ANYONE, anywhere “should be encouraged to imagine other peoples, other cultures, other identities”, wrote Hal Niedzviecki in the spring issue of Write, an obscure Canadian literary magazine. For that apparently innocuous observation, he lost his job as the publication’s editor. Mr Niedzviecki was defending “cultural appropriation”, the use by artists and writers of motifs and ideas from other cultures. He suggested an “appropriation prize” for creators who carry out such cross-cultural raids. In a special issue of the magazine dedicated to indigenous writers, that was offensive, his critics said.

霍尔．尼兹维奇（Hal Niedzviecki）在其主编的晦涩难懂的加拿大文化杂志《Write》春季期刊中写道，任何人在任何地方都“应联想到别的民族及其文化和身份”。因这一无意之言，尼兹维奇丢失了他的工作。尼兹维奇被指支持“文化挪用”，即艺术家与作家未经许可挪用其他文化特色及观点。 尼兹维奇建议为执行这种跨文化抄袭行为者颁“文化挪用奖”。批评人士表示，该春季期刊作者主要为本土作家，尼兹维奇的这种言论具有侮辱性。

Mr Niedzviecki’s supporters were also made to suffer. A journalist at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was demoted after he offered on Twitter to help finance the prize. The editor of Walrus, a better-known magazine, decried “political correctness, tokenism and hypersensitivity” in cultural and academic bodies. After a social-media backlash he, too, resigned. In April a gallery shut an exhibit of the work of Amanda PL, a painter inspired by the style of Norval Morriseau, an indigenous artist.

尼兹维奇的支持者们日子也不好过。一名加拿大广播公司记者在推特上表示愿为该“文化挪用奖”提供资金支持，之后便被公司辞退。知名杂志《海象》编辑批评文化与学术领域“政治上矫枉过正，做面子工程，过于敏感”。这一言论遭到了社会媒体的强烈抵制，该编辑最终离职。四月，一家美术馆关闭了画家阿曼达的艺术展，理由是画家借用了本土艺术家诺瓦尔·莫里桑（Norval Morriseau）的艺术风格。

Mr Niedzviecki has reopened an old debate. Cross-fertilisation is fundamental to the creative process. This article, for example, is written in Roman letters and uses Arabic numerals. However, many indigenous Canadian intellectuals demand extra sensitivity. Some particularly object to white people borrowing (or “stealing”) elements of their culture.

尼兹维奇事件再次激起了有关”文化挪用“的争论这个旧话题。文化的相互借鉴是创造过程的基础。比如，这篇引起争议的文章是使用罗马字母与阿拉伯数字写就的。然而，许多加拿大本土知识分子要求人们对此保持特别的敏感度。一些本土居民强烈反对白人借用（或者说”抄袭“）本土文化。

For some, such borrowing evokes memories of centuries of domination by the British and “white settlers”, who took the land of indigenous peoples, tried to force them to assimilate through residential schools and excluded them from mainstream cultural life. Members of indigenous “First Nations” were not allowed to vote until 1960 unless they renounced their Indian status. Robert Jago, an indigenous writer, says that cultural appropriation leads to “the hypersexualised view” of indigenous women, the myth of the drunken Indian and the “football-mascot-inspired stereotype of the violent warrior”.

对于有些人而言，这一借用现象唤起了他们关于多个世纪以来遭英国人和“白人殖民者”统治的记忆：这些殖民者夺走了原住民的土地，强迫其上当地的学校来接受同化，并将原住民排斥在主流文化生活之外。1960之前，原住民“第一民族”的人员如果不放弃其印第安人身份，是没有投票选举权的。本土作家罗伯特 · 加勾表示，文化挪用造成对原住民女性形成了“超性欲意识”，会造成有关印第安人酗酒的说法，以及“将残暴的战士作为足球吉祥物原型”的情况。

The argument is now raging on talk shows, in newspapers and especially on social media. Some think it has been inflamed by Donald Trump, who encourages Americans who object to political correctness to say so. “This is the first and probably not the last intrusion” of Trumpian attitudes into Canada’s cultural debate, says Conrad Brunk, co-author of a book on cultural appropriation. Canada’s indigenous peoples, for their part, have also become more assertive. “We’re in a new paradigm” because of social media, says Jesse Wente, an Ojibwe from the Serpent River First Nation, borrowing words from Latin, Greek and English. “We don’t have to occupy chairs in mainstream news media to have our voices heard.”

这一争议成为了脱口秀节目、报纸，尤其是社交媒体的热议话题。一些人认为，这一争议的源头是特朗普，因为他鼓动了那些反对政治正确性的美国人说出这些话。作家康拉德·布伦克表示，这是特朗普式态度“第一次插手加拿大文化争端，却可能不会是最后一次”。康拉德撰写过一本关于文化挪用的书。加拿大原住民自己的态度也更强硬。居住在蛇河第一民族的欧及布威族人杰西·温特表示，由于有了社交媒体，通过借鉴了拉丁语、希腊语和英语，“我们形成了自己的新文化典范”。“我们不需要在主流新闻媒体中占据一席之地，但大家仍可以听到我们的心声。”温特说道。

That is welcome, but the silencing of other voices is not. The hounding of journalists from their jobs chills free speech. Politely, Mr Niedzviecki admits that his defence of cultural appropriation was “a bit tone deaf”. But he should not apologise too much. He provoked a debate on an important and many-sided issue. Canada prides itself on its diversity of peoples. A diversity of ideas matters, too.

这一情况令人欣慰，但还有很多原住民仍无法表达自己的诉求。新闻记者的穷追不舍使他们丧失了言论自由。尼兹维奇承认，他对“文化挪用”行为的支持是“脱离常规”了。不过，他无需对此表示太多的歉意，毕竟他引起了一场重要且有多方参与的辩论。加拿大一直以其民族多样性而自豪，加拿大应意识到，倾听不同的声音同样重要。

编译：李博文

审校：刘恬

编译：翻吧君

来源：经济学人