Freedom, Human Rights and peace

点评：

自由、人权与和平是人类永恒的追求，也是大学生们热衷的话题。本文为一篇诺贝尔奖获得者的演讲稿，演讲者的热切、兴奋与欣慰之情溢于言表。文中多采用结构完整的长句，语意表达十分严谨（如：第二句），这是学术性演讲文章的语言特点。文中还多处采用两句、三句排比（如倒数第二个句子）。充分体现了英语句式工整的特点。

I am convinced that international confidence, mutual understanding, disarmament, and international security are inconceivable without an open society with freedom of information, freedom of conscience, the right to publish, and the right to travel and choose the country in which one wishes to live. I am likewise convinced that freedom of conscience, together with the other civic right, provides the basis for scientific progress and constitutes a guarantee that scientific advances will not be used to despoil mankind, providing the basis for economic and social progress, which in turn is a political guarantee for the possibility of an effective defense of social rights. At the same time I should like to defend the thesis of the original and decisive significance of civic and political rights in molding the destiny of mankind. This view differs essentially from the widely accepted Marxist view, as well as the technocratic opinions, according to which it is precisely material factors and social and economic conditions that are of decisive importance.

Other civilizations, including more “successful” ones should exist an infinite number of times on the “preceding” and the “following” pages of the Book of the Universe. Yet this should not minimize our sacred endeavors in this world of ours, where, like faint glimmers of light in the dark, we have emerged for a moment from the nothingness of dark unconsciousness of material existence. We must make good the demands of reason and create a life worthy of ourselves and of the goals we only dimly perceive.

Granting the award to a person who defends political and civil rights against illegal and arbitrary actions means an affirmation of principles which plays such an important role in determining the future of mankind. For hundreds of people, known or unknown to me, many of whom pay a high price for the defense of these same principles (the price being loss of freedom, unemployment, poverty, persecution, exile from one’s country), your decision was a great personal joy and a gift, I am aware of all this, but I am also aware of another fact: in the present situation, it is an act of intellectual courage and great equity to grant the award to a man whose ideas do not coincide with official concepts of the leadership of a big and powerful state. This, in fact, is how I value the decision of the Nobel Committee: I also see in it a manifestation of tolerance and of the true spirit of détente. I want to hope that even those who at present view your decision skeptically or with irritation someday will come to share this point of view.

I would like to end my speech expressing the hope in a final victory of the principles of peace and human rights. The best sigh that such hope can come true would be a general political amnesty in all the world, liberation of all prisoners of conscience everywhere. The struggle for a general political amnesty is the struggle for the future of mankind.

背景介绍：

本文作者是安德烈•萨哈罗夫（Andrei Sakharov）（1921－1989），前苏联核物理学家，对前苏联发展核武器做出重要贡献，主张苏美合作消除核威胁，被西方称为“苏联持不同政见者的代表人物”，1975年获诺贝尔和平奖。本篇所选即为他领奖时的演讲。

参考译文：

自由，人权与和平

我深信，如果没有一个开放的社会，没有信息交流自由、思想良知自由、言论自由、行动自由、以及自愿选择其所居住的国家的自由，那么，国际间的信任、相互谅解、裁减军备以及国际安全是无法想象了。我同样深信，良知的自由同其他公民权利一起是科学进步的基础，并确保科学进步不会被用于毁灭人类，从而为经济和社会的进步提供基础。而经济和社会的进步又反过来成为可能有效地捍卫社会权利的政治保障 。与此同时，我愿辩护，公民权利和政治权利在铸就人类命运方面具有首要的、决定性的意义。这一观点与广泛接受的马克思主义的观点又本质上的差异，也不同于专家治国论的观点，因为它们认为惟有物质因素和社会经济条件才起决定性的重要作用。

其他文明，包括一些更“成功”的文明，应该无数次地在“宇宙之书”的前部和后部出现。然而，不能因此而轻视我们在这个世界所作的神圣努力。在这个世界，我们就像黑暗中的一缕微光，在物质存在的无意识的黑暗虚无中闪现了片刻。我们必须实现理性的要求，创造一种我们应该拥有的，而我们只是隐隐约约感觉到其目标的生活。

把这样一个奖项授予一个为捍卫政治权利和公民权利而与一切非法的、专制的行为作斗争的人，这就意味着对那些在决定人类未来时起非常重要作用的原则的充分肯定。对于数以百计的人们，我认识的和不认识的，他们中很多人为了捍卫这些原则付出了高昂的代价（这些代价包括丧失自由，失业，贫困，受迫害，被驱逐出境），你们的决定是一个巨大的个人乐事和礼物。我对这一切十分清楚，而且我还十分清楚另一个事实：在目前的情况下，把这样一个奖项颁给一个与其超级大国的领导阶层的权威思想相左的人，此乃显示理智的勇气和伟大的公平之举。事实上，正因为如此，我十分珍视诺贝尔奖委员会的决定。在这里，我还看到了宽容与真正的缓和国际紧张关系的精神。我希望，即使现在仍对你们的决定表示怀疑和愤懑的人们某一天也能接受我的观点。

在结束演讲之前，我想表达一下我的希望：愿和平与人权的原则赢得最后的胜利。象征这一希望实现的最好标志将是在全世界范围内实行普遍的政治大赦，释放世界各地所有的良知犯。为普遍的政治大赦而斗争就是为人类的未来而斗争。

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