法國和伊斯蘭之間爭端登上暢銷榜

How France’s Fight With Islam Became a Bestseller

法國和伊斯蘭之間爭端登上暢銷榜

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.

戴維·湯姆遜，曾爲公開表示法國反恐問題涵蓋宗教第一人。如今他是全國最火知識分子。

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.

早在法國各個記者、學者、政客和警方全力集中處理伊斯蘭國、基地組織和海外歸法聖戰分子之前，湯姆遜就有所察覺。

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年一月份查理週刊和Hyper Cacher（猶太教食品專售連鎖超市）襲擊事件發生的九個月前，身爲法國國際廣播電臺記者的湯姆遜已在北非花費數年時間報道、與聖戰圈建立聯繫，還屢次嘲諷國家電視臺。他聲稱自己聯繫上了部分行至中東並準備回國發動反法襲擊的聖戰士。這些人就是現在熱議中成羣結隊涌入敘利亞，臭名昭著的法籍聖戰分子。

“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.”

“我就沒聽說過什麼外籍聖戰士！如果敵人就在法國，那他們幹嘛要跑那麼遠？”著名大學教授兼社會學家拉斐爾·里奧吉耶曾在法國第二電視臺一檔脫口秀上對此嗤之以鼻，指責湯姆遜是在爲民粹主義者謀利。另一位嘉賓，研究員漢娜·卡里米則警告此舉會有“侮辱穆斯林”的風險。而同組的嘉賓嘲笑湯姆遜是菜鳥，水平業餘，譏諷他不過“採訪報道了幾十個聖戰分子”，“不是反恐問題專家，最好表現謙遜點兒。”

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.

然而當時間快進兩年，等法國本土遭受一連串恐怖襲擊、歷時整整13個月全國緊急狀態加上總統大選來臨之時，被一些法國媒體戲稱爲“和聖戰分子談過話的男人”和“先知”的湯姆遜卻變成了法國備受喜愛的公共知識分子。隨着其最新暢銷書Les Revenants（《歸來者》）出版，湯姆遜獲得了《法國世界報》前幾頁的位置作爲支持。《歸來者》一書以同從“哈里發之地（意爲伊斯蘭教土地）”歸來的伊斯蘭國聖戰士訪談爲主要內容。湯姆遜幾乎成了每大法國紙媒、線上媒體和廣播電臺眼中的明星，溢美之詞、深度訪談、小組討論直播絡繹不絕。《歸來者》迅速銷售一空後，出版商下令緊急加印；同時，該書的二手複印本在網上已經賣到了原版的三倍價錢。

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.

湯姆遜的書把兩年來在法國監獄中、家中、烤串店裏與20個研究對象的面對面訪談以及電話採訪作爲基礎，還包括在敘利亞的情報員。作者在過去十年中和上百個主要爲法國籍但同時又是突尼斯籍和比利時籍的聖戰分子談過，用他們的語言繪製出一幅畫像，畫着受到享樂主義、暴力和先驗誘惑的聖戰士，湯姆森把這些人統稱爲“LOL聖戰士（？？？黑人問號.JPG）”。畫像中還有那些回到法國後往往失望透頂、執迷不悟，其中一些人還準備着再去趟哈里發。

“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.”

“《查理週刊》被襲是我生命中最美妙的一天……我真想再來一次，”此話出自蓮娜，她是湯姆遜究對象中相對更嗜血的羣體成員之一。“我希望有姐妹會採取下次針對性襲擊。”

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.

但湯姆遜本人以及他研究對象對伊斯蘭教在反恐問題中所演角色的定性贏得了諸多關注。少數民族被邊緣化的羞恥感、被歧視感和後殖民時代的憤怒；父親在成長中的缺席、家庭帶來的創傷；青少年犯罪和“聖戰”間的微妙傾斜；還有宗教保證給予的性愛天堂——湯姆遜主張以上全部因素對解釋法國境內聖戰分子的存在十分重要。然而，這些因素無一足夠把採訪對象的思想轉變，真正轉變他們思想的關鍵卻常常受到忽視的因素，即宗教和政治精神信仰發揮的作用——尤其是強硬薩拉菲斯派沙特阿拉伯瓦哈比主義伊斯蘭學校——學校爲他的研究對象們鋪平了走向暴力聖戰主義的先路，也闡明瞭參與者不太可能迴歸常人的原因。

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.”

