’s become the country’s hottest intellectual.

　　戴维·汤姆逊，曾为公开表示法国反恐问题涵盖宗教第一人。如今他是全国最火知识分子。

　　Long before France’s correspondents, scholars, politicians, and police were all focused on the Islamic State, al Qaeda, and the dangers posed by returning foreign fighters, there was David Thomson.

　　早在法国各个记者、学者、政客和警方全力集中处理伊斯兰国、基地组织和海外归法圣战分子之前，汤姆逊就有所察觉。

　　Nine months before the January 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher, Thomson, a correspondent for Radio France Internationale who had spent years reporting from North Africa and building contacts within jihadi circles, was repeatedly mocked on national television. He declared, in a now infamous panel debate on French fighters flocking to Syria, that some combatants he was in contact with who had traveled to the Middle East were determined to return and launch strikes against France.

　　在2015年一月份查理周刊和Hyper Cacher（犹太教食品专售连锁超市）袭击事件发生的九个月前，身为法国国际广播电台记者的汤姆逊已在北非花费数年时间报道、与圣战圈建立联系，还屡次嘲讽国家电视台。他声称自己联系上了部分行至中东并准备回国发动反法袭击的圣战士。这些人就是现在热议中成群结队涌入叙利亚，臭名昭著的法籍圣战分子。

　　“I’ve never heard that! Why would they go so far away if the enemy is already here?” one prominent academic, the sociologist Rapha?l Liogier, scoffed on the set of a France 2 talk show, accusing Thomson of playing into the hands of populists. Another panel guest, the researcher Hanane Karimi, warned of the risk of “stigmatizing Muslims,” while another derided Thomson as a neophyte and a dabbler, sneering that just because he had “done a report and interviewed tens of jihadists” that he was not “the reigning expert on the question. You need to show a bit of proof of humility.”

　　“我就没听说过什么外籍圣战士！如果敌人就在法国，那他们干嘛要跑那么远？”著名大学教授兼社会学家拉斐尔·里奥吉耶曾在法国第二电视台一档脱口秀上对此嗤之以鼻，指责汤姆逊是在为民粹主义者谋利。另一位嘉宾，研究员汉娜·卡里米则警告此举会有“侮辱穆斯林”的风险。而同组的嘉宾嘲笑汤姆逊是菜鸟，水平业余，讥讽他不过“采访报道了几十个圣战分子”，“不是反恐问题专家，最好表现谦逊点儿。”

　　Flash forward two years, however, and after consecutive terrorist attacks on domestic soil, 13 straight months under a state of emergency, and a coming presidential election, Thomson — dubbed “the man who talked with jihadists” and a “prophet” by some in France’s media — has become France’s favorite public intellectual. Following the publication of his most recent best-selling book, Les Revenants, or The Returned, which features interviews with fighters for the Islamic State who have come back from “the caliphate,” Thomson has graced the front pages of Le Monde. He’s starred in flattering profiles, in-depth interviews, and panel discussions for nearly every major French print, online, and broadcast outlet. The publishers of Les Revenants ordered an urgent new print run after the book quickly sold out; secondhand copies are being offered online at three times the sale price.

　　然而当时间快进两年，等法国本土遭受一连串恐怖袭击、历时整整13个月全国紧急状态加上总统大选来临之时，被一些法国媒体戏称为“和圣战分子谈过话的男人”和“先知”的汤姆逊却变成了法国备受喜爱的公共知识分子。随着其最新畅销书Les Revenants（《归来者》）出版，汤姆逊获得了《法国世界报》前几页的位置作为支持。《归来者》一书以同从“哈里发之地（意为伊斯兰教土地）”归来的伊斯兰国圣战士访谈为主要内容。汤姆逊几乎成了每大法国纸媒、线上媒体和广播电台眼中的明星，溢美之词、深度访谈、小组讨论直播络绎不绝。《归来者》迅速销售一空后，出版商下令紧急加印；同时，该书的二手复印本在网上已经卖到了原版的三倍价钱。

　　Thomson’s book is based on more than two years of repeated interviews with 20 subjects provided in face-to-face meetings in prisons, homes, and kebab shops in France, and over the phone, including operatives in Syria. The author, who over the past decade has spoken to more than 100 mainly French but also Tunisian and Belgian jihadis, paints a picture, using their own words, of fighters who were seduced by the idea of a hedonistic, violent, and transcendental experience, which Thomson calls “LOL jihad,” and who have returned from the caliphate often disappointed, typically unrepentant, and in some cases ready to do it all again.

