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美国国家公共电台 NPR What It's Like To Be Held Hostage By Somali Pirates For 2 1/2 Years

时间:2018-07-30 03:19:45

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(单词翻译)

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Michael Scott Moore is a journalist who traveled to Somalia to write a book about the history of piracy1 in the Horn of Africa. Things did not go the way he planned. The title of his new book tells you what happened. It's called "The Desert And The Sea: 977 Days Captive On The Somali Pirate Coast." His ordeal2 began just after Michael Scott Moore dropped off a colleague at a small airport in Somalia. And as he was heading back into town, his car came upon a flatbed truck full of armed men.

MICHAEL SCOTT MOORE: The 12 or so gunmen on the back came off the flatbed and around to my side of the car and pulled me out. They bloodied3 me. They broke my glasses. They broke my wrist. And they piled me into another waiting SUV and drove me off into the Somali bush.

SHAPIRO: That was day one. Over the next two years and eight months, Moore was kept in huts and on a hijacked4 tuna fishing boat full of other hostages. He got to know his captors. He made friends with other prisoners, and he kept turning over one line in his head, something a pirate said in the earliest days of his captivity5.

MOORE: You have made a mistake, he said. He said, mistakes are human. And it was an insulting thing to say because there he was in a position to make something off my ransom6, and he is telling me that I made some sort of a mistake as if I had made a wrong move within Somalia, as if I had done something to cross the gang. He was trying to make me feel guilty. But, of course, that echoed in my mind for the rest of my time because I made a very big mistake, you know? I not only went to Somalia. I got captured, and that weighed on me for the entire 2 1/2 years obviously.

SHAPIRO: Was going to Somalia the mistake? Was it something that you did when you were in Somalia? Not to place blame on you, but as you turned this over and over in your head, what was the conclusion?

MOORE: Yeah (laughter) well, that's a good question. The longer I was there, obviously, the more sorry I was that I'd even gone to Somalia. No, the - going to Somalia in itself to research the book, no, it was not in itself a mistake. But after a few months of captivity, it was no longer worth it, you know?

SHAPIRO: At various moments throughout your captivity, you are allowed to call your mother, usually to ask for ransom payments.

MOORE: Yeah.

SHAPIRO: And these are some of the most painful and also sometimes kind of comically absurd exchanges of the book.

MOORE: Yeah.

SHAPIRO: Will you read from one of these passages?

MOORE: (Reading) He scrolled7 through the list of contacts on his phone and found my mother's number, pressed call and handed it to me. Her contact name on the screen was (foreign language spoken), mother of the infidel. Hello, said the infidel's mother. Mom, I said, the men here are threatening to sell me to Al-Shabab within three days if they don't get their money. OK, she said, playing it quite cool. Garfanji repeated his demand for a letter of absolution from the president. It must be signed by Obama, he said. It must have a White House seal.

(Reading) How should she send it, I asked. She can send it by email, said the pirate boss. You could just mock something up in Word, I mumbled8 (laughter) into the phone. Oh, said my mother, who would have been coached on this question by the FBI. I don't know if we can do that, Michael, that would be forgery9. Tell her the demand is still $20 million, Garfanji said. What is her counter offer? Mom answered, $8,000. Maybe we can go up to $10,000 (laughter). The difference between the two offers made me dizzy, but I felt proud of my mom. It was the only serious response. She says $10,000, I said.

SHAPIRO: There are so many emotions in that one passage.

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: Yes.

SHAPIRO: I mean, as you read it, you're laughing, but also your mother is talking to her son who is being held by pirates in Somalia. You can imagine how she must be feeling.

MOORE: It's horrifying10.

SHAPIRO: And the whole thing seems like such an absurdist farce11.

MOORE: It was, and it got worse. The whole ordeal was horrible on my mother, and the FBI agents that supported her said that she was just exceptionally good under pressure because it was obviously an emotional thing for her. I didn't think that she would be placed in that position, honestly. But that's how it worked out.

SHAPIRO: Is she eager to read this book, or does she not want to relive it?

MOORE: Yeah. She's read it, but it took her awhile. She said I can only read a few pages at a time.

(LAUGHTER)

SHAPIRO: I've heard different narratives12 about pirates, that they're effectively terrorists or that they're just desperate poor people, that these people are fundamentally evil or fundamentally sympathetic. What's your view?

