数万民众倾听世界各国领导人讲话。然后……发生了这样一幕（或者说，在我们发现之前就已如此）。奥巴马等那些世界名流中间站着一个穿着正装、大腹便便的黑人。他是一位手语翻译者。精通手语的人渐渐发现一桩怪事：这是个假翻译，他在自创手语，手势翻飞，却没有任何意义。

曼德拉追悼会上的“假翻译”

翌日，官方调查透露，男子名叫詹特杰（Thamsanqa Jantjie），现年34岁，是非洲人国民大会（ANC）从南非口译员公司（South African Interpreters）雇来的。在接受约翰内斯堡《星报》（The Star）采访时，詹特杰把他的行为归咎于精神分裂突发——他正在接受这方面的治疗——各种声音和幻觉不断。“我什么也做不了，只能孤独地处在一个非常危险的境地中。”他说，“我试图控制自己，不让这个世界知道在发生着什么。我很抱歉。那就是我发现自己所在的处境。”不过，詹特杰顽固地坚称，很满意自己的表现。“完全满意！完全满意！我所做的一切，让我觉得自己是手语冠军。”

又过一天，事件再度惊人逆转：媒体报道，自90年代中期，詹特杰至少被逮捕过五次，但据说他都逃脱了牢狱之灾，原因在于他精神上无法承受审判。他被指控强奸罪、偷窃罪、入室盗窃罪和恶意破坏财产罪。最近一次触犯法律是在2003年，他同时面对了谋杀、蓄意谋杀和绑架等罪名指控。

詹特杰辩称自己患有精神分裂

人们对这个诡异桥段的反应既有调侃（出于庄重，人们不愿表露出来），也有愤怒。当然，也有安全方面的顾虑：这样一个人通过了所有的安检，站到了离世界领导人这么近的位置，这是怎么做到的？潜藏在这些顾虑背后的感受是，詹特杰的出现是一种奇迹——仿佛不知他是从哪里冒出来的，或者是来自现实的另一个维度。这种感受得到进一步确认：各种聋哑组织出面证言，詹特杰的手语毫无意义，不符合任何已有的手语系统。这些消息好像是要消除人们的疑虑，证明他的手势没有传达什么隐秘信息。那么如果他是在用一种未知的语言向外星人发信号呢？詹特杰特别的登台似乎指向了这一点：他的手势没有意涵，也没有迹象表明这是一个玩笑——他做出这些手势时，冷静得像机器人，不带任何情感。

詹特杰的表现并非毫无意义——确切地说，是因为它没有传递什么特定意义（那些手势并无含义）。它直接表述的意义在于：假装有意义。我们这些听得见又不懂手语的人，虽然无法明白他的手势，却以为其有意义。这也就带出了问题的关键：为聋哑人服务的手语翻译者对于那些听不到讲话的人真的有意义吗？他们不更像是为我们准备的吗？手语翻译者的存在让我们（这些视听正常的人）觉得好受些，觉得自己在做一件正确的事情，即照顾弱势群体和残障人士。

我记得，1990年斯洛文尼亚进行首次“自由”选举时，一个左翼政党的电视讲话配备了一名手语翻译者（一位温和的年轻女士）来传达信息。我们都知道，她的翻译真正面向是不是聋哑人，而是我们这些普通的投票者。真正要传达的信息是，这个政党代表着边缘群体和残障人士。

这就像大型慈善活动并不是真的和癌症患儿或是洪水灾民有关，而是让我们这些群众意识到，我们在做某些伟大的事业，展现我们的团结一致。

现在我们可以看明白了，詹特杰的比划为什么一被证明是无意义的，就产生了如此不可思议的后果——他让我们正视了为聋哑人提供的手语服务的真谛：在人群中有没有需要这些翻译的聋哑人并不重要，重要的是，译者在那儿是为了让我们这些不懂手语的人感觉良好。

这不也正是整个曼德拉追悼会的真相？权贵们所有的鳄鱼眼泪都是一场沾沾自喜的表演，而詹特杰翻译出了它们的实际含义：废话。那些世界领导人在庆祝的是，真正的危机并未降临；他们担心当贫穷的南非黑人真的成为集体政治主体，这一危机将会爆发。他们是詹特杰所发信号的未列席接受者（the Absent One），他传递的信息是：这些权贵其实并不关心你。通过他的假翻译，詹特杰翻出了整个追悼会的虚假性。