　　汤姆逊的书把两年来在法国监狱中、家中、烤串店里与20个研究对象的面对面访谈以及电话采访作为基础，还包括在叙利亚的情报员。作者在过去十年中和上百个主要为法国籍但同时又是突尼斯籍和比利时籍的圣战分子谈过，用他们的语言绘制出一幅画像，画着受到享乐主义、暴力和先验诱惑的圣战士，汤姆森把这些人统称为“LOL圣战士（？？？黑人问号.JPG）”。画像中还有那些回到法国后往往失望透顶、执迷不悟，其中一些人还准备着再去趟哈里发。

　　“Charlie [Hebdo] was the most beautiful day of my life. … I would so much like it to happen again,” says Lena, one of Thomson’s more bloodthirsty subjects. “And I hope a sister will undertake the next targeted attack.”

　　“《查理周刊》被袭是我生命中最美妙的一天……我真想再来一次，”此话出自莲娜，她是汤姆逊究对象中相对更嗜血的群体成员之一。“我希望有姐妹会采取下次针对性袭击。”

　　But it is Thomson’s — and his subjects’ — verdict on the fraught topic of the role of Islam that has helped win so much attention. A marginalized minority’s sense of humiliation, discrimination, and post-colonial fury; absent fathers and family trauma; the slippery slope between juvenile delinquency and “holy war”; and the promise of a sexual paradise — all these are important in explaining jihad in France, Thomson argues. However, none of this would be enough to tip his interviewees over the edge without the important and too-often-dismissed role of religion and politico-spiritual convictions — specifically, the hard-line Salafist Saudi Wahhabist school of Islam — which paved the way for the initial descent of his subjects into violent jihadism and helps explain why they are unlikely to ever re-emerge.

　　但汤姆逊本人以及他研究对象对伊斯兰教在反恐问题中所演角色的定性赢得了诸多关注。少数民族被边缘化的羞耻感、被歧视感和后殖民时代的愤怒；父亲在成长中的缺席、家庭带来的创伤；青少年犯罪和“圣战”间的微妙倾斜；还有宗教保证给予的性爱天堂——汤姆逊主张以上全部因素对解释法国境内圣战分子的存在十分重要。然而，这些因素无一足够把采访对象的思想转变，真正转变他们思想的关键却常常受到忽视的因素，即宗教和政治精神信仰发挥的作用——尤其是强硬萨拉菲斯派沙特阿拉伯瓦哈比主义伊斯兰学校——学校为他的研究对象们铺平了走向暴力圣战主义的先路，也阐明了参与者不太可能回归常人的原因。

　　France’s public intellectuals — scholars, judges, religious figures, “deradicalization” proponents, and journalists — have spent the last few years grasping for answers, amid the seemingly never-ending news of homegrown attackers and foiled plots, for how their country became, as Thomson reminds readers, the Western nation “most threatened, targeted and hit” by jihad. But few, wrote Le Figaro columnist Alexandre Devecchio in a recent column, “succeeded in fully convincing.”

　　法国的公共知识分子们——学者、法官、宗教人士、“去激进化”支持者和记者——在仿佛永无止境的本土籍袭击者和阴谋挫败的新闻中，急切地寻找着答案：国家会变成何种模样的答案。如同汤姆逊提醒读者们所示，西方国家正“主要遭受圣战的威胁、针对性袭击和打击”。而现实中汤姆逊却仅仅“成功地彻底说服”几个人，《法国费加罗报》专栏作家亚历山大写到。

　　Internationally known figures like the political scientists Gilles Kepel and Olivier Roy engaged in a vicious battle this year over whether France should understand its jihad problem as the “Islamization of radicalism” (Roy) — that is, Islam is not to blame — or the “radicalization of Islam” (Kepel) — yes, it is. But the rival scholars’ fight stayed mainly within elite circles and both eventually came in for criticism. Roy has been widely questioned for dismissing Islamic State members’ theologically grounded convictions, while Kepel has been reproached for viewing Islamist terrorism too narrowly through the religious prism. Les Revenants, on the other hand, has become a “publishing phenomenon,” Devecchio says, that has “reconciled Kepel and Roy.”

