Found in Translation

We Will Outlast You
You’re most likely familiar with the heartless phrase allegedly uttered by Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev in 1956, when discussing the advantages of communism over capitalism: “We will bury
you!” The problem? That was a literal translation that did not convey the true intended meaning. He
was using an old Russian saying—“
!”—which means something like, “We’ll be
here even when you’re dead and gone,” essentially conveying his belief that communism would
outlast capitalism. Americans took the remark to mean that the Russians wanted to bury them with a
nuclear attack.
Art Imitates Death
KEV: (to man) SIR? I need you DOWN on the GROUND! DOWN on the
GROUND!
MUSA:…
KEV: Wait, what are you telling him?
MUSA: What?
WOMAN:!
MUSA: I’m telling him what you said!
KEV: What the f***?
MUSA: I’m TRANSLATING!
Of the approximate 1.6 billion English hits found for the keyword theater in a
Google search in early 2012, 700 million also contained the keyword war. The
use of the term theater of war goes back all the way to the early eighteenth
century, when European nobility watched and discussed wars (with great

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personal detachment) as choreographed events. It was made popular by the
German military theorist Carl von Clausewitz in the early nineteenth century as
Kriegstheater, and it has since been adopted in various languages (théâtre
militaire in French, teatr działań wojennych in Polish, and so on).
To the attentive listener or reader, this term might sound like a euphemistic
way of describing the terrible staging of events of war. For some playwrights,
however, it has provided tremendous opportunities to exercise artistic
commentary on the theater of war through theater of a very different kind.
Rajiv Joseph’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, which was nominated for
three Tony awards in 2011 and cast Oscar-winner Robin Williams as one of the
central characters, is one such example.
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Bengal Tiger, which contains the dialogue at the start of this section, takes
place in the harrowing maelstrom of the Iraq War. But at its heart, it is a play
about translation and interpretation on all levels: between Iraqis and two U.S.
soldiers through an Iraqi interpreter; between the world of the living and the
dead; and between the English-speaking audience and many actors who speak
in Iraqi Arabic, which becomes intelligible only as it’s interpreted for other
characters in the play.
Communication plays as much a role in conflict as confrontation. When
conflicts occur between people of different nationalities, ethnic groups,
religions, and languages, translators and interpreters become indispensable.
But exactly how much do these actors in the theater of war rely on their
interpreters? When war breaks out and violence escalates, the dynamic between
interpreter and client can change in an instant. More often than not, the bond
strengthens. These examples form a larger pattern that tells a similar story:
• “The interpreter saved my life.”
—Ian Martin, a British soldier whose death had been ordered by an Afghan warlord
• “Your interpreter is way more important than your weapon.”
—Cory Schulz, U.S. Army major embedded with Afghan troops
• “It cannot be overstated just how crucially important a role interpreters
play, and I owe my life to him.”
—Nathan Bradley, U.S. Army officer who served in Afghanistan
• “Jacob [the interpreter] may have been the last soldier I was introduced
to, but I quickly learned he was the most important.”
—Captain Tim Hsia, U.S. Army active duty infantry
• “At every interface between civilian and foreigner in any overseas war,

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success is determined by the fallible but indispensable software supplied
by the interpreter.”
—Michael Griffin, researcher and author
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And what do these interpreters receive in exchange for their courage? An even
greater risk of death than the soldiers themselves. In Iraq, interpreters were ten
times more likely to be killed than were U.S. troops.
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