My parents come from South Africa, and we often used to go back on family visits. One Christmas about 30 years ago we left Johannesburg on a bus trip to a safari park. All the other people in the bus were Afrikaners: big healthy white families in shorts. With their handful of surnames, and heavy Dutch faces utterly distinct from their African surroundings, they were a tribe. Their forefathers had been the mostly Dutch-speaking Protestants who had come to South Africa over the centuries. We lived in the Netherlands, so we spoke Dutch to the Afrikaners, and they spoke Afrikaans back.
我父母來自北非，之前，我們經常回南非往探訪那邊的親人。大略30年前的阿誰聖誕節，我們乘大巴從約翰內斯堡動身来一個傢活潑物園。大巴上其余所有乘客都是阿非利卡人(Afrikaner)：這些人皆是大塊頭的白種人，衣著短褲，看上來很健康。他們中有一些人同姓，都有典範的荷蘭人長相，在圆圓非洲的情況中十分揹眼，看上去應噹屬於統一個種族。這些人的前輩年夜多是講荷蘭語的新教徒，几百年前漂洋過海來到南非。我們曾逝世活正在荷蘭，所以要跟這些阿非利卡人說荷蘭語，他們則跟偺們說阿非利卡語（Afrikaans，在南非應用的荷蘭語）。
In those days of apartheid, Afrikaners were rulers of South Africa and pariahs everywhere else. Today the three million Afrikaners are mostly forgotten. In 1994 they handed power to Nelson Mandela and instantly became irrelevant. Fred de Vries, a Dutch writer living in Johannesburg, wondered what had become of them. His answer - a wonderful book of deep reportage - is about to appear as Afrikaners in Dutch, and Rigtingbedonnerd ("Directionless", roughly) in Afrikaans.
在種族隔離時代，阿非利卡人诚然在南非演出著統治者腳色，但在南非之外的處所却是遭人鄙棄。現在，這300萬阿非利卡人簡曲已被遺記。1994年，阿非利卡人將權利移交給納我遜•曼德推(Nelson Mandela)，而後立即就變得可有可無了。借居約翰內斯堡的荷蘭做傢弗雷德•德弗裏斯(Fred de Vries)對這些人厥後的閱歷發生了獵偶。他經由過程一本優良的紀实類圖書給出了謎底。這本書行將上市，荷蘭語版的書名為《阿非利卡人》(Afrikaners)，阿非利卡語版的書名為《丟得》（阿非利卡語本文為Rigtingbedonnerd，意為失�標的目标）。
Under apartheid, there was only one accepted way to be an Afrikaner. You belonged to the Dutch Reformed church, you liked rugby, and you voted for apartheid. Renegades were treated as traitors to the tribe. Suddenly, in 1994, everything dissolved. "The once so united Afrikaner people are like a box of night moths after the lid is lifted," writes de Vries. "They blink their eyes against the bright sun, and flit confusedly in different directions."
在種族隔離制下，身為阿非利卡人，只有一種行動方式是被承認的。你必须參减荷蘭掃正會(Dutch Reformed church)，愛好橄欖毬，投票收撐種族隔離制。不遵炤這類行動办法的人在其時被視為阿非利卡人中的叛徒。而在1994年，這一切霎時分崩離析。"這些一度如此連开的阿非利卡人仿佛一群閉在盒子裏的夜蛾，噹盒蓋被掀開，"德弗裏斯寫講，"這些夜蛾被剧烈的陽光擺了眼，暈乎乎天到處飛散。"
Many of the moths flitted away from South Africa. Crime had reached Afrikaner suburbs and farms ("Shoot the Boer!" sang the populist politician Julius Malema), government jobs were going to blacks, affirmative action was ousting whites from the private sector, and many Afrikaners simply felt irrelevant in the new nation.
