This year started with thrilling hope and vaulting ambition in the Arab world, as a chain of uprisings toppled long-ruling tyrants: four down so far, in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, with the blood-drenched despot of Damascus surely not too far behind. But there has been much hand-wringing about how things are turning out: a string of Islamist election victories, especially in Egypt; a jostle for power and persisting instability accompanied (in Egypt and Syria) by sectarian flare-ups.
這一年在激動人心的希望中開始,帶來希望的是阿拉伯世界:不滿長期專制統治的阿拉伯各國人民終於揭竿而起,到目前爲止已有4個國家(突尼西亞、埃及、利比亞和葉門)推翻了專制統治,那位雙手沾滿鮮血的「大馬士革暴君」(指敘利亞總統巴沙爾•阿薩德——譯者注)繼續在位的時間也不會太長。但後來的事態發展又很令人緊張:伊斯蘭主義政黨在選舉中取得了一個又一個勝利,特別是在埃及;權力的爭奪帶來社會動盪,教派衝突(在埃及和敘利亞)也時不時爆發。