　　国际知名人士。例如政治学家吉勒斯·凯佩尔和奥利维埃·罗伊在今年一次较量中针锋相对，争论应该把圣战问题理解为“激进主义伊斯兰教化（罗伊观点）”——伊斯兰教是无辜的；或是“伊斯兰教激进化（凯佩尔观点）”——不，祸首就在伊斯兰教。不过两位学者的较量主要停留在精英阶层且两种观点均受到批评。罗伊因忽视伊斯兰国成员理论上根深蒂固的信念受到广泛质疑，凯佩尔则被指责采用过于狭隘的宗教棱镜式方法看待伊斯兰恐怖主义。另一方面，《归来者》成为“出版现象”，亚历山大认为此书“调和了凯佩尔和罗伊两者的观点。”

　　“Jihadism ‘made in France’ is the fruit of the meeting between radical Islam and the era of emptiness,” he says. “The hybrid child of a murderous utopia and a disenchanted époque.”

　　“‘生于法国’的圣战主义是激进派伊斯兰与无知年代碰撞的产物”亚历山大说到。“血腥凶残的乌托邦和幻灭的时代产下了混血儿。”

　　The publication of Les Revenants, however, also happens to come at an opportune political moment. The 2017 French presidential election is only months away and is shaping up as a quasi-referendum on terrorism and Islam. After equivocating for years on how much to “take on” France’s second religion, French politics as a whole seems to be coming around to the idea entirely. Before Thomson released Les Revenants, then-Socialist prime minister and now presidential aspirant Manuel Valls was already railing against Salafism as the “[antechamber] of terrorism.” Few voices on the left today maintain that Islam has nothing to do with the threats facing France. Meanwhile, on the right, both candidates expected to lead in the presidential election next spring, Republican Fran?ois Fillon and National Front leader Marine Le Pen, have characterized the Muslim faith as antithetical to French values. Thomson’s book comes as France appears to have decided that the debate over the role of Islam in its terror problem is finished — and those who say the religion has a problem have won.

　　《归来者》出版也正好迎来了一个适时的政治时刻。仅数月后2017年法国总统大选即将到来，本次大选基本可以说是半个对恐怖主义和伊斯兰教的全民公投。在对法国第二大宗教该“管控”几分的问题上推诿多年后，整个法国政界似乎完全改变了观点。在汤姆逊推出《归来者》之前，时任社会党总理，现任总统候选人曼努埃尔·瓦尔斯准备好坚决反对萨拉菲斯主义，并将其视作“恐怖主义的[前厅]。”今天，左翼政党仅有零星声音仍支持伊斯兰教和法国面临的威胁无关。与此同时，右翼政党的两位候选人都期望引领明年春天的总统大选。法国共和党人弗朗索瓦·菲永和国民阵线党领袖玛丽娜·勒庞均把穆斯林信仰视作同法国价值观背道而驰。汤姆逊的书出版正赶上法国就伊斯兰教在恐怖主义问题中扮演何等角色的讨论即将收场之时——而认为宗教有问题的一方刚好胜出。

　　Thomson applies an anthropological eye to human behavior and an old-school reporter’s talent for cultivating and listening to primary sources. He got his start by covering the Arab Spring aftermath in Tunisia and Libya before returning to Paris. Over time, he built what is arguably the deepest network of contacts of any Western journalist or researcher who has tried to get inside the francophone ranks of the Islamic State. The correspondent first traced the exodus of foreign fighters to Syria in his 2014 Les Francais Jihadistes (the French Jihadists), which gave voice to the young French people “totally galvanized by their project” of waging holy war in Syria and those who, in a number of cases, aspired to return and commit terrorist attacks in their native country. In that first book, he described one network of jihadis based in Syria and Iraq whose members “constituted the embryonic stem cell of the commando” that went on to commit attacks on the Bataclan concert hall in Paris in November 2015.

