独立何凭？| 加泰罗尼亚与英国退欧

What Is a Nation in the 21st Century?

The recent independence referendums in Iraqi Kurdistan and Catalonia, and the predictable heavy-handed responses from the central governments in Baghdad and Madrid, have raised many questions — a catechism without answers — on the meaning of nationhood in the 21st century. What is a nation? What is a nation-state? Is it the same as a country? Are a people, or a tribe, the same thing as a nation? In a globalized economy what does national sovereignty really mean?

伊拉克库尔德斯坦和加泰罗尼亚最近的独立公投及巴格达和马德里中央政府必将做出的强硬回应，引发了诸多问题，这是一个没有答案的问答游戏：21世纪身为国家的意义为何。何为国家？何为民族国家？他们同地理上的国家是一样的吗？一国之人或一个部族同国家也是一样的吗？在全球化经济下，国家主权的意义又是什么？

My guess is most Americans don’t think of these questions. They live in “One Nation Indivisible,” even if their country doesn’t feel that way these days. But “what is a nation?” is a question that has been asked with urgency in many parts of the world in the almost three decades since the end of the Cold War.

我猜多数美国人不会思考这些问题。他们居住在“不可分割的单一民族国家”中，虽然他们国家的人现在感觉并非如此。可冷战结束以来近三十年中，世界许多地方都急切要得到答案，“何为国家？”

Fifteen new/old nations emerged out of the Soviet Union alone. Its European satellites also redefined themselves. Within five years of the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany agreed to be effectively purchased by the West Germans. Czechoslovakia became two nations, created out of negotiation. Yugoslavia eventually became seven countries brought forth upon this earth in bloodshed.

单苏联就产生了十五个新老国家，其在欧洲的卫星国也重新定义了自我身份。柏林墙倒塌的五年内，东德同意自己被西德人买下来。完全通过谈判，捷克斯洛伐克成了两个国家。在血泊中，南斯拉夫最后变成了七个国家。

Not all groups have succeeded in the push for a nation-state of their own. The Kurds, despite appalling repression, have never stopped trying to create a nation of their own.

并非所有团体都成功推动建立自己的民族国家。尽管库尔德人受到令人发指的压迫，他们从未停止建立自己国家的努力。

To understand this urge to redraw the map you need to look at modern imperial history. Kurdistan and Yugoslavia’s borders were fixed when the defeated Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires were carved up at the end of World War I. These boundary lines had very little to do with national aspirations and everything to do with the convenience of the victorious empires, Britain and France. The borders were maintained by the imperial powers that supplanted the British and French after World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union.

为了理解这种重画地图的吁求，你必须看看现代帝国史。库尔德斯坦和南斯拉夫的疆土是从一战后失败的奥斯曼帝国和奥匈帝国划分出来的。这些边界线同民族独立的渴望关系甚微，全然应英法两个胜利帝国之便。边界靠帝国武力得以保护，二战后，英国和法国变成了美国和苏联。

The challenge to the existing idea of nationhood began with the end of Communism. It expanded when Western nations began to fissure following the financial crash of 2008. Brexit came out of an internal argument Britons have been having since the crash about what their nation is and should be.

挑战现存国家版图始于苏联解体。当2008年金融危机后西方国家开始崩裂时，这种趋势进一步扩大。退欧是英国人自危机以来一直进行的内部争论，即他们的国家是什么，未来应该如何。

The crash increased support for the Scottish Nationalist Party, which won a majority in the Scottish Parliament in 2011. In 2014, Scottish voters were asked in a referendum, “Should Scotland be an independent country, yes or no?” The no’s had it. But that wasn’t the end of the story because English nationalism had been aroused.

危机增加了苏格兰民族党的声望，2011年该党在苏格兰议会中获得多数地位。2014年的一次公投中，苏格兰选民被问到“苏格兰是否应该成为独立国家？”多数人选择了否。但这并非故事的结局，因为英格兰民族主义被唤醒了。

In 2016, David Cameron, the British prime minister, having won the Scottish referendum, decided to try his luck again by offering a vote on Britain’s continued membership in the European Union: “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”

2016年，在苏格兰公投中取得胜利的英国首相大卫·卡梅伦决定再试试手气，提出对英国是否继续留在欧盟进行投票：“英国应该继续成为欧盟成员还是应该离开欧盟呢？”

The argument against continued membership in the union was made in terms of national sovereignty. It was not a new argument. When the European Union began its slow march toward a federal future in the late 1980s, Britain balked at joining the process. In Margaret Thatcher’s view, joining a federal Europe meant the end of Britain’s national independence. Britain, because of its size and importance within the European Union, was able to opt out of the foundational arrangements of this federal Europe: the Schengen Agreement, which allows free movement of people over national borders, as well as the single currency, the euro.

