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From ‘West First’ to ‘White Supremacy’

Writer: Winton Dong  | Editor: Jane Chen  | From:  | Updated: 2017-08-21

Email of the writer: dht0620@126.com

Three Americans lost their lives and more than 30 were injured in connection to a violent white nationalist and neo-Nazi rally held on Aug. 12 in Charlottesville, hometown of the third U.S. President Thomas Jefferson and a famous college town in the U.S. state of Virginia.

8月12日美国极右白人团体和“新纳粹”份子在佛吉尼亚州夏洛茨维尔市(佛州著名的大学城和美国第三任总统托马斯·杰斐逊的故乡)举行抗议集会活动酿成惨剧,其间发生的暴力冲突导致3名美国公民丧生和30多人受伤。

Right-wing nationalists even chanted Nazi slogans as they marched through the University of Virginia. “We are determined to take our country back,” said former Ku Klux Klan (KKK) leader David Duke at the rally. Just like what he said, if we carefully comb the trail of the United States after World War II, we can realize that the country’s ideology is retreating step by step and going back from “West First” to “America First” and then to “White Supremacy.”

白人民族主义者在佛吉尼亚大学校园游行时甚至高喊纳粹口号。3K党前领导人大卫·杜克在集会上说:“团结右翼,你们取代不了我们,犹太人也取代不了我们。我们决心把美国拉回来。” 正如他所言,如果仔细梳理第二次世界大战以来美国的发展脉络,我们可以看到70多年来美国的意识形态从“西方优先”到“美国优先”再到“白人至上”的倒退性转变。

After World War II, with “West First” as its ideology, the United States has established and led the Bretton Woods System since 1944 and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since 1949. The word “West” here includes not only America itself, but also its allied countries in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Oceania, Asia and other parts of the world. Supported by such an ideology, the reputation of the United States reached its climax in 1991 when the country successfully disintegrated its antagonistic archrival the Soviet Union and the Soviet-led Warsaw Treaty Organization, which was composed of many socialist countries in Eastern Europe at that time. To pave the way for those socialist countries in Eastern Europe and Latin America to transform from socialist to capitalist systems, the U.S. authorities invited all parties concerned to meet in Washington in 1990, which resulted in the Washington Consensus.

以“西方优先”为发展理念,美国分别在1944年和1949年创立并执掌“布雷顿森林体系”和“北大西洋公约组织”。那时的美国蒸蒸日上,雄霸天下。从广义的角度来看,当时“西方”一词的涵盖范围不仅包括美国本身,而且包括该国在北美、欧洲、亚洲、中东、大洋洲和世界每个角落的盟国和殖民土地。美国的国际威望在上个世纪90年代初达到了历史顶峰。1991年美国成功地解体了冷战时期它的劲敌苏联及其领导下的东欧社会主义国家联盟“华沙条约组织”。为了帮助陷入经济和政治危机的东欧和拉美国家顺利向资本主义转轨,1990年美国经济研究所召集国际货币基金组织、世界银行、美洲开发银行和美国财政部的研究人员以及相关国家的代表在华盛顿商讨对策,并达成了著名的《华盛顿共识》。

With the robust development of China and other Asian countries during the past decades, it is obvious that the focus of the world has changed from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, the global economic engine has also shifted from North America and Western Europe to East Asia. Due to the decline of its comprehensive strength and international influence, the United States is more divided, more sensitive and more suspicious, less united, less confident and less humorous than before. That is the reason why U.S. President Donald Trump scaled back by advocating “America First” when he took office in January this year. With “America First” as its ideology, the United States turned out to be more self-protective and ambiguous in economic and foreign policies. Under these circumstances, its allies all over the world are now excluded out of the primary group and their interests are subordinate to those of the United States.

中国改革开放以来,随着中国和周边诸多亚洲国家的高速稳健发展,一个很明显的国际趋势就是世界关注的焦点正在从大西洋转向太平洋,全球经济驱动的引擎也在从北美和西欧转向东亚。因为综合国力和国际影响日趋下降,美国现在变得更加分裂、敏感和多疑,缺乏以前的团结、自信和幽默。美国社会的这些变化从近期执意退出“跨太平洋伙伴关系协定”、“巴黎气候协定”和美朝两国因半岛核武问题隔空对骂等举动可见一斑。有鉴于此,今年1月特朗普入主白宫以后,提出了令世人大跌眼镜的“美国优先”战略。从原来的“西方优先”收缩到“美国优先”,美国的全球盟友已经被排除在“首属群体”之外,他们的国家利益现在都要屈从在美国的利益之下。