　　汤姆逊运用老派记者那份培养和倾听原始素材的才能，并采用人类学视角来观察人类行为。他的取材覆盖了阿拉伯之春在突尼斯和叙利亚产生的余波，将此作为起点，再向巴黎进发。随时间流逝，汤姆逊建立了一张比任何试图探究法语伊斯兰国的西方记者或调查员都深入的联系网。在汤姆逊2014年著书《法国圣战士》中，驻外记者首先追踪了外籍圣战士退出叙利亚，让法国青年们“完全被叙利亚圣战计划，和众多返法发动对祖国恐怖袭击的人刺激行动起来”。在第一本书中，汤姆逊把在叙利亚和伊拉克的圣战分子描述为“组成恐怖突击队的胚胎干细胞”，他们在2015年11月连续发动了巴黎巴塔克兰音乐厅劫持事件。

　　Les Revenants includes interviews with diverse subjects, some free and many in prison. There are young zealots of North African background, like Safiya, who left for Syria but have returned to France and re-resumed openly smoking, a habit that would have cost her 40 lashes in Islamic State territory. Yet she is already talking about leaving again — not to Syria this time, but to Yemen. “I can’t bring myself to stay in France” she says. “I hate France. I don’t feel like I have a place.” Then there is Kevin, a 21-year-old former Catholic choirboy from Brittany. He converted at age 14; by 17 he was in Syria; and now he is hoping to journey back to France to join the four wives and six children he acquired in the caliphate. He is currently imprisoned in Turkey. The cast includes former high school students, casual workers, ex-French army, and the strange case of a doctor couple who declared they spent several months working for the Islamic State in Raqqa with their daughters, not because they were supporters but because they wanted to rescue their son.

　　《归来者》包含了对多个研究对象的采访，有些对象是自由身，很多则身陷囹圄。他们中有不少年轻的狂热分子。比如沙菲雅，她曾到叙利亚后又返回法国。回法后沙菲雅恢复了在公共场合吸烟的习惯，在伊斯兰国土地上这么做会让她受到40下鞭打的惩罚。如今她又在谈论再次离开——不是前往叙利亚而是去也门。“我不想逼自己留在法国”她说。“我恨法国。我觉得自己在法国没有立足之地。”然后是凯文，一名来自布列塔尼的21岁前天主教唱诗班男孩儿。他14岁时皈依伊斯兰教，17岁身在叙利亚；他一心回法国联系上在哈里发得到的四个妻子和六个孩子。如今凯文被关押在耳其。研究对象的名单上有曾经的高中生、普通工人、前法国军人，以及比较罕见的一对医生夫妇。这对夫妇声称和女儿一起在拉卡省为伊斯兰国工作了几个月，不是因为他们支持伊斯兰国而是他们想救出自己的儿子。

　　It has become popular wisdom that today’s Western jihadis have profane pasts. But nearly all of the returned fighters in Thomson’s book received a religious education as children. Seventy percent come from Muslim and often conservative households. Many met figures who helped in their radicalization at mosques, and among people they know. The majority say they took their first steps toward the Islamic State when they gravitated first toward so-called quietist or non-violent Salafism, emulating the “pious predecessors” from the time of the Prophet before breaking away to join armed jihad. The Salafist movement has attracted rising numbers of adherents in France over the past decade, with its extreme fundamentalist values of a “rupture” with mainstream society.

　　当今西方圣战分子亵渎神明的经历已是众所周知。但基本上汤姆逊书中所有的返法圣战分子都在儿童期接受过宗教化教育。其中百分之七十的人有穆斯林且家庭背景通常很保守，很多人通过清真寺和熟人受到激进化洗礼。多数人表示他们踏向伊斯兰国的第一步是被所谓的寂静主义者或者说温和派萨拉菲斯主义吸引，模仿先知时代“虔诚的先驱们”生活，之后再加入武装圣战。过去十年里，萨拉菲斯运动吸引来的法国信徒人数持续增长，极端原教主义价值观与社会主流“决裂”。