MOORE: They are not fundamentally terrorists. It's also a lie, though, that every pirate is a frustrated13 fisherman. That's a very convenient story for the pirates to put forward. The true part of it is that Somali piracy has its roots in illegal fishing, and illegal fishing is still a huge problem up and down Africa. But that's one point of the title of "The Desert And The Sea" is that most of the pirates I met were not fishermen. And as it turns out, let's say in a skiff full of six pirates, all six of those guides need to be gunmen. Only one of them needs to know how to run the outboard motor. So a pirate gang can get along with a whole lot of people who are not fishermen and have no experience on the water. And as a matter of fact, a lot of pirates can't even swim. The other thing, though, the other important thing to say is that there would be no piracy in Somalia if enough kids had jobs.

SHAPIRO: You were in captivity for so long. You at one point write hope is like heroin14 to a hostage, and it can be just as destructive. What do you mean by that?

MOORE: Hope was a cycle, and after a while, it became a destructive cycle. People say, well, how did you hang on to hope for two years and eight months? And the fact is I didn't. I learned to live without hope. So having your hopes raised and then dashed every two weeks, which is what the guards tried to do - they would say, Michael, don't worry, you know, you're going to be out in two weeks or a month or something - was devastating15. It was actually no way to live. And so I had to find a different level of existing. And it turns out you can live without hope.

SHAPIRO: That's not something we ever really hear in our lives. There are so many quotes about a man cannot live without hope. You're saying you can live without hope.

MOORE: I'm saying you absolutely can, yeah. Any Hallmark-like quotes to the contrary are wrong.

SHAPIRO: What's that like?

MOORE: Well, hope and despair are just two ways of approaching the future. I don't know which philosopher I'm paraphrasing16 - I think maybe Sartre - but those are just two mindsets towards an uncertain future. And if you recognize that and simply don't think forward towards the future and don't insist on a rosy17 outlook for the next couple of weeks or months or years, then you can live in the moment. And that's what I had to learn to do. I would have snapped if I had done it any other way.

SHAPIRO: This book's conclusion is also written into the title - "977 Days Captive." After nearly three years, Michael Scott Moore was freed in September of 2014. The ransom was $1.6 million. He calls it a filthy18 compromise. I asked Moore how often he thinks about the years he spent with the Somali pirates.

MOORE: Oh, all the time. I mean, I don't dwell on it, but it's important not to just stuff it away. I think it's important to make sure that you realize it's still part of your life. While I was in Somalia, I thought of my life in Berlin and California, which is where I live now, as a totally different planet, you know. And now it's easy to think of Somalia as a different planet. But it's not, you know, so you have to live with both.

SHAPIRO: Michael Scott Moore, thanks so much for talking with us.

MOORE: Thank you.

SHAPIRO: His book is "The Desert And The Sea: 977 Days Captive On The Somali Pirate Coast."