法國的公共知識分子們——學者、法官、宗教人士、“去激進化”支持者和記者——在彷彿永無止境的本土籍襲擊者和陰謀挫敗的新聞中，急切地尋找着答案：國家會變成何種模樣的答案。如同湯姆遜提醒讀者們所示，西方國家正“主要遭受聖戰的威脅、針對性襲擊和打擊”。而現實中湯姆遜卻僅僅“成功地徹底說服”幾個人，《法國費加羅報》專欄作家亞歷山大寫到。

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.”

國際知名人士。例如政治學家吉勒斯·凱佩爾和奧利維埃·羅伊在今年一次較量中針鋒相對，爭論應該把聖戰問題理解爲“激進主義伊斯蘭教化（羅伊觀點）”——伊斯蘭教是無辜的；或是“伊斯蘭教激進化（凱佩爾觀點）”——不，禍首就在伊斯蘭教。不過兩位學者的較量主要停留在精英階層且兩種觀點均受到批評。羅伊因忽視伊斯蘭國成員理論上根深蒂固的信念受到廣泛質疑，凱佩爾則被指責採用過於狹隘的宗教棱鏡式方法看待伊斯蘭恐怖主義。另一方面，《歸來者》成爲“出版現象”，亞歷山大認爲此書“調和了凱佩爾和羅伊兩者的觀點。”

“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.”

“‘生於法國’的聖戰主義是激進派伊斯蘭與無知年代碰撞的產物”亞歷山大說到。“血腥兇殘的烏托邦和幻滅的時代產下了混血兒。”

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.

《歸來者》出版也正好迎來了一個適時的政治時刻。僅數月後2017年法國總統大選即將到來，本次大選基本可以說是半個對恐怖主義和伊斯蘭教的全民公投。在對法國第二大宗教該“管控”幾分的問題上推諉多年後，整個法國政界似乎完全改變了觀點。在湯姆遜推出《歸來者》之前，時任社會黨總理，現任總統候選人曼努埃爾·瓦爾斯準備好堅決反對薩拉菲斯主義，並將其視作“恐怖主義的[前廳]。”今天，左翼政黨僅有零星聲音仍支持伊斯蘭教和法國面臨的威脅無關。與此同時，右翼政黨的兩位候選人都期望引領明年春天的總統大選。法國共和黨人弗朗索瓦·菲永和國民陣線黨領袖瑪麗娜·勒龐均把穆斯林信仰視作同法國價值觀背道而馳。湯姆遜的書出版正趕上法國就伊斯蘭教在恐怖主義問題中扮演何等角色的討論即將收場之時——而認爲宗教有問題的一方剛好勝出。

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.

湯姆遜運用老派記者那份培養和傾聽原始素材的才能，並採用人類學視角來觀察人類行爲。他的取材覆蓋了阿拉伯之春在突尼斯和敘利亞產生的餘波，將此作爲起點，再向巴黎進發。隨時間流逝，湯姆遜建立了一張比任何試圖探究法語伊斯蘭國的西方記者或調查員都深入的聯繫網。在湯姆遜2014年著書《法國聖戰士》中，駐外記者首先追蹤了外籍聖戰士退出敘利亞，讓法國青年們“完全被敘利亞聖戰計劃，和衆多返法發動對祖國恐怖襲擊的人刺激行動起來”。在第一本書中，湯姆遜把在敘利亞和伊拉克的聖戰分子描述爲“組成恐怖突擊隊的胚胎幹細胞”，他們在2015年11月連續發動了巴黎巴塔克蘭音樂廳劫持事件。

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.