反对继续留在欧盟的论据正是国家主权，这并无新意。八十年代末，欧盟开始缓慢向联邦推进时，英国就犹豫不决。在玛格丽特·撒切尔看来，加入联邦式欧洲意味着英国丧失了民族独立。由于英国在欧盟中的体量和重要性，得以选择不执行这个联邦式欧洲的基本性安排：申根协议，该协议允许人员自由跨境，也拒绝使用统一货币欧元。

Fear about sovereignty did to normally pragmatic English minds what fear does to most minds: It made them irrational. During the Scottish referendum the European Union made it clear to Scots that if they voted for independence they would not be fast-tracked into the union and could not use the euro as its currency. No greater endorsement of British sovereignty could have been imagined. Didn’t matter. When the votes were counted, 53 percent of English voters opted to leave while 62 percent of Scots voted to remain. Two very distinct expressions of national will, but only one is being acted on.

对主权的担心对通常务实的英格兰心灵产生的效果同对其他民族的影响一样：他们昏了头。在苏格兰公投中，欧盟向苏格兰人说得清楚，如果他们投票选择独立，不会立即进入欧盟，也不能使用欧元作为其货币，难以设想比这更尊重英国主权的决定了。可这不妨事，投票计算后，53%的英格兰选民选择离开欧盟，62%的苏格兰人选择留在欧盟。这是对国家意志两种截然不同的表达，但只有一种正在起作用。

How much did Catalonia’s decision to hold an independence referendum vote owe to the Scottish vote? Did Carles Puigdemont, leader of the Catalan Parliament, make a mistake in assuming that the precedent of peaceful voting in Britain on Scottish independence meant Catalans could have their vote in a similarly respectful atmosphere? Didn’t he know that a European Union pledge to respect the sovereignty of its existing members would not intervene when the Spanish government sent in the Guardia Civil to stop it?

加泰罗尼亚决定举行独立公投在多大程度上归功于苏格兰投票呢？加泰罗尼亚议会领袖卡尔斯·普伊格登莫尼特以为先前在英国对苏格兰独立进行和平投票意味着加泰罗尼亚人也能在彬彬有礼的情况下进行投票，他错了吗？难道他不知道欧盟承诺尊重现有成员国的主权，西班牙政府派国民警卫队阻遏时欧盟不会干预吗？

The Catalan crisis leads to a final question about nationhood: Can Western Europe’s nations hope to preserve their wealth and high living standards in a globalized economy without pooling their nationhood into something greater?

加泰罗尼亚危机引出对国家的终极问题：西欧国家希望在全球化经济中保持其财富和优渥的生活水准，又无需将国家合并起来，这是可能的吗？

The beginning of an answer to this contemporary question comes from the past. Around 500 years ago, at another time of political and economic flux, a Polish nobleman, whose name is lost to history, was asked about his national identity. He responded, “I am of the Polish nation, of the Lithuanian citizenship, of the Ruthenian people, and of Jewish origin.”

回答这一当代问题，首先要回到过去。大概五百年前，另一个政治经济的大变革时期，一位难知其名的波兰贵族被问及其民族身份时回答说，“我是波兰人、立陶宛公民、鲁塞尼亚居民、犹太血统。”

The answer anticipates the view of Albert Rivera, who leads an anti-independence center-right party in Catalonia: “Catalonia is my homeland, Spain is my country and Europe is our future.”

这个答案同艾尔伯特·里维拉的观点如出一辙，里维拉领导着加泰罗尼亚中右翼政党，反对独立。他说：“加泰罗尼亚是我的家乡，西班牙是我的国家，欧洲是我们的未来。”

Can Europe become a nation? That’s one of the biggest questions of the 21st century.

欧洲能成为一个国家吗？这才是21世纪最大的问题之一。