Today, many strands of my life have come together. The years that I spent as a student at St Hugh’s; the years I spent in Park Town as a wife and mother; the years I spent under house arrest - when my university, the University of Oxford, stood up and spoke up for me.

人生际遇，千丝万缕，今天一时涌上心头——我在圣休学院读书的岁月，为人妻母时在公园镇度过的岁月，被困家中之际，母校牛津大学为我挺身而出、仗义直言的岁月。

During the most difficult years I was upheld by memories of Oxford. These were among the most important inner resources that helped me to cope with all the challenges I had to face.
最艰难的岁月里，正是对牛津的回忆支撑着我，那是某种我内心最重要的力量，帮助我应对必须直面的挑战。

The memories were in fact very simple ones. Some are days like these, when I went on the Cherwell with friends in a punt, or sat reading on the lawn at St Hugh’s, or in the library - not looking at a book, but out of the windows.
说实话，这些记忆相当单纯，不过就是与朋友一起泛舟在查韦尔河上，倚在圣休学院的草地上读书，或是在图书馆里，却不看书，只望着窗外发呆。

But these were very precious memories – because I had lived a happy life. And this made me understand so much better the young people of Burma – who wanted to live a happy life and who had never been given an opportunity to lead one.

可那是无比珍贵的回忆，因为我彼时度过了快乐的人生，那让我更深刻地理解缅甸的青年人——他们希望过快乐的人生，却从来没有机会主导如是生活。

When I see Oxford now, when I see the students of Oxford now, when I met some of them at St Hugh’s yesterday, I saw myself again as a young student: carefree, happy, nice. We were nice, the students now are nice. They have been given a chance to be nice. 
看到今天的牛津，看到今天牛津的学子，昨天我在圣休学院与他们相遇，我又看到作为年轻学生时的自己：无忧无虑、幸福美好。我们曾如此美好，今天的学生也如此美好，他们有机会做个美好的人。 

It’s a very simple word, but it’s an important one. When you look at their faces, you don’t see any hidden agenda there. They were so open, as we were open – because we had been given a chance to be open. We were not afraid – there was no reason for us to be afraid – and this opened us to the world.

这是个简单的词，却是重要的。当你看着他们的脸庞，你看不出别有企图，他们如此明朗，我们曾经也如此明朗，因为我们有机会变得明朗。我们不会恐惧——没有理由去恐惧——这让我们对世界敞开心胸。

I remember small things. I remember so often going in a bus, with my very dear friend Ann Pasternak-Slater, sitting side by side, in a bus on the Banbury Road, our four denim-clad knees next to each other; and Ann looked down, and said: ‘It’s not fair, even knees are different.’

我还记得种种细碎的事。我常常想起和我最好的朋友安·帕斯特那克-斯内德一起坐公车，公车跑在班伯里路上，我们肩并肩坐着，穿着牛仔裤，四只膝盖紧挨着，安低头看着说道：“这不公平，连膝盖都不一样。”

And it was true. I’m not sure quite which way it was, but one set of knees was pointed, and one set of knees was round. These were the sort of things we noticed as students, and talked about, and built a whole philosophy on this little fact that we had different sets of knees, our knees were shaped differently.

还真是不一样。我记不太清楚是谁的膝盖，可一个人的膝盖尖尖的，另一个却圆乎乎的。这是你上学时关注并谈论的那些事，而你的人生观就建立在这些微不足道的事上，我们有不一样的膝盖，膝盖生来就不同。

The world was shaped differently. But we were not afraid of it. The differences meant that we were all the stronger. We learned how to cope with the different problems that we would have to face.

世界同样生来不同，但我们并不觉着害怕，不一样意味着我们更强大，我们学会了去应对各自必须面对的不同问题。

I have to mention one of my fellow honorands at this time, because when I was under house arrest I was also helped by the books of John le Carré. They were an escape - I won’t call it an escape, they were a journey into the wider world. 

此刻我要提一下也获得荣誉学位的校友，在我被软禁时，约翰·勒·卡雷的书同样给了我帮助。书是一种逃离——也许我不能称其为逃离，但是它们是通往更广阔世界的旅行。

译注：约翰·勒·卡雷是英国著名谍报小说作家戴维·康威尔的笔名，代表作是《冷战谍魂》，曾就读于牛津大学林肯学院。

Not the wider world just of other countries, but of thoughts and ideas. And these were the journeys that made me feel that I was not really cut off from the rest of humankind. I was never alone, because there were many, many avenues to places far away from where I was.

更广阔的世界，不只是其他国家，还是各种思想和理念，正是这些旅程让我感觉自己并未与世隔绝。我从不孤单，因为有许多许多大路通向远离囹圄的远方。

And all this I was able to do to a great extent because of the years I spent at Oxford, the friends I made there. 
能做到所有这一切，很大程度因为我在牛津度过的岁月，以及我在牛津交的朋友。

The most important thing for me about Oxford was not what I learnt there in terms of set texts and set books we had to read, but in terms of a respect for the best in human civilisation.

