世界为何没有杰出领袖

Simone Veil, former French health minister, women’s champion, social reformer and president of the European Parliament, passed away last week. Her death came shortly before the funeral of Helmut Kohl, the German chancellor who presided over the unification of his country.

法国前卫生部长、女权活动家、社会改革家、欧洲议会(European Parliament)前议长西蒙娜?韦伊(Simone Veil)不久前去世。她辞世的时间正值另一位重量级政治家、促成德国统一的前总理赫尔穆特?科尔(Helmut Kohl)的葬礼之前。

Ms Veil survived Auschwitz. Mr Kohl could be insensitive to the Nazis’ victims, pressing US president Ronald Reagan to visit a cemetery where SS members were buried. But he strove to ensure Germany’s peaceful future in Europe and its reconciliation with old enemies. He helped reshape a continent.

韦伊是奥斯威辛集中营的幸存者。科尔可能对纳粹受害者的敏感度不够高，他曾力邀美国总统罗纳德?里根(Ronald Reagan)访问一个葬有党卫军成员的墓地。 但是，为确保德国在欧洲有一个和平的未来，与宿敌化敌为友，科尔做出了不懈的努力。他为重塑欧洲大陆格局贡献过力量。

Kohl succeeded two chancellors whose seriousness and stature remain vivid in the memories of those of us in the generation after theirs: Willy Brandt, who died in 1992, and Helmut Schmidt who passed away in 2015. All these leaders had their flaws, human and political. But they were a towering generation. Where do we find their like today?

科尔之前的两位德国总理维利?勃兰特(Willy Brandt)和赫尔穆特?施密特(Helmut Schmidt)分别于1992年和2015年去世，他们威严而伟大的形象仍然深深地印在他们之后的一代人记忆中。所有这些领袖在人格和政治方面都有自己的不足。然而，他们仍是值得我们举首仰望的一代。现如今，敢问能与他们比肩的政治领袖何在？

History will probably view Angela Merkel, the present German chancellor, as a figure of substance. But the rest? The UK faces, in Brexit, its greatest challenge since the end of empire and the Suez crisis.

历史可能会将德国现任总理安格拉?默克尔(Angela Merkel)归入杰出领袖的行列。但是，其他国家的领导人呢？正在进行脱欧磋商的英国，面临着大英帝国解体和苏伊士运河危机（即第二次中东战争，最终导致英国艾登政府下台——译者注）以来最大的挑战。

And who does the country of Winston Churchill have at its head? Theresa May, whose veneer of competence cracked on its first encounter with the electorate. Itching to take over from her is Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn, whose approach to Brexit is as incoherent as hers.

现如今，是谁在领导这个曾经诞生过温斯顿?邱吉尔(Winston Churchill)的国家？特里萨?梅(Theresa May)的政治能力头一次经历大选的考验就现出了原形。摩拳擦掌想要取代梅的是工党(Labour Party)领袖杰里米?科尔宾(Jeremy Corbyn)，他的脱欧方案与梅的主张一样不着边际。

France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, promises much, but is yet to be tested. He won the election after his Socialist predecessor Fran?ois Hollande, in whose government he served, became a figure of ridicule. Mr Macron defeated Marine Le Pen, who won over a third of the votes cast. In spite of her attempts to sanitise it, her National Front has its roots in the political culture that persecuted Ms Veil.

法国新总统埃马纽埃尔?马克龙(Emmanuel Macron)向选民作出了很多承诺，但这些承诺还有待时间的检验。马克龙的前任、社会党(Socialist Party)总统弗朗索瓦?奥朗德(Fran?ois Hollande)沦为了世界的笑柄。马克龙在大选中击败了国民阵线(National Front)候选人、得票超过三分之一的马琳?勒庞(Marine Le Pen)。尽管勒庞一直在试图让法国国民阵线“洗心革面”，但该党植根于曾迫害包括韦伊夫人在内的特定族群的政治文化。

In the US, President Donald Trump’s increasingly grotesque behaviour last weekend included tweeting a doctored video of him wrestling a CNN journalist to the ground.

美国总统唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)的行为越来越荒诞。不久前，他通过推特账户上传了一段恶搞视频，片中他将一名美国有线新闻网(CNN)记者摔倒在地。

What has happened to the quality of our leaders? One answer is that, unlike the generation of Veil and Kohl, leaders today have had no lacerating experience, such as the second world war, to imbue them with an understanding of the consequences of institutional breakdown and ethnic and racial hatred.

