On the airwaves, everyone is telling us what is happening across the Arab world. The truth (if only anyone would admit it) is that we cannot possibly know. Take the revolution in Cairo, says Joris Luyendijk, a Dutch former foreign correspondent and author of People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East, which examines how difficult it is for journalists to understand the region. Tahrir Square was packed with perhaps 250,000 demonstrators. Thousands of foreign journalists cheered them on. The world was watching. Yet we cannot answer a basic question: was this a popular revolution?
在電視和廣播里，每個(gè)人都在向我們講述阿拉伯世界正在發(fā)生的事，但事實(shí)是我們不可能了解，只是誰(shuí)都不愿意承認(rèn)?！断裎覀円粯拥娜耍呵庵袞|》(People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East)一書(shū)的作者、前荷蘭駐外記者約里斯?盧因迪克(Joris Luyendijk)說(shuō)，開(kāi)羅革命的例子就說(shuō)明，記者要了解這個(gè)地區(qū)是何其困難。解放廣場(chǎng)上聚集了可能有25萬(wàn)名示威者，數(shù)以千計(jì)的外國(guó)記者為他們歡呼喝彩，整個(gè)世界都在關(guān)注。然而我們卻無(wú)法回答一個(gè)基本的問(wèn)題：這是一場(chǎng)人民革命嗎？