对我而言，在牛津最重要的并非在那里从指定课本和书籍学到的东西，而是学会尊重人类文明中最优秀的部分。

And the best in human civilisation comes from all parts of the world. It is not limited to Oxford; it is not limited to Burma; it is not limited to any other country. But the fact that in Oxford I had learned to respect all that is the best in human civilisation helped me to cope with what was not quite the best.

人类文明最优秀的部分来自世界各地，不囿于牛津，不囿于缅甸，也不囿于任何一个国家。但因为在牛津，我学会去尊重所有人类文明中最好的部分，这帮助我去应对那些不算太好的事。

Because what is not yet quite the best may still, one day, become the best; it may be improved. It gave me a confidence in humankind. It gave me a confidence in the innate wisdom of human beings – not given to all of us, but given to enough of us for the rest of the world to share, and to make use of it for others.
因为那些现在还不算最好的事，也许有一天成为最好，它们会改善。这让我对人类充满信心，也让我对人类的天赋充满信心，并非人人都拥有这种天赋，但也不乏有人与世上其他人分享，尽其所用，服务他人。

I have often thought that the saddest thing about Burma over the last few decades has been the lack of campus life for our university students. Campus life means a life in which young people can create their own world – or make the world their own. They have the freedom and the facilities to do so. Our young people in Burma have not had this freedom for the last few decades. University life has been shattered because of a perceived need to keep students in order. 

我常常以为，过去几十年缅甸最悲哀的是我们的大学生没有校园生活。校园生活意味着年轻人可以创造自己的世界，或把世界变成自己的，他们有自由、有条件去加以实现。过去几十年，我们缅甸的青年人没有这样的自由。因为有人认为要维持秩序，于是校园生活被毁了。

That’s not possible: everybody knows that students can’t be kept in order! So we shouldn’t spend our time on such a futile and really undesirable mission. I would like to see university life restored to Burma in all its glory. And I would be so grateful if my old university, the University of Oxford, could help to bring this about once again.

可这是不可能的，所有人都明白没法让学生守秩序！所以我们不该把时间花在这件无用且不讨好的使命上，我希望看到缅甸的校园生活恢复荣光。如果我的母校牛津大学能帮助恢复缅甸的校园生活，我将无比感激。

I would like our young people to know what it is to feel that the world belongs to them and they belong to the world. To be able to stand at the threshold of full adulthood in full confidence that they will be able to do their best for the world and in the belief that the world also wants to do the best for them. 
我希望我们的年青人知道，这个世界属于他们，他们也属于这个世界。希望他们能满怀自信地迈进成年的门槛，为了这个世界，做到最好，也相信这世界同样希望能给他们最好的。

Oxford taught me to value humankind, because when I was in Oxford I was the only student from Burma. I think I was the only Burmese person resident in the university for the first couple of years. And all my friends were non-Burmese – of course English students, but students from all over the world, from Ghana, from India, from Thailand, from Sri Lanka, from all over the world. 
牛津教会我看重人类，在牛津时，我是唯一来自的缅甸学生。在开始几年里，我相信我是住在牛津唯一的缅甸人，我所有的朋友都不是缅甸人，当然主要是英国学生，也有来自世界各国的，加纳、印度、泰国、斯里兰卡，来自世界各地。

And I never felt that they were different from me. We were all the same: we were all students of this university, which has some magic that makes us feel that nothing separates us - neither religion, nor race, nor nationality, nor even different levels of excellence in academic affairs. 

而我从未感到我们有什么不一样。我们都一样，都是这所大学的学生，这所大学有种魔力，没有什么会让人产生隔阂，不论宗教、种族、国别甚至学业的优劣。

   
Oxford is a place of tremendous broad-mindedness. Nobody discriminates against anybody else because he or she may be different, or may not have achieved as much as others. Every human being is expected to have a value and a dignity of her kind or his kind. 

牛津是无比宽容的地方，没人会因为他人的不同或学业的优劣去歧视别人，每个人都被视作有其价值和尊严。

And that’s why throughout the years when I was struggling for human rights in Burma I felt I was doing something of which my old university would have approved. And to feel the approval behind me has helped me a great deal.
这也是为何在我为缅甸人权奋斗的岁月中，我觉得在做一件我的母校会赞同的事，感到身后的赞同，对我的帮助很大。

Burma is at the beginning of a road. It is not the sort of road that you find in England: it is not smooth; it is not well-maintained; in fact, it is not yet there. It is a road that we will have to carve out for ourselves. This is a road that we will have to build as we go along.
缅甸还刚刚起步，这一程不像你在英国看到的路：它并不平坦，维护不善；事实上，压根还没有路。这是一条我们必须自己开拓的路，一条我们边走边开的路。

Too many people are expecting too much from Burma at this moment. They think that the road where we are standing is like one of those highways on which I travelled from London to Oxford – and almost got carsick! – very straight and very smooth. Too smooth and too straight perhaps for me, because I not used to such smoothness.

此刻，太多人对缅甸有太高的期望。他们觉得我们脚下的路，就像我从伦敦来牛津的公路，笔直且平坦，几乎让我晕车。对我来说也许太平、太直了，我还不习惯这么平坦。

But our road is one which is, as I said, one we have to build for ourselves, inch by difficult inch. And I hope that you will all be with us while we are doing this. I hope that you will understand that this road is there in our hearts and minds, but not actually there yet in real fact. And that we will need your help and the help of others all around the world to make sure that it leads to where we want our country to go.