世界领导人的素质究竟出了什么问题？答案之一是，与韦伊和科尔那一代领导人不同，今天的领导人没有经过第二次世界大战那样的切肤之痛，他们无法理解制度崩溃和种族仇视所带来的严重后果。

But if lack of experience of hard times has produced today’s inadequates, how do we explain South Africa? Nelson Mandela and Jacob Zuma both suffered under apartheid and spent years in prison for opposing it. Yet the former was a case study in integrity and leadership while the latter presides over a patronage-strewn embarrassment of a government.

但是，如果说缺乏艰难时期的经历是导致今天的政治领袖能力不足的原因，那么，我们又该如何解释南非政坛的现象呢？ 纳尔逊?曼德拉(Nelson Mandela)和雅各布?祖马(Jacob Zuma)都在种族隔离时代遭受过苦难，并因反对种族隔离而入狱多年。然而，前者成了正直和领导力的楷模，而后者执掌的政府则因恩庇关系盛行而蒙羞。

Is the problem that today’s leaders are exercising their skills outside politics, perhaps in business? Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, and his wife started the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is active in health, education and the empowerment of women and girls. Michael Bloomberg, founder of the eponymous financial information and news company, has served as mayor of New York. Paul Polman, chief executive of Unilever, has championed business as a force for social and environmental good.

问题是不是出在当今的领导人将才能用到了政界之外的其他领域，或许是商界？微软(Microsoft)联合创始人比尔?盖茨(Bill Gates)和他的妻子创立了比尔及梅琳达?盖茨基金会(Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation)，积极促进医疗和教育事业发展，赋权于妇女与女孩。财经信息与新闻公司彭博(Bloomberg)的创始人迈克尔?布隆伯格(Michael Bloomberg)曾担任过纽约市市长。联合利华(Unilever)的首席执行官保罗?波尔曼(Paul Polman)则大力主张，企业要在造福社会和环境方面发挥作用。

But there are not enough business chiefs to compensate for the dearth of political leaders and, in any case, they do not run our countries.

但是，我们没有足够的商界领袖来弥补政治领导人的稀缺。而且，商界领袖执掌的不是一个国家。

Do we have such poor leaders because we deserve them? This is a common view, which says that we live in trivial, reality television-addled times and, as a result, elect unserious or incompetent leaders to represent us.

有如此糟糕的领袖是我们咎由自取吗？一个普遍的观点是，我们生活在一个被庸俗不堪的电视真人秀麻醉的时代，因此才会选举出不够严肃，或者能力不济的领导人来。

But there are plenty of signs that electorates are unhappy with the political choices on offer. In last month’s UK general election, voters refused to entrust either the Conservatives or Labour with the task of ruling them, resulting in a hung parliament.

但是，也有众多迹象表明，选民对提供给他们的政治选择并不满意。在不久前的英国大选中，选民拒绝将领导国家的重任托付给保守党(Conservative Party)或工党。在没有一个政党获得绝对多数席位的情况下，英国又出现了悬浮议会。

Although the arithmetic of the electoral college propelled him to the White House, Mr Trump won fewer votes than Hillary Clinton in last year’s presidential poll. And in local elections last year, Mr Zuma’s African National Congress saw its votes fall as it lost key cities such as Johannesburg and Pretoria to the opposition.

特朗普是凭借选举人团制度才入主了白宫，他在去年的总统大选中获得的选票少于希拉里?克林顿(Hillary Clinton)。在南非去年的地方选举中，祖马领导的非洲人国民大会(African National Congress)的得票下降，因其在约翰内斯堡和比勒陀利亚等重要城市输给了反对党。

Possibly the problem is our archaic parties and that we need new political movements to enthuse able would-be leaders to enter politics. Mr Macron’s République en Marche is one such movement. In an age of political vacuousness, there is a lot riding on his success.

问题可能在于我们的政党过于老迈，缺乏活力，我们需要新的政治运动来激励那些有能力的未来领导人进入政坛。马克龙领导的政党“共和前进”(République en Marche)发起的就是这样一种运动。在政治空虚的时代，马克龙的成功意义深远。