本文摘要：I arrived in Johannesburg to find it sunk in gloom — literally. The lights go out regularly, often for hours at a time.到达约翰内斯堡后，我找到这里已陷于黑暗之中——是字面意义上的黑暗。

I arrived in Johannesburg to find it sunk in gloom — literally. The lights go out regularly, often for hours at a time.到达约翰内斯堡后，我找到这里已陷于黑暗之中——是字面意义上的黑暗。电力供应开灯是家常便饭，一停车往往就是几个小时。

Eskom, the state-owned electricity company, compensates for its lack of investment with “load shedding” or power cuts.南非国家电力公司(Eskom)用“拉闸限电”或电力供应来填补其投资短缺。The darkness is tough on families, but on businesses too, and is a drag on investment and expansion.黑暗让南非家庭的日子不好过，也让企业的日子不好过，还拖垮着投资和扩展。Economic growth is low and unemployment high. Beggars with cardboard signs plead with drivers as they stop at red lights. That is, when the lights are working; during power cuts they go dark.经济增长速度较慢，失业率低企。

在司机等候红灯时，乞丐荐着硬纸壳做到的牌子向司机乞讨。当然，那是在红绿灯依然长时间运转的情况下。

在电力供应的时候，红绿灯也不亮。After falling for five years, murders rose in 2013-14 for the second consecutive year, to more than 17,000.在杀害案件数量第五年上升之后，2013-14年度南非的杀害案件数量倒数第二年下降，减少至逾1.7万起。

Jacob Zuma, the president, sneered in May at opposition members of parliament who demanded that he pay back taxpayers’ funds spent on his private residence at Nkandla.南非议会反对党议员拒绝总统雅各布嘠魹(Jacob Zuma)归还花上在其坐落于恩坎德拉(Nkandla)的私人住宅上的纳税人的钱，而5月祖玛曾回应嗤之以鼻。Although a report by the public prosecutor last year recommended that Mr Zuma return some of the money, a police investigation said that upgrades at the residence were security necessities. They included a swimming pool that could be used to put out fires.尽管去年一位检察官发布的报告建议祖玛归还部分资金，但警方调查称之为，对祖玛私人住宅展开升级是适当的安全措施。

住宅升级还包括修建一座可以用来消防车的游泳池。But amid the malaise, I saw three reasons to be cheerful.但在笼罩的不满情绪之中，我找到了3个有一点祝贺的理由。3 Speech in South Africa is free and ferocious. An MP debating the government’s decision to allow Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, to leave South Africa in spite of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court and a local court order, called the ruling African National Congress “a lawless regime” in a debate broadcast live on television.圠幓蒗v论是权利而白热化的。

政府要求坚决国际刑事法院(International Criminal Court)的逮捕令和地方法院的命令，容许苏丹总统奥马尔巴希尔(Omar al-Bashir)离开了南非，一名议会议员在电视直播的辩论中对政府的这一要求驳回时，称之为执政党非洲人国民大会（African National Congress，全称非国大）是“一个无法无天的政权”。Journalists assail Mr Zuma and his government. “Where is the ANC’s leadership? Too many have given up and are looting as much as they can while the going is good,” the columnist Justice Malala wrote in The Times, a local newspaper.媒体人士批评祖玛及其政府。“非国大的领导层在哪里？太多人早已退出了，并且趁情况较好时尽量多地劫掠，”专栏作家贾斯蒂斯氠拉拉(Justice Malala)在当地报纸《The Times》上写到。

South African press freedom faces threats. Parliament passed the Protection of State Information Bill, with severe punishments for leaking or possessing a wide range of information. But Mr Zuma has not yet signed it. Journalists I spoke to thought he was wary of the law being challenged in the Constitutional Court, which brings me to the second reason to be cheerful:南非媒体权利面对威胁。议会通过了《国家信息维护法案》(Protection of State Information Bill)，对泄漏或掌控各种信息施予严苛惩罚。