但我们的路，如我所说，是一条我们必须自己开拓的路，尺挪寸移，砥砺前行。我希望我们奋斗时与你们同在。我希望你们能理解这条路存于我们心灵和脑海之中，尚且不是事实，而我们需要你的帮助以及来自世界各地的帮助，确保这条道路能通向我们希望祖国前往的地方。

And where do I want my country to go? My first trip abroad in 24 years but not really this one to Europe, but to Thailand, towards the end of May. And I stayed in a hotel called the Shangri-La. And I think every Oxonian, or most every, knows that in Lost Horizon Shangri-La was described as “something a little like Oxford”. 

那么我希望我的祖国去往何方？24年来我第一次出国并不是来欧洲，而是5月底去的泰国，我住在一家叫香格里拉的酒店。我想每个牛津人，或者至少大部分人，都知道在《消失的地平线》中，香格里拉被描绘为“有一点像牛津的地方”。

So where do we want to go to? Where I want to go to, where I want our people to go to, is a place which will enable them to see for themselves how wide open the world can be, and how to find our own place in the world - which is also open enough and wide enough for everybody to be included. 

那么我们希望去向何方？我希望去的地方，我希望我们人民去的地方，在那里他们能亲眼看见世界如此宽广，并能在世界中找到自己的位置，这里同样开阔宽广，能包容每一个人。

I would like a bit of Oxonian Shangri-la in Burma.

我希望在缅甸有一片像牛津一样的香格里拉。

This is what I would like to work towards: very practical, because it’s based on hard work, and knowledge, and modern research, and of course funding. We mustn’t forget funding, which is a very important part of building any kind of successful institution these days. 

这是我要奋斗的方向：非常实际，它需要苦干、学识和现代的研究，当然还有资金。我们不能忘了资金，如今任何机构要想成功，资金都是非常重要的。

And I mention it because I would like all our friends, all our well-wishers, to remember that investing in Burma should be done with a sense of responsibility, and to remind those who are thinking of making use of the new opportunities that Burma is offering to remember that we, the people of Burma, need to benefit from these investments as much as investors themselves. 

我提到钱，因为我希望我们所有的朋友，所有心怀良善的人，都记住对缅甸的投资要有责任感。我要提醒那些想利用缅甸提供的新商机的人们，记住缅甸人民和投资者一样，都要求受益于这些投资。

Please help us to make sure that all investments in Burma – business, development, humanitarian, all these in a sense are investments – that these investments are democracy-friendly and human rights-friendly. That these investments will help to promote in our country the kind of values for which you stand – the kind of values that you taught me.

请帮助我们确保所有在缅甸的商业、开发和人道主义投资都有助于民主和人权，这一切在某种意义上都是投资。请保证这些投资能在我们的祖国推动你们倡导的价值观——那些你们曾教导我的价值。

Today has been a very moving day for me. Moving because I have found that the past is always there, it never goes away, but you can select what is best from the past to help you go forward to the future. In my college, my old college St Hugh’s, I found that I could recognise every bit of it: even though there were very many new buildings, yet they had merged in with the old. It was such a harmonious picture of the old and the new standing together as a promise for the future.

对我而言，今天是一个非常感动的日子。我很感动，因为我发现过去的岁月常伴左右，从未远离，但你可以从过往中选择最好的，助你向未来前行。在我的学院圣休学院，我认得出那里的一草一木，即便有很多新的建筑，他们和古老的部分也浑然一体。新老建筑一起构成一幅如此和谐的画卷，并行而立，如若对未来的承诺。

I was very proud to be back in my old college, and warmed by the reception given to me and my team by the principal of the college and his family, and by the students. The warmth of the students was wonderful. 

我非常骄傲，能回到母院，院长和他家人以及学生欢迎我和我团队，这让我感到温暖。学生们的热情太棒了。

I felt that I was back again in my young student days. I didn’t feel any different to them. And in a sense I am no different now to the young student who was at Oxford so many years before. But also I am different, because I’ve had to face different experiences.

我觉得我又回到年轻学生时代的岁月，我觉得并没有改变。从某种意义上说，今天的我和当年牛津的那个年轻学生并没有什么不同，可我又不一样了，因为我曾必须面对不同的经历。

But I bring all these experience back to me here at Oxford, and I find that Oxford is big enough and broad enough to contain my new experiences as well.

但当我把所有这些际遇带回牛津时，我发现牛津足够博大，足够宽宏，包容我所有新的经历。

The road ahead, as I said, is not going to be easy. But Oxford, I know, expects the best of its own. And today, because they have recognised me as its very own, I am strengthened to go forward to give of my very best in meeting the new challenges that lie ahead.

正如我所言，前方的路注定不会一帆风顺，但我知道牛津期待成就卓越。今天，牛津接纳我成为她的一员，让我坚毅前行，追求卓越，迎接前路上的新挑战。

（昂山素季2012年9月在牛津大学接受荣誉博士学位的演讲）