讓博物館傳播文明

Cultural diplomacy is a phrase I have heard often during my museum career. It is used to describe an undefined and high-minded range of soft political activities undertaken by the leaders of cultural institutions, alongside their everyday tasks. It is certainly neat, but it brims with false promise.

文化外交是一個我在自己的博物館職業(yè)生涯中經(jīng)常聽到的詞。它用來描述文化機構(gòu)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人在主持日常工作之余開展的那種沒有定義的高層次的軟性政治活動。這個概念肯定優(yōu)雅，但充斥著虛假承諾。

Every good museum operates on a political level, of course. Collections build bridges between the past and the future, and links are created across cultures and ages. But a museum is neither an embassy nor an office of state. Museum directors for the most part are trained neither as diplomats nor as conflict negotiators. No war has ever started because of museums, nor has a museum ever prevented one from starting.

當然，每一個優(yōu)秀的博物館都在某個政治層面上運營。收藏品為過去和未來搭建橋梁，在不同文化和年代間建立聯(lián)系。但博物館既不是大使館，也不是政府辦事處。多數(shù)博物館館長并非外交官或沖突談判者出身。沒有一場戰(zhàn)爭因博物館而起，也沒有一個博物館曾經(jīng)阻止戰(zhàn)爭的爆發(fā)。

This is not an argument for an apolitical arts world, however. Today’s museums and collections must not only acquire, conserve, interpret and present objects. Given the state of geopolitics today, they have an obligation to focus on how design, art and creativity reflect moral and ethical value systems, and to question bias and political appropriation in all its forms.

然而，這并非藝術(shù)界脫離政治的論據(jù)。如今的博物館和收藏品不僅必須購買、保護、解讀和展示物品。鑒于目前的地緣政治狀況，它們還有責任聚焦于設(shè)計、藝術(shù)和創(chuàng)造性如何反映道德和倫理價值體系，并質(zhì)疑所有形式的偏見和政治挾持。

Museums cannot be refuges from politics, but rather must be places where arguments for change are contextualised and given depth; they should be platforms from which alternatives can be debated. The history of Europe in the 20th-century shows what happens when museums ignore this aspect of their role. During the last throes of the Weimar Republic in Germany, for example, the denizens of the cultural world watched silently as blind nationalism turned into National Socialism and their institutions were transformed into propaganda machines.

博物館不可能是遠離政治的庇護所，而必須是把變革理由放在大背景中考慮、辯論、使其具有深度的場所;它們應(yīng)該是辯論替代選擇的平臺。20世紀的歐洲歷史展現(xiàn)出博物館忽視這種角色時會發(fā)生什么情況。例如，在德國的魏瑪共和國最后時期，文化界的人們沉默地目睹著盲目的民族主義演變?yōu)閲疑鐣髁x，同時他們的機構(gòu)演變?yōu)樾麄鳈C器。

Today, almost a century after the rise of Hitler, neo-Nazis in Bautzen, a small town in Saxony in east Germany, have been harassing young migrants. The police response has been to place the migrants under house arrest. Where is the opposition from the cultural sphere? Why does Monika Grütters, the culture secretary in Berlin, not raise her voice? If cultural diplomacy is to be more than an elegant platitude, this, surely, is where it steps in. Incidentally, one of the most beautiful Islamic collections in the world is located only 30 miles away from Bautzen, in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden.

如今，在希特勒崛起近一個世紀后，位于德國東部薩克森地區(qū)的小鎮(zhèn)包岑(Bautzen)的新納粹在騷擾年輕移民。警方的回應(yīng)是將這些移民軟禁。文化界的反對聲音在哪里?為什么德國文化部長莫妮卡•格魯特爾(Monika Grütters)不提高嗓音?要讓文化外交超越優(yōu)雅的陳詞濫調(diào)，那么這肯定是它應(yīng)該介入的場合。湊巧的是，全球最美的一些伊斯蘭收藏品位于距離包岑僅30英里的地方，在德累斯頓國家藝術(shù)博物館(Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden)。

Where in France is the cultural counterargument to the assault on the core values of the French republic by the National Front? After the Brexit vote, when cultural diplomacy was also impotent, a French colleague of mine texted me to say that “this means National Socialism 2.0 for France”. But who is saying it in public? National museums, theatres and opera houses cannot be apolitical. Those who maintain that they can, expose these institutions to malign political influence.