（本文原载于《卫报》网站2025-08-04，原标题The “fake” Mandela memorial interpreter said it all；观察者网张苗凤/译）

翻页请看英文原文

The “fake” Mandela memorial interpreter said it all

Slavoj ?i?ek

16 December 2013

Tens of thousands were listening to world leaders making statements. And then … it happened (or, rather, it was going on for some time before we noticed it). Standing alongside world dignitaries including Barack Obama was a rounded black man in formal attire, an interpreter for the deaf, translating the service into sign language. Those versed in sign language gradually became aware that something strange was going on: the man was a fake; he was making up his own signs; he was flapping his hands around, but there was no meaning in it.

A day later, the official inquiry disclosed that the man, Thamsanqa Jantjie, 34, was a qualified interpreter hired by the African National Congress from his firm South African Interpreters. In an interview with the Johannesburg newspaper the Star, Jantjie put his behaviour down to a sudden attack of schizophrenia, for which he takes medication: he had been hearing voices and hallucinating. "There was nothing I could do. I was alone in a very dangerous situation," he said. "I tried to control myself and not show the world what was going on. I am very sorry. It's the situation I found myself in." Jantjie nonetheless defiantly insisted that he is happy with his performance: "Absolutely! Absolutely. What I have been doing, I think I have been a champion of sign language."

Next day brought a new surprising twist: media reported that Jantjie has been arrested at least five times since the mid-1990s, but he allegedly dodged jail time because he was mentally unfit to stand trial. He was accused of rape, theft, housebreaking and malicious damage to property; his most recent brush with the law occurred in 2003 when he faced murder, attempted murder and kidnapping charges.

Reactions to this weird episode were a mixture of amusement (which was more and more suppressed as undignified) and outrage. There were, of course, security concerns: how was it possible, with all the control measures, for such a person to be in close proximity to world leaders? What lurked behind these concerns was the feeling that Thamsanqa Jantjie's appearance was a kind of miracle – as if he had popped up from nowhere, or from another dimension of reality. This feeling seemed further confirmed by the repeated assurances from deaf organisations that his signs had no meaning, that they corresponded to no existing sign language, as if to quell the suspicion that, maybe, there was some hidden message delivered through his gestures – what if he was signalling to aliens in an unknown language? Jantjie's very appearance seemed to point in this direction: there was no vivacity in his gestures, no traces of being involved in a practical joke – he was going through his gestures with expressionless, almost robotic calm.

Jantjie's performance was not meaningless – precisely because it delivered no particular meaning (the gestures were meaningless), it directly rendered meaning as such – the pretence of meaning. Those of us who hear well and do not understand sign language assumed that his gestures had meaning, although we were not able to understand them. And this brings us to the crux of the matter: are sign language translators for the deaf really meant for those who cannot hear the spoken word? Are they not much more intended for us – it makes us (who can hear) feel good to see the interpreter, giving us a satisfaction that we are doing the right thing, taking care of the underprivileged and hindered.

I remember how, in the first "free" elections in Slovenia in 1990, in a TV broadcast by one of the leftist parties, the politician delivering the message was accompanied by a sign language interpreter (a gentle young woman). We all knew that the true addressees of her translation were not the deaf but we, the ordinary voters: the true message was that the party stood for the marginalised and handicapped.

It was like great charity spectacles which are not really about children with cancer or flood victims, but about making us, the public, aware that we are doing something great, displaying solidarity.

Now we can see why Jantjie's gesticulations generated such an uncanny effect once it became clear that they were meaningless: what he confronted us with was the truth about sign language translations for the deaf – it doesn't really matter if there are any deaf people among the public who need the translation; the translator is there to make us, who do not understand sign language, feel good.

And was this also not the truth about the whole of the Mandela memorial ceremony? All the crocodile tears of the dignitaries were a self-congratulatory exercise, and Jangtjie translated them into what they effectively were: nonsense. What the world leaders were celebrating was the successful postponement of the true crisis which will explode when poor, black South Africans effectively become a collective political agent. They were the Absent One to whom Jantjie was signalling, and his message was: the dignitaries really don't care about you. Through his fake translation, Jantjie rendered palpable the fake of the entire ceremony.