　　“It was very influential,” says 20-year-old Zoubeir, of his period frequenting “quietist” Salafist groups, with their ultra-literal interpretation of traditional texts, before his flight to Syria, where he got to know some of the future attackers behind the Paris and Brussels attacks of November 2015 and March 2016. The only self-proclaimed full-blown repentee in the book, Zoubeir describes his initial period in Islamic State land as “a holiday camp … a jihad where you can shoot people and eat an ice cream at the same time.” He is the first returned French fighter to have volunteered to intelligence services, after a year of imprisonment, to talk to vulnerable young people about his experience to offer them a “counter-discourse.”

　　“影响深远”20岁的佐贝尔在飞往叙利亚前经常出入“寂静主义”萨拉菲斯团体，通过他们对传统经文超越文字层面的解释，在那儿认识了一些将来会在2015年十一月和2016年三月发动袭击的人。作为书中唯一自认为成熟的忏悔者，佐贝尔把自己在伊斯兰国度过的最初阶称为“假日野营……在圣战地，你可以一边枪杀人一边吃冰淇淋。”佐贝尔是第一个返回法国的圣战士，入狱一年后他自愿加入情报部门，与容易受到极端思想影响的年轻人谈论自身经历，为他们提供“对抗论述。”

　　As Thomson writes, “quietist” Salafism professes itself to be vehemently opposed to armed jihad, and its adherents sometimes go so far as to denounce the violent “takfirists” or “khawarij” to the police. But the warring currents share the same doctrinal and ideological core. “Zoubeir considers today, that, for him, like the majority of the French he met in Syria, quietism prepared the ground and constituted a stepping stone towards him tipping over into jihadism,” he says.

　　汤姆逊写到，“寂静主义”萨拉菲尔宣称自己强烈反对武装圣战，其信徒有时甚至向警方会揭发暴力派“塔克菲尔主义者”或者“哈瓦利吉派”。但是，对立思想潮流和他们共享用一学说和意识形态核心。“佐贝尔认为，今天对他、对他在叙利亚遇到的多数法国人，寂静主义在为他们准备、铺设朝圣战主义思想转变的垫脚石。”

　　Thomson’s arguments are already being mustered by officials as evidence for their policy decisions. The author’s insistence that deradicalization is almost impossible has become increasingly accepted, including by the government’s counter-terrorism establishment that now speaks increasingly of “disengagement.” Thomson is also being cited in dispatches in which French authorities argue for the closure of Salafist mosques. Most of all, the journalist is being called upon to explain how and why France and Europe could have for so long missed the warning signs from homegrown jihadis who nearly always made their intentions perfectly clear. But on this question — which is less about the jihadis themselves and more about the West — he has fewer answers.

　　汤姆逊的论据已经被官方作为政策决定的辅助证据。作者极力主张的去激进化不可能实现的观点已经渐为大众接受，包括政府部反恐门现在也更多地提到“脱离”一词。在法国官方争取关闭萨拉菲斯主义清真寺的新闻报道中也引用了汤姆逊的观点。最重要的是，记者开始呼吁有关部门解释法国及欧洲长期以来为什么、怎么会忽视本土圣战分子，还是在这些圣战分子目标明确，反恐警告不绝的情况下犯下如此纰漏。至于纰漏的存在——多在于西方自己而少在于圣战分子本身——汤姆逊没有给出更多答案。

　　“The reality is that no one knows how to solve the problem,” Thomson told Slate’s French edition. “The horrors have happened. I know that it can shock some to say it, but Europe is condemned to suffer the consequence of the mistakes it made in 2012, 2013, 2014 — to have let hundreds of French leave for Syria and Iraq and create a base there, with terrorist intentions, and to have not seen them leaving, or stopped them from going.”

　　汤姆逊对《批评板杂志法国版》说：“现实就是，没人知道怎么解决问题。恐怖事件已经发生了。我知道接下来的话可能会惊到有些人，不过我还是要说，欧洲活该承受自己从2012年犯错犯到2014年导致的苦果——让成百上千心怀不轨的法国人前往叙利亚和伊拉克建立基地，既不监视也不阻止他们离开。”