和谐社会与义和团

今天在维基百科翻看关于“义和团”的词条，当我点击到其对应的英文词条的时候，让我大吃一惊，原来其英文译名是 Righteous Harmony Society，和现在我国所提倡的社会宗旨“和谐社会”之英文翻译“Harmony Society”仅有一字之差。如果光从英文来看，“和谐社会”和“义和团”没有太大的区别。可是这一点会在中国人心里产生微妙的想法，怎么那些老外会把“和谐社会”同极端排外的“义和团”相提并论了呢？当然，有人指出现在中国流行的各种民族主义情绪和义和团的思想有很大的相似之处，但这里就不做政治层面上的思考，因为在当前的语境是极为危险的。在这里，仅仅是出于学习的目的，看看维基百科上义和团的英文词条是如何写的吧：

The Righteous Harmony Society (traditional Chinese: 義和團; simplified Chinese: 义和团; pinyin: Yìhétuán), or Boxers, was a village sect founded in the Northern Shandong province of China that spread to many parts of North China and executed the unsuccessful Boxer Uprising in the closing years of the 19th century. Westerners came to call well-trained, athletic young men "Boxers" due to the martial arts and calisthenics they practiced. Despite the obvious differences between Chinese Wushu and Western pugilistic boxing, the training for unarmed combat took on the same name to the Europeans. The Boxers believed that they could, through training, diet, martial arts, and prayer, perform extraordinary feats, such as flight and could become immune to swords and bullets. Further, they popularly claimed that millions of "spirit soldiers," would descend from the heavens and assist them in purifying China from foreign influences. Eventually forces from the West marshaled as the Eight-Nation Alliance ended the rebellion and destroyed the short-lived Society.