雙語暢銷書《我是馬拉拉》第6章10:斯瓦特

He tried to explain that those children were breadwinners so if they went to school, even for free, the whole family would go hungry. However, he got a wealthy philanthropist, Azaday Khan, to pay for him to produce a leaflet asking, ‘Kia hasool e elum in bachun ka haq nahe? ’ – ‘Is education not the right of these children?’ My father printed thousands of these leaflets, left them at local meetings and distributed them around town.

父親試着解釋給我聽，說那些孩子得負責養家餬口。如果他們來上學，那麼他們全家人就都得餓肚子了。不過，他仍去找了一個有錢的慈善家——阿贊地·汗幫忙出錢印了許多傳單。單子上寫着：孩子們難道沒有受教育的權利嗎？父親印了幾千張傳單，放在各種集會場所，也在市區裏發放。

By then my father was becoming a well-known figure in Swat. Even though he was not a khan or a rich man, people listened to him. They knew he would have something interesting to say at workshops and seminars and wasn’t afraid to criticise the authorities, even the army, which was now running our country. He was becoming known to the army too, and friends told him that the local commander had called him ‘lethal’ in public. My father didn’t know what exactly the brigadier meant, but in our country, where the army is so powerful, it did not bode well.

這時候，父親在斯瓦特已經很出名。雖然他不是部落首領，也不是富有之人，但大家還是會聽他說話。他們知道他會在研討會上講些有趣的議題，並且敢於批判當權者，甚至批判軍政府。軍方中也開始有人知道他了，父親的朋友跟他說，當地指揮官曾公開稱他“具有殺傷力”。父親不明白指揮官確切的意思，但在軍方勢力強大的我國，就不是個好兆頭。

One of his pet hates was the ‘ghost schools’. Influential people in remote areas took money from the government for schools which never saw a single pupil. Instead they used the buildings for their hujras or even to keep their animals. There was even a case of a man drawing a teacher’s pension when he had never taught a day in his life. Aside from corruption and bad government, my father’s main concern in those days was the environment. Mingora was expanding quickly – around 175,000 people now called it home – and our once-fresh air was becoming very polluted from all the vehicles and cooking fires. The beautiful trees on our hills and mountains were being chopped down for timber. My father said only around half the town’s population had access to safe drinking water and most, like us, had no sanitation. So he and his friends set up something called the Global Peace Council which, despite its name, had very local concerns. The name was ironic and my father often laughed about it, but the organisation’s aim was serious: to preserve the environment of Swat and promote peace and education among local people.

父親最討厭的一件事，是“幽靈學校”的存在。一些有權有勢的人拿到政府的辦學基金，在偏遠地方辦學，但卻從未招收任何學生。他們會把學校建築拿來當自己的會堂，甚至拿來養牲畜。還有人這輩子從沒教過一天書，卻領取教師退休金。除了貪污問題和政府的腐敗以外，父親當時最擔憂的就是環境問題。明戈拉發展速度驚人，人口已達17.5萬，我們原本清新的空氣，現在被汽車廢氣和煮飯的油煙弄得烏煙瘴氣。山上美麗的樹木都被砍下來當柴火。父親說城裏只有一半的人有辦法取得乾淨的飲用水，大多數人，包括我們在內，都沒有衛浴設備。所以父親和他的朋友們成立了一個組織，叫作“地球和平委員會”，雖然名稱很大，但關注的其實是當地的問題。組織的名字很諷刺，父親經常取笑這個名稱，但組織的目的是很嚴肅的：保護斯瓦特的環境，並在當地倡導和平與教育。

The problem was I did not know how to get it to him. Somehow I thought it needed to go deep into the earth, so first I buried it in the garden. Then I thought it would get spoilt, so I put it in a plastic bag. But that didn’t seem much use. We like to put sacred texts in flowing waters, so I rolled it up, tied it to a piece of wood, placed a dandelion on top and floated it in the stream which flows into the Swat River. Surely God would find it there.

問題是我不知道該怎樣把這封信交給主。不知爲何，我覺得應該把信深深埋進土裏。所以一開始，我將信埋進了院子裏。可我想，這樣信就會爛掉了。於是，我再將信挖出來，放進塑料袋裏。不過這樣似乎也沒什麼作用。我們喜歡把神聖的文字放進流水中，所以我將信捲了起來，綁在一塊小木頭上，在上面放了一朵蒲公英，再把它放進水裏，讓它流向斯瓦特河。這樣真主一定就能在那裏找到這封信了。