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一条铁路上的殖民史(上)

Chao Tayiana Maina was doing digital heritage work before she even knew it had a name.在知道有数字遗产这个名字之前,昭·塔伊亚娜·马伊纳就已经在做这项工作了。Trying to settle into university in Voi, a Kenyan town 215 mil

Chao Tayiana Maina was doing digital heritage work before she even knew it had a name.

在知道有数字遗产这个名字之前,昭·塔伊亚娜·马伊纳就已经在做这项工作了。

Trying to settle into university in Voi, a Kenyan town 215 miles from her home, she took to going on walks.

为了适应离家215英里的肯尼亚沃伊镇的大学生活,她开始四处逛。

One day, she stumbled upon Voi railway station, a single-story red-brick building that was once a key military transport point for British colonialists during the World War I.

有一天,她偶然邂逅了沃伊镇的火车站,这是一座单层红砖建筑,曾是第一次世界大战期间英国殖民者的重要军事运输枢纽。

Fascinated by the station’s beauty, and the wider history of the colonial-era Kenya-Uganda railway, she began thinking of how to preserve the memory of the stations.

她被这座车站的美景所吸引,被殖民时代肯尼亚-乌干达铁路的悠久历史所吸引,开始思考如何保存对这座车站的记忆。

After more than a century of use, the railway was in decline.

历经一个多世纪的使用,这条铁路逐渐衰落。

And with Kenya planning a new Chinese-built railway, some old stations were set to be demolished.

肯尼亚正在规划一条由中国修建的新铁路,而一些老车站将被拆除。

Over four years, largely through the financial and moral support of family and friends, Ms. Tayiana documented 50 sites – taking photos, making videos, and carrying out interviews with Kenyans who had worked or lived around the stations.

在四年的时间里,塔伊亚娜主要通过家人和朋友的经济和精神支持,记录了50个老火车站点--拍摄照片、制作视频,采访在车站周围工作或生活的肯尼亚人。

一条铁路上的殖民史(上)

“Save the Railway” first opened at a Nairobi gallery in 2016 and now lives on as a website with an interactive map.

“拯救铁路”项目于2016年首次在内罗毕的一个美术馆开放,现在则以一个交互式地图网站而存在。

That project was the beginning of Ms. Tayiana’s mission to use technology to unearth hidden or suppressed history – and its injustices – making it accessible to a wide audience.

这个项目始于塔伊亚娜的使命--利用技术发掘隐藏历史(被压制历史)及其不公正事件--让广大观众能够对其有所了解。

Across Africa, British colonialists romanticized the railway – whose deadly construction they oversaw through indentured Indian and African labor – with adventure narratives across “exotic” lands.

在非洲各地,英国殖民主义者通过在“异国”土地上的冒险故事,将这条铁路浪漫化--他们通过印度和非洲的契约劳工,监督铁路夺命般的建设。

Ms. Tayiana wanted to show, through her interviews, both the joy and the pain the railway represented for ordinary Kenyans.

塔伊亚娜希望通过采访,展示这条铁路给肯尼亚普通民众带来的喜悦和痛苦。

They had used it to carry children to school or produce to market, but their rulers had used it to carry thousands of anti-colonial liberation fighters to detention camps in carriages with barred windows and barbed wire.

他们用这条铁路把孩子送到学校,把农产品送到市场,但统治者则用其把成千上万的反殖民解放战士送进装有铁窗和铁丝网的车厢拘留营。

Kenya was under crushing British rule from 1895 to 1963.

从1895年到1963年,肯尼亚一直处于英国的毁灭性统治之下。

But much of the East African country’s colonial history was written by the same colonial powers that centered narratives glorifying and whitewashing their rule.

但这个东非国家的大段殖民历史都是由同一批殖民势力书写的,他们以美化和粉饰其统治的叙事为中心。

As the world increasingly unearths the horrors of British empire and colonialism, young Kenyans are working to change the narrative and recount a more balanced version of Kenya’s colonial history.

随着世界日益发现大英帝国及其殖民主义的恐怖,肯尼亚年轻人正在努力改变这种叙事,重新讲述一个更平衡的肯尼亚殖民史版本。

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