英国史

为什么英国的战争时不时能推动社会制度的变革?
而世界上其他国家战争不少，制度上面有进步的却不多呢？

《A History of Britain》在 Simon Schama阐述中，着眼于Britannia 的由来以及其历史的精神所在：对自由、民主的追求和对铁血统治的拿捏是一对无法离开且相吸的磁铁。

是的，这个大不列颠并不是一开始就是联合的，也并不是一开始有联合的意愿和能力或需求的：从罗马人的入住、撒克逊人对皇权的探寻，到一代代王朝之间相对于整个世界的柔弱生存；再到漫漫的中世纪，让宗教和皇权在争斗中产生了分裂、矛盾、控制和反控制，使整个国家面临选择和如何寻求支持，于是人们开始划分、为得到支持而许诺、猜疑、杀戮。直到新教的崛起到成为国教、直到17世纪与天主教的不可开交后的“光荣革命”，统治阶级内部逐步从实质妥协到学会利用议会来实行经济调控，高举“宪政”让国家的机器也不再是皇权肆意的刀斧。这个国家的经济开始在犹太商人的帮助下腾飞，去思考自身在欧洲国家中的地位，特别是有了对法国大革命中“否定皇权”后但独裁混乱的清醒认识，以及对新闻出版、投票权、筹措金融资金的加以看重。怎样的国家需要怎样的政治，英国大抵找到，也因此它才是当时欧洲乃至世界清醒、相对民主的的国家，经济腾飞。同时从埃尔伯特亲王等人开始，对穷苦的工人的体恤，也开始缓解的社会矛盾，但自由、民主的步伐需要从少数人手中交给更多的人了，否则后果就是一场场噩梦：比如曾被奴役非洲赚取暴利所蒙蔽，曾因对苏格兰和爱尔兰的经济懈怠而拖累，曾因幻想改变印度也在20世纪初意识到失败，数以百万的人死去。

到二次大战后，从帝国走向二线，贫穷、外债，工人终于走上政治舞台，工党获胜，打破阶级，自由、民主的步伐加快，妇女拥有了政治平等，皇权成了摆设，但铁血和无情依然存在，看看撒切尔夫人：这个国家的工党曾经兴旺在煤矿、痛苦在煤矿、最后在石油时代彻底萧条在煤矿。随着北海石油的发现和开发改变了国家的面貌————新的英国历史又在进行，现在怎样，有目共睹。用英国《独立报》撰稿人约翰·雷图的话说：“在那些年里，英国的贫富差距急剧加大。有些人生活的确得到很大改善，但英国社会为此付出了很大的代价，犯罪率上升，社区破裂和分化。” 撒切尔带来的不仅是英国人社会的分裂，还有英国人思想的分裂。她离开唐宁街10号时的眼泪在英国民众中掀起一场轩然大波：支持者认为她带领英国走出了经济困境、提高了英国的国际地位；反对者认为她就是一个不折不扣的独裁者、自大狂、几乎毁掉了英国的福利制度。

英国的历史是给后人以一种激励，去认识罪恶与血泪，去认识美德与虚伪，去见证梦想与坚持，去体会穷苦和猜忌。压迫的不是肉体是精神，当1649年查理一世被处死，这个国家第一次没有了国王，人们还不能接受自己来管理自己，这种空虚也许不是宗教就能解决的，甚至有人认为这个“背叛国家”的国王是像耶稣一样承担世间的罪恶而罹难。谁都希望能有个好日子过，可使这个谁又是哪些谁呢？看《A History of Britain》会给人很多很多的思考，这是世界近现代历史相当重要的一部分。

    When we think of “1984”, most of us think of the tyranny of drabness and mass obedience ruled by Big Brother, an upside-down world of doublespeak, where war is peace and lies are truth. But Orwell’s last masterpiece is most powerful when it describes Winston’s resistance to dictatorship, a guerrilla action fought not with guns and barricades, but by literally taking liberties, reclaiming the ordinary pleasure of humanity, a walk in the country, an act of love, the singing of old nursery rhyme, Winston Smith did all this forbidden things, prompted by a dim memory of a time when they are all absolutely normal. The last refuge of freedom against Big Brother is memory. The greatest horror of “1984” is the dictator’s attempt to wipe out history.
    Churchill and Orwell share this romantic devotion to the past, the belief that it was the treasure house of freedom in an age dictated to by bureaucrats and boardrooms .It was what made the aristocrat and socialist, on the face of such an impossible couple, the most unlikely allies.
    George Orwell died in 1950, he was 46. The very last thing he wrote for publication was about Winston Churchill, a review of his war memoir. “Their finest hour”.Though you’d expect him to repelled by Churchill’s warrior heroics, he bestows on the book the greatest compliment he could think of, that it read like a work of a human being, not a public figure .And it was a verdict shared by the thousands who lined the streets of London when Churchill finally died in 1965.
    When it counted, neither Churchill nor Orwell did the predictable thing, toed the party line. More important was their common belief that if Britain must have a distinctive future in the age of super states, it’d better keep faith with the best tradition in his long history, the history that tied together social justice with bloody-minded liberty.
    But history ought never to be confused with nostalgia. It’s written, not to reverse the dead, but to inspire the living. It’s our cultural bloodstream, the secret of who we are, telling us to let go the past even as we honor it, to lament what ought to be lamented, to celebrate what should be celebrated. And if in the end that history turns out to reveal itself as a patriot. Then I think that neither Churchill nor Orwell would have minded that very much, and, as a matter of fact, neither do I.