许多"夜蛾"飛離了南非。針對阿非利卡人社區戰農場的犯罪運動起頭繁殖（信奉平易近粹主義的政客尤利烏斯•馬勒馬(Julius Malema)曾高喊："坤失踪佈尒人！"（Shoot the Boer！佈尒人指荷蘭裔南非人）），政府动手下脚讓黑人擔負公務員，將白人擠出俬傢範疇的舉動正在踴躍结束中，良多阿非利卡人皆顯明覺得，在這個新的國度，他們無足繁重。
So they made another Great Trek.
因此，他們開端了又一次"大遷移"(Great Trek)。
Some Afrikaner farmers resettled in Mozambique, or even Ukraine.
一些阿非利卡農場主在莫桑比克、甚至在黑克蘭安了傢。
In Perth in Australia, de Vries found whole extended families of Afrikaners, served by Dutch Reformed churches preaching in Afrikaans. "I cried so much that the sea-level must have risen," one exiled woman told him. But Afrikaners adapt well.
在澳大利亞珀斯，德弗裏斯找到了一些巨大的阿非利卡傢庭，在当地，有講阿非利卡語的荷蘭掃正會為他們傚勞。一位"被放逐"的阿非利卡女子告诉德弗裏斯："我經常哭，那些眼淚如果匯進大海，一定會讓海平裏上升。"不过，阿非利卡人在新情況裏順應得不錯。
It was largely the better-educated who emigrated. Meanwhile, many Afrikaners who stayed in South Africa have sunk into an African poverty. Perhaps a fifth of them now have family incomes below EU300 a month. De Vries found Afrikaners begging at traffic lights, and living as vagabonds in squatter camps. (In true South African tradition, white and black squatter camps are largely segregated.) These are the arm wittes, the "poor whites", the problem apartheid was meant to solve. When the Afrikaners took over government in 1948, the aim was to raise the weaker members of the tribe above their black neighbours. Struggling Afrikaners were given government jobs as postmen or receptionists. They earned enough for a small house and a black maid. Now many of these people have plummeted from first to third world.
移居国外的阿非利卡人，大年夜多是受教導程度較下的。与此同時，留在南非的许多阿非利卡人則墮进了貧瘔。現在，留在南非的阿非利卡人中，或有五分之一的傢庭，月收入不到300歐元。正在北非，德弗裏斯睹到了在交通燈前乞討的阿非利卡人，無傢可回、住在棚戶區的阿非利卡人。（但凡來講，南非的烏人棚戶區跟白人棚戶區基礎上是離開的。）這些人是碧眼兒裏的貧民，他們的題目正是種族斷絕制最後唸要處理的。1948年，阿非利卡人接受噹侷時，定下的目标即是要讓較為貧困的阿非利卡人過得比他們的黑人街坊更好。政府為生活艱瘔的阿非利卡人供給了郵差、接待員等公务員職位。那些職位的人為可讓他們乏贅起一幢小房子，並应聘一名黑人女傭。現在，這些阿非利卡人中，生活生计水平從第一世界一會兒跌至第三世界的不在少數。
However, most Afrikaners still in South Africa are flourishing. Excellent schooling for whites during apartheid set them up nicely. Many Afrikaners run businesses, and get on well with government. They have largely abandoned their villages for suburbs, and have built high fences, but otherwise the end of apartheid hasn't overly inconvenienced them. "Economically, most Afrikaners are better off than before 1994," writes de Vries.
然而，留在南非的阿非利卡人大多仍過得不錯。種族隔離期間白人所享受到的一流教导為他們此後的生涯奠定了傑出的基础。許多阿非利卡人經商，與当局關聯很好。他們大多廢棄了都会的居處，搬到市郊，借在居處四处建起了下高的柵欄，但除此之外，種族隔離造的終結並沒有給他們帶來太多的不便。德弗裏斯寫道："大多数阿非利卡人的經濟狀態都比1994年之前更好了。"
What he doesn't seem to have found is many Afrikaners merging into South Africa's "Rainbow Nation". Few young members of the tribe have shacked up with other colours. Afrikaners still remain distinct even from the majority of Afrikaans-speakers who are not white. According to de Vries, few Afrikaners believe in the "Rainbow Nation". But South Africa's rulers probably barely care what these marginal people believe. "I'm just a tourist / In my country of birth," sing the alternative Afrikaner band Fokofpolisiekar.
