回望二十世纪
――献给纳尔逊•曼德拉

站在时间的岸边
站在一个属于精神的高地
我在回望二十世纪
此时我没有眼泪
欢乐和痛苦都变得陌生
我好像站在另一个空间
在审视人类一段奇特的历史

其实这一百年
战争与和平从未离开过我们
而对暴力的控诉也未曾停止
有人歌唱过自由
也有人献身于民主
但人类经历得最多的还是专制和迫害
其实这一百年
诞生过无数伟大的幻想
但灾难却也接踵而至
其实这一百年
多种族的人类，把文明又一次推向了顶峰
我们都曾在地球的某一个角落
悄悄地流下过感激的泪水
二十世纪
你让一部分人欢呼和平的时候
却让另一部分人的两眼布满仇恨的影子
你让黑人在大街上祈求人权
却让残杀和暴力出现在他们家中
你让我们认识卡尔•马克思的同时

也让我们见到了尼采
你让我们看见爱因斯坦是怎样提出了相对论
你同时又让我们目睹这个人最后成为基督徒
你曾把许多巨人的思想变得虚无
你也曾把某个无名者的话语铅印成真理
你散布过阿尔夫•希特勒的法西斯主张
你宣扬过圣雄甘地的非暴力主义
你让社会主义在一些国家获得成功
同时你又让国际工人运动处于了低潮
在诞生弗洛伊德的泛性论年代
你推崇过霍梅尼和伊斯兰革命
你为了马丁•路德•金闻名全世界
却让这个人以被别人枪杀为代价
你在非洲产生过博卡萨这样可以吃人肉的独裁者
同样你也在非洲养育了人类的骄子纳尔逊•曼德拉
你叫柏林墙在一夜之间倒塌
你却又叫车臣人和俄罗斯人产生仇恨
还没有等阿拉伯人和犹太人真正和解
你又在科索沃引发了新的危机和冲突
你让人类在极度纵欲的欢娱之后
最后却要承受艾滋病的痛苦和折磨
你的确让人类看到了遗传工程的好处
却又让人类的精神在工业文明的泥沼中异化而亡
你把信息时代的技术
传播到了拉丁美洲最边远的部落
你却又让一种文化在没有硝烟的地方
消灭另一种文化
你在欧洲降下人们渴望已久的冬
你却又在哥伦比亚暴雨如注
使一个印第安人的村庄毁灭于山洪

你让我们在月球上遥望美丽的地球
使我们相信每一个民族都是兄弟
可你又让我们因宗教而产生分歧与离异
在巴尔干和耶路撒冷相互屠杀
你让高科技移植我们需要的器官
你又让这些器官感受到核武器的恐惧
在纽约人们关心更多的是股市的涨跌
但在非洲饥饿和瘟疫却时刻威胁着人类
是的，二十世纪
当我真的回望你的时候
我才发现你是如此的神秘
你是必然，又是偶然
你仿佛证明的是过去
似乎预示着的又是未来
你好象是上帝在无意间
遗失的一把锋利无比的双刃剑

Looking Back Upon the 20th Century
           ------Dedicated to Nelson Mandela

Standing by the bank of time
standing on the highland of spirit
I’m looking back upon the 20th century
Now, no tears flowing down my cheeks
happiness and pain seem unfamiliar to me
I seem to be standing in another space
to examine an unusual phase of the history of mankind

In fact, in the last century
war and peace were always with us
denouncing violence never stopped
someone sang of freedom
someone gave his life for democracy
however, what mankind had undergone most were autocracy and persecution
In fact, in the last century
countless great dreams emerged
while sufferings came one after another
In fact, in the last century
the multiracial mankind had pushed human civilization to a new peak
for that, all of us were moved to tears
at a certain corner of the world
The 20th century!
while you let part of people hailed peace
you let another part of people’s eyes covered with the reflection of hatred
You let Black people praying for human rights in the street
meanwhile, you let violence and slaughter arising in their houses
While you let us know of Karl Marx

you let us know of Nietzsche
While you let us know how Einstein advanced the theory of relativity
you let us see for ourselves this person finally became a Christian
You had changed many giants’ thoughts into nothingness
You had printed a certain nobody’s words as the truth
You spread Adolf  Hitler’s fascism
You gave publicity to Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violence
While you let socialism come true in some countries
you let the international labor movement be at a low tide
During the years when Floyd’s  pan-sexualism came out
you praised highly Khomeini and Islam Revolution
You let Martin Luther King, Jr. became world-famous
at the cost of his being shot dead
In Africa, you produced Bokaffa, a demoniac autocrat
and in the same place you brought up Nelson Mandela, a
favorite son of mankind
While you had the Berlin Wall collapsed overnight
you let Chechens and the Russians look upon each other with hatred
When the Arabians and the Jews had not become reconciled
you caused new crisis and conflict in Kosovo
You let people suffer from AIDS
after giving way to their carnal desires
Indeed you let mankind see the benefit of genentic engineering
but you let the spirit of mankind die away from alienation in the mire
Of the industrial civilization
While you had spread the technology of the information age
to the outlying tribes in Latin America
you let a kind of culture killed
by another kind of culture without the means of violence

While you let winter snow fall on the European land
You let rainstorms pelt down in Colombia with the result
that an American Indian village was destroyed in a mountain torrents
While you let us look at the earth from the moon
to let us believe all nations were brothers
you let us kill each other in the Balkans and Jerusalem
because of the difference between religions
While you let high-tech transplant the organs we needed
you let those organs frightened with nuclear weapons