但是祖玛仍未签订该法案。跟我聊过的记者指出，祖玛担忧该法案不会在宪法法庭(Constitutional Court)受到挑战，这之后引向了第二个有一点祝贺的理由：The judiciary remains resolutely independent. There have been persistent fears that South Africa’s judges would be forced to bend to the will of the government. It hasn’t happened. Even Mr Zuma’s new appointments, selected from a list submitted to him by the Judicial Service Commission, have dispelled fears that they would do his bidding.圠幓蒗司法体系依然是意味著独立国家的。人们仍然担忧南非的法官不会不得不屈服于政府的意志。这种情况未再次发生。

即使是祖玛新的任命的法官——从司法服务委员会(Judicial Service Commission)递交的名单中投票决定——也萌生了人们对他们不会遵照祖玛的命令办事的忧虑。The Mail Guardian, a critic of South African malpractice, called Mogoeng Mogoeng, a controversial appointment as chief justice, “the ‘puppet’ who tore off his strings”. The paper said of Mr Mogoeng: “He was widely expected to be President Jacob Zuma’s lackey, but he has since proved some detractors wrong.”对南非的不法行为展开抨击的媒体《邮政卫报》(Mail Guardian)，把莫洪恩什洪恩(Mogoeng Mogoeng)称作“折断了掉提线的‘木偶’”。什洪恩被任命为宪法法院院长引发了争议。

该报纸是这样说道莫洪恩的：“他被普遍指出是雅各布嘠魹总统的听差，但是后来的事实证明一些指责他的人拢了。”The government does not enjoy this judicial independence. Blade Nzimande, the higher education minister, accused some judges of “deliberately overreaching”.政府并不那么享用这种司法独立。南非高等教育部部长布莱德椠偠曼德(Blade Nzimande)谴责一些法官“蓄意干预职权范围以外的事情”It is also disturbing that the government ignored the Pretoria high court’s order that it detain Mr Bashir. The court responded by asking prosecutors to consider charging the government and added: “A court is the guardian of justice, the cornerstone of a democratic system based on the rule of law. If the state...搠漀爬猀 not abide by court orders, the democratic edifice will crumble stone by stone until it collapses and chaos ensues.”政府对比勒陀利亚(Pretoria)高级法院拒绝其被捕巴希尔的命令置之不理，这也令人不安。该法院回应的对此是拒绝检方考虑到指控政府，并补足称之为：“法院是司法的守护者，是以法治为基础的民主体系的基石。

如果政府……不遵从法院命令，这座民主大厦将一块一块地塌陷，直到大厦翻覆、恐慌随之而来。”Independent judges are helping to keep that chaos at bay.独立国家的法官有助制止这种恐慌。So are ordinary people, whose projects are the third reason to be cheerful. I was in Johannesburg to chair a symposium last week on corporate longevity, part of a year-long Financial Times investigation into why some companies live for centuries while most die within a few years or, at most, decades.渠通百姓亦然，他们是第三个有一点祝贺的理由。

不久前我在约翰内斯堡主持人一个关于企业寿命的座谈会，这是英国《金融时报》关于为何有些企业存活数个世纪而多数企业则在短短几年或最少几十年内消失的调查的一部分。There were several old companies at the event, but there were new ones too. There was Ezlyn Barends, whom I interviewed on stage, a young businesswomen and leader of two mentoring organisations. There were others who came up to me afterwards to discuss their business ventures.在那次活动中有几家老牌公司，不过也有新的公司。

我在台上专访了埃兹琳巴伦兹(Ezlyn Barends)，她是一位年长的女商人、两家人才产卵机构的老板。后来也有其他人过来去找我辩论他们的经商经历。

In downtown Johannesburg, once seemingly abandoned to squatters and crime, entrepreneurs are restoring apartments and running restaurants, markets, galleries and cinemas. These places are filled with relaxed, racially mixed crowds, busily proving that a country is more than its government.约翰内斯堡市中心一度或许被舍弃，沦落寮屋者的天下，犯罪活动横行，而如今创业者正在交还公寓，开设餐馆、市场、画廊和影院。这些地方随处可见来自各个种族的人群，他们神态放开，忙着证明政府无法代表一个国家的全貌。

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