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 piracy 9N3xO     
n.海盗行为,剽窃,著作权侵害
参考例句:
  • The government has already adopted effective measures against piracy.政府已采取有效措施惩治盗版行为。
  • They made the place a notorious centre of piracy.他们把这地方变成了臭名昭著的海盗中心。
2 ordeal B4Pzs     
n.苦难经历,(尤指对品格、耐力的)严峻考验
参考例句:
  • She managed to keep her sanity throughout the ordeal.在那场磨难中她始终保持神志正常。
  • Being lost in the wilderness for a week was an ordeal for me.在荒野里迷路一星期对我来说真是一场磨难。
3 bloodied f2573ec56eb96f1ea4f1cc51207f137f     
v.血污的( bloody的过去式和过去分词 );流血的;屠杀的;残忍的
参考例句:
  • his bruised and bloodied nose 他沾满血的青肿的鼻子
  • His pants leg was torn and bloodied when he fell. 他跌交时裤腿破了,还染上了血。 来自辞典例句
4 hijacked 54f3e68c506e45e75f9a155a27738c2f     
劫持( hijack的过去式和过去分词 ); 绑架; 拦路抢劫; 操纵(会议等,以推销自己的意图)
参考例句:
  • The plane was hijacked by two armed men on a flight from London to Rome. 飞机在从伦敦飞往罗马途中遭到两名持械男子劫持。
  • The plane was hijacked soon after it took off. 那架飞机起飞后不久被劫持了。
5 captivity qrJzv     
n.囚禁;被俘;束缚
参考例句:
  • A zoo is a place where live animals are kept in captivity for the public to see.动物园是圈养动物以供公众观看的场所。
  • He was held in captivity for three years.他被囚禁叁年。
6 ransom tTYx9     
n.赎金,赎身;v.赎回,解救
参考例句:
  • We'd better arrange the ransom right away.我们最好马上把索取赎金的事安排好。
  • The kidnappers exacted a ransom of 10000 from the family.绑架者向这家人家勒索10000英镑的赎金。
7 scrolled 313315b0796120af40f9657f89e85dc9     
adj.具有涡卷装饰的v.(电脑屏幕上)从上到下移动(资料等),卷页( scroll的过去式和过去分词 );(似卷轴般)卷起;(像展开卷轴般地)将文字显示于屏幕
参考例句:
  • Wherever the drop target can possibly be scrolled offscreen, the program needs to auto-scroll. 无论拖放的目标对象是否在屏幕之外,程序都需要自动滚动。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
  • If It'still is then you've not scrolled up enough lines. 如果还在说明你向上滚动的行数不够。 来自互联网
8 mumbled 3855fd60b1f055fa928ebec8bcf3f539     
含糊地说某事,叽咕,咕哝( mumble的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • He mumbled something to me which I did not quite catch. 他对我叽咕了几句话,可我没太听清楚。
  • George mumbled incoherently to himself. 乔治语无伦次地喃喃自语。
9 forgery TgtzU     
n.伪造的文件等,赝品,伪造(行为)
参考例句:
  • The painting was a forgery.这张画是赝品。
  • He was sent to prison for forgery.他因伪造罪而被关进监狱。
10 horrifying 6rezZ3     
a.令人震惊的,使人毛骨悚然的
参考例句:
  • He went to great pains to show how horrifying the war was. 他极力指出战争是多么的恐怖。
  • The possibility of war is too horrifying to contemplate. 战争的可能性太可怕了,真不堪细想。
11 farce HhlzS     
n.闹剧,笑剧,滑稽戏;胡闹
参考例句:
  • They played a shameful role in this farce.他们在这场闹剧中扮演了可耻的角色。
  • The audience roared at the farce.闹剧使观众哄堂大笑。
12 narratives 91f2774e518576e3f5253e0a9c364ac7     
记叙文( narrative的名词复数 ); 故事; 叙述; 叙述部分
参考例句:
  • Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning. 结婚一向是许多小说的终点,然而也是一个伟大的开始。
  • This is one of the narratives that children are fond of. 这是孩子们喜欢的故事之一。
13 frustrated ksWz5t     
adj.挫败的,失意的,泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 );挫败;使受挫折;令人沮丧
参考例句:
  • It's very easy to get frustrated in this job. 这个工作很容易令人懊恼。
  • The bad weather frustrated all our hopes of going out. 恶劣的天气破坏了我们出行的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》
14 heroin IrSzHX     
n.海洛因
参考例句:
  • Customs have made their biggest ever seizure of heroin.海关查获了有史以来最大的一批海洛因。
  • Heroin has been smuggled out by sea.海洛因已从海上偷运出境。
15 devastating muOzlG     
adj.毁灭性的,令人震惊的,强有力的
参考例句:
  • It is the most devastating storm in 20 years.这是20年来破坏性最大的风暴。
  • Affairs do have a devastating effect on marriages.婚外情确实会对婚姻造成毁灭性的影响。
16 paraphrasing fdeefb30a32393bb604e0572639b2621     
v.释义,意译( paraphrase的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • I'm paraphrasing but this is honestly what he said. 我是在转述,但这的确是他说的意思。 来自柯林斯例句
17 rosy kDAy9     
adj.美好的,乐观的,玫瑰色的
参考例句:
  • She got a new job and her life looks rosy.她找到一份新工作,生活看上去很美好。
  • She always takes a rosy view of life.她总是对生活持乐观态度。
18 filthy ZgOzj     
adj.卑劣的;恶劣的,肮脏的
参考例句:
  • The whole river has been fouled up with filthy waste from factories.整条河都被工厂的污秽废物污染了。
  • You really should throw out that filthy old sofa and get a new one.你真的应该扔掉那张肮脏的旧沙发,然后再去买张新的。

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