《歸來者》包含了對多個研究對象的採訪，有些對象是自由身，很多則身陷囹圄。他們中有不少年輕的狂熱分子。比如沙菲雅，她曾到敘利亞後又返回法國。回法後沙菲雅恢復了在公共場合吸菸的習慣，在伊斯蘭國土地上這麼做會讓她受到40下鞭打的懲罰。如今她又在談論再次離開——不是前往敘利亞而是去也門。“我不想逼自己留在法國”她說。“我恨法國。我覺得自己在法國沒有立足之地。”然後是凱文，一名來自布列塔尼的21歲前天主教唱詩班男孩兒。他14歲時皈依伊斯蘭教，17歲身在敘利亞；他一心回法國聯繫上在哈里發得到的四個妻子和六個孩子。如今凱文被關押在耳其。研究對象的名單上有曾經的高中生、普通工人、前法國軍人，以及比較罕見的一對醫生夫婦。這對夫婦聲稱和女兒一起在拉卡省爲伊斯蘭國工作了幾個月，不是因爲他們支持伊斯蘭國而是他們想救出自己的兒子。

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.

當今西方聖戰分子褻瀆神明的經歷已是衆所周知。但基本上湯姆遜書中所有的返法聖戰分子都在兒童期接受過宗教化教育。其中百分之七十的人有穆斯林且家庭背景通常很保守，很多人通過清真寺和熟人受到激進化洗禮。多數人表示他們踏向伊斯蘭國的第一步是被所謂的寂靜主義者或者說溫和派薩拉菲斯主義吸引，模仿先知時代“虔誠的先驅們”生活，之後再加入武裝聖戰。過去十年裏，薩拉菲斯運動吸引來的法國信徒人數持續增長，極端原教主義價值觀與社會主流“決裂”。

“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.”

“影響深遠”20歲的佐貝爾在飛往敘利亞前經常出入“寂靜主義”薩拉菲斯團體，通過他們對傳統經文超越文字層面的解釋，在那兒認識了一些將來會在2015年十一月和2016年三月發動襲擊的人。作爲書中唯一自認爲成熟的懺悔者，佐貝爾把自己在伊斯蘭國度過的最初階稱爲“假日野營……在聖戰地，你可以一邊槍殺人一邊吃冰淇淋。”佐貝爾是第一個返回法國的聖戰士，入獄一年後他自願加入情報部門，與容易受到極端思想影響的年輕人談論自身經歷，爲他們提供“對抗論述。”

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.

湯姆遜寫到，“寂靜主義”薩拉菲爾宣稱自己強烈反對武裝聖戰，其信徒有時甚至向警方會揭發暴力派“塔克菲爾主義者”或者“哈瓦利吉派”。但是，對立思想潮流和他們共享用一學說和意識形態核心。“佐貝爾認爲，今天對他、對他在敘利亞遇到的多數法國人，寂靜主義在爲他們準備、鋪設朝聖戰主義思想轉變的墊腳石。”

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.

湯姆遜的論據已經被官方作爲政策決定的輔助證據。作者極力主張的去激進化不可能實現的觀點已經漸爲大衆接受，包括政府部反恐門現在也更多地提到“脫離”一詞。在法國官方爭取關閉薩拉菲斯主義清真寺的新聞報道中也引用了湯姆遜的觀點。最重要的是，記者開始呼籲有關部門解釋法國及歐洲長期以來爲什麼、怎麼會忽視本土聖戰分子，還是在這些聖戰分子目標明確，反恐警告不絕的情況下犯下如此紕漏。至於紕漏的存在——多在於西方自己而少在於聖戰分子本身——湯姆遜沒有給出更多答案。

“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.”

湯姆遜對《批評板雜誌法國版》說：“現實就是，沒人知道怎麼解決問題。恐怖事件已經發生了。我知道接下來的話可能會驚到有些人，不過我還是要說，歐洲活該承受自己從2012年犯錯犯到2014年導致的苦果——讓成百上千心懷不軌的法國人前往敘利亞和伊拉克建立基地，既不監視也不阻止他們離開。”