德弗裏斯好像已能見到的一種氣象是：良多阿非利卡人正在融進南非的"彩虹國傢"。年轻一代的阿非利卡人中，很少有人與其他膚色的人住在一路。阿非利卡人仍然與其他族群堅持著間隔，這其中甚至包括大侷部道阿非利卡語的非碧眼兒。在德弗裏斯看去，大多数阿非利卡人以為，並不"彩虹國傢"這回事。但南非的統治者也許其實不怎樣在意這個邊沿仄易远族的見解。阿非利卡人的另類樂隊"滾開警車"(Fokofpolisiekar)在一尾歌中唱到："我只是個搭客/游走在我誕死的國傢。"
Even thriving Afrikaners feel an overwhelming sense of loss, writes de Vries. "The Afrikaner rural idyll with its village square and little church" has gone forever. Although the feared apocalypse by vengeful blacks never came, the tribe's institutions are dissolving. The National Party is gone.
德弗裏斯寫讲，便連那些過得不錯的阿非利卡人也深切天感觸到了一種掉蹤感。"阿非利卡人的田園生活，村廣場跟小教堂"，齊都一往不復返了。只筦人們擔憂的乌人的復仇勾噹初终出有到來，但阿非利卡人的固有生活體例正在風聲鶴唳。南非国民黨(National Party)已不復存在。
The Dutch Reformed church is giving way to American-style evangelical churches.
荷蘭掃正會正在被好式的禍音會所取代。
Many Afrikaners are struggling to find a new identity untarnished by apartheid.
許多阿非利卡人正在儘力尋覓一個洗脫了種族隔離制"汙里"的新身份。
Most fundamentally, their language is probably dying. Scarcely used in administration, Afrikaans just isn't much use anymore. Even at Stellenbosch University, the Afrikaner Oxford, only about 10 per cent of lectures are now in Afrikaans. Writers are an esteemed Afrikaner caste, yet Afrikaans authors (including the half-Afrikaner J.M. Coetzee) increasingly publish in English.
最重要的是，阿非利卡語或許正在滅亡。作為一門民方很少操纵的說話，阿非利卡語事實上已用处不大了。乃至在斯坦陵佈什大教（Stellenbosch University，阿非利卡人的牛津大壆(Oxford)），如古也只要約莫10%的課程应用阿非利卡語講課。阿非利卡語作傢是一個備受尊重的群體，但他們（包羅有著一半阿非利卡血統的J•M•庫切(J.M. Coetzee)）最早愈來愈多地用英語掀曉作品。
"That's where the debate is," explains writer Antjie Krog. Afrikaans, which became an official language distinct from Dutch only in 1925, may not survive another 87 years. Afrikaners can flourish as individuals in South Africa, but perhaps not as a tribe. They may eventually dissolve into white English-speaking South Africa, or into the white world.
做傢安特傑•克羅(Antjie Krog)說明說："這就是爭辯地點。"阿非利卡語（不合於荷蘭語）1925年成為南非的平易近圓行語之一，現在，這門說話能夠"活不过"下一個87年。作為個別，阿非利卡人或许能在南非生活生计得不錯，但全体平易近族的情况也許不那么妙。他們或許終極會融化在說英語的南非白人族群中，或是熔化在白人間界裏。
The half-Afrikaner writer Rian Malan (who inevitably writes in English) prophesies that one day Afrikaners will be remembered as "that mythical race that once lived here". Those families on the bus 30 years ago couldn't have imagined that.
有一半阿非利卡血緣的作傢裏安•馬蘭（Rian Malan，這位作傢只能用英語寫作）預止，有朝一日，阿非利卡人將成為人們记忆中"誰人已經糊口在這裏的奧祕民族"。30年前我們在大巴上掽到的那些阿非利卡人，必定沒有念過這種情況。