在法國，文化界是如何抗議國民陣線(National Front)對法蘭西共和國核心價值觀的攻擊的?在英國脫歐公投后(文化外交對此同樣無能為力)，我的一位法國同事給我發(fā)信息說，“這意味著法國將會出現(xiàn)國家社會主義2.0”。但誰在公開場合這么說了?國家博物館、戲院和歌劇院不可能與政治脫離干系。那些堅稱可以的人們，反而會讓這些機構(gòu)暴露于惡毒的政治影響。

As for Brexit, no one can yet say where it will lead the UK, or even if the European project will survive the shock. But we can be fairly sure that a “hard” Brexit will pose a serious challenge to art and culture in the UK. Museums are businesses first and foremost. They are subject to currency markets and depend on the confidence of global investment, yet they lack the resilience in reserves that a multinational conglomerate might enjoy.

至于脫歐，沒有人能確定它將帶領(lǐng)英國走向何方，甚至不知道歐洲一體化計劃能不能挺過這一沖擊。但我們可以相當確定的是，“硬性”的脫歐將對英國的藝術(shù)和文化構(gòu)成巨大挑戰(zhàn)。博物館首先是企業(yè)。它們受到外匯市場的影響，依賴全球投資信心，然而，它們?nèi)狈鐕C合企業(yè)可能具備的那種儲備彈性。

Three London museums alone attracted more visitors than Venice last year, and the revenue the UK’s cultural sector delivers to the nation is immense — both financially and in other ways. Most meaningful cultural programmes are based on long-term collaborations with specialists around the world. The international loans and the blockbuster exhibitions, which people in London now take for granted, were only made possible when borders became more porous. Creating memorable exhibitions, securing rare loans and making defining acquisitions requires meticulous, dedicated work over many years. The uncertainty that has followed the Brexit vote has already consigned many such projects to the slow lane. Imagine the impact that a visa requirement for Europe would have.

去年，單單倫敦3家博物館吸引的游客數(shù)量就超過威尼斯，英國文化產(chǎn)業(yè)的收入為英國做出的貢獻是巨大的，在財務(wù)和其他方面都是如此。多數(shù)有意義的文化項目基于與全球?qū)＜业拈L期合作。國際展品租借和轟動一時的展覽(現(xiàn)在倫敦人已視其為理所當然)只能在國際交流比較寬松的情況下出現(xiàn)。締造令人難忘的展覽、獲得罕見的租借展品以及做出意義重大的并購，需要多年一絲不茍專心致志的工作。英國脫歐公投后出現(xiàn)的不確定性，已讓很多此類項目走入慢行道。想象一下歐洲提出簽證要求后會造成的影響吧。

As my time as director of the Victoria and Albert Museum draws to a close, it feels fitting that the final exhibition I have overseen is a study of the revolution and rebellion that defined the late 1960s. The legacy of that period remains a subject of heated debate, but the exhibition is a timely reminder of the resistance that lives in culture.

在我擔任英國維多利亞和阿爾伯特博物館(Victoria and Albert Museum)館長的任期走入尾聲之際，相當合適的是，我負責的最后一次展覽是對定義上世紀60年代末的革命和叛亂的研究。那段時期的文化遺產(chǎn)仍然是激烈辯論的主題，但這次展覽將及時提醒人們存在于文化中的反抗。

“Nationalism means war,” said François Mitterrand in one of his final speeches. While cultural diplomacy will never prevent conflict, museum collections that have survived centuries of strife and discord contain the raw materials for all the counterarguments to nationalism one could ever need.

弗朗索瓦•密特朗(François Mitterrand)曾在他最后的一篇演講中說道：“民族主義意味著戰(zhàn)爭。”盡管文化外交永遠無法阻止沖突，但從幾個世紀的沖突和紛爭中存活下來的博物館收藏品，包含著人們駁斥民族主義所需的全部素材。