The rally and violent clash in Virginia last week had further pushed back the country’s ideology from “America First” to “White Supremacy.” White supremacists and neo-Nazis, most of them young men in their 20s and 30s, gathered in Charlottesville to protest against the city’s decision to remove a statue of pro-slavery Confederate General Robert Lee (1807-1870) in Emancipation Park. During the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865, General Lee represented the interests of the wealthy white plantation owners from the South. The Civil War was a watershed event in U.S. politics. Lee was later defeated by the North army led by President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), who was in favor of the abolishment of the country’s slavery system and the liberation of black people.

此次佛吉尼亚州的白人游行更是凸显了美国的意识形态从“美国优先”向“白人至上”的退化。数百名青壮年男性白人民族主义者头戴钢盔,手提盾牌,在夏洛茨维尔市解放公园内罗伯特·李 (1807-1870)将军的雕像附近集结示威,反对政府拆除这座雕像。罗伯特·李将军是美国内战时期(1861-1865),又称“南北战争”中的南方领军人物,代表美国南部富有庄园主的利益并支持奴隶制度。“南北战争”堪称美国政治的一道分水岭,南方军队后来被亚伯拉罕·林肯总统(1809-1965)率领的北方军队击败,美国自此废除了奴隶制度并逐步迎来了黑人解放。

Since its independence from Britain in 1776, the United States has been famous for its openness and inclusiveness. People in the United States are proud of this belief as it is designed to encourage principled disagreements and reasoned debate. The country’s excellence is also greatly supported by successfully attracting talented people from all over the world. However, its cornerstone of freedom and democracy during the past centuries is greatly challenged and wavers today.

自从1776年宣布独立以来,美国一直以开放和包容著称于世。美国人民引以自豪的一项制度设计就是鼓励发表不同意见和通过理性争论达成共识。数百年来美国的成功也是依靠广纳全球英才,引得群贤毕至得以实现。但是现在美国的这种自由和民主的基石正在受到严峻的挑战而动摇。

President Trump’s ambiguous, fence-sitting stance on the Charlottesville clashes has drawn wide criticism. After evoking a storm of protest when the president put the blame “on many sides” in his initial statement on Aug. 12, he condemned white supremacists as criminals and rioters in his second statement on Aug. 14. However, he addressed the issue again a day later and re-ignited the firestorm by blaming “both sides.”

特朗普总统对佛吉尼亚骚乱模棱两可的态度遭到各方抨击。他早些时候还批评这些白人种族主义者是“暴徒和罪犯”,后来又改口对参加游行示威的双方各打五十大板。

On the contrary, a tweet by former U.S. President Barack Obama had gained 2.8 million “likes” in several days. “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion,” Obama said.

前任总统奥巴马关于此事的一篇推特文章却在数日内获得了超过280万次的点赞。他说:“没有人生来就来会因为肤色、背景和宗教信仰不同等原因仇恨他人。”

The Virginia violence is only one symptom of American society that is afflicted with racism and other social problems. Although the violence was triggered by the planned removal of a historic statue, the deep-rooted cause of the incident is the ever-increasing demographic changes in the United States, which have gradually increased the sense of crisis and identity confusion among traditional white Americans.

佛吉尼亚骚乱只是美国根深蒂固的种族歧视和众多社会疾病中的一个表征。虽然此次骚乱是由拆除一座雕像引起,但它折射出因为人口比例变化(拉丁、非裔、亚裔、穆斯林等人口的急剧增加)而导致的美国社会分裂、传统白人对未来的担忧和对自我身份认同的困惑。

In 1964, Digby Baltzell summarized the definition of a pure American to be “WASP,” which is an abbreviation for “White, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant.” Can you imagine a United States with only white and protestant people with Anglo-Saxon descent? No matter if we want it or not, it seems that the United States is really on the way to becoming such a country.

1964年迪格比·波茨尔在他的著作《新教当权者:美国的贵族和社会等级》一书中给纯正的美国人下了一个定义是“WASP” (White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant的首位字母缩写),意为安格鲁-撒克逊裔的白人清教徒才是美国当权的精英群体。不管我们是否认同这一定义,今日的美国好像确实正在这条道路上行进。

(The author is the editor-in-chief of the Shenzhen Daily with a Ph.D. from the Journalism and Communication School of Wuhan University.)