“美國優先”的前生今世

You’re not wanted here!” “Go home!”

“這裏不歡迎你！”“回家去！”

No, not the reproaches of immigration officers as they set about deporting incoming Iranian PhDs or Iraqi grandmas as per the instructions of Donald Trump’s travel ban, but a beer commercial with attitude. Super Bowl Sunday, at once the holy grail of sports and mass advertising, is upon us. With a television audience of over 100m Americans as its target, and with a reckless disregard for the voting preference of countless Budweiser drinkers, the mega-brewer Anheuser-Busch has produced a slick one minute immigrant odyssey: the story of its founder Adolphus Busch coming to St Louis in the 1850s.

不，這不是移民官員們在執行唐納德?特朗普(Donald Trump)的旅行禁令，遣返抵達美國機場的伊朗博士或伊拉克祖母時發出的責罵，而是一部帶有態度的啤酒廣告片。最近一個週日舉行的美國職業橄欖球總決賽超級碗(Super Bowl)是集重要賽事和精彩廣告於一體的視聽盛宴。面向逾1億美國電視觀眾，並且大膽地忽視無數喝百威啤酒的人的投票偏好，啤酒巨頭安海斯-布希公司(Anheuser-Busch)製作了一部描述艱難移民經歷的精彩廣告片：時長一分鐘，講述其創始人阿道弗斯?布希(Adolphus Busch)在19世紀50年代來到聖路易斯的故事。

Lest it be accused of liberal sentimentality, the ad comes with a title worthy of a Bruce Willis action movie: “Born the Hard Way.” Production values are high, and even the plot of the micro-movie grips. Our hero suffers a grim voyage and routine abuse before meeting his destiny, a handshake with one Herr Anheuser. The commercial has to have been made long before the immigration ban and its spectacular blowback in street and airport demonstrations. But the ad is now seen by both sides to the debate as a deliberate effort to define America as, above all, a nation of immigrants — the title of President Kennedy’s book.

生怕被指帶有自由主義情調，這則廣告有一個可以配得上布魯斯?威利斯(Bruce Willis)動作片的名稱：“天生艱難”(Born the Hard Way)。這部微電影的製作價值很高，而且情節也扣人心絃。片中的英雄歷經艱難險阻才找到命中有緣的合夥人：一位安海斯先生。這部廣告片肯定是早在移民禁令——及其引發的大規模街頭和機場抗議——之前就完成製作的。但它現在被移民辯論雙方都視為一種刻意努力，目的是把美國界定為首先是一個“移民國家”——這也是肯尼迪(Kennedy)總統著作的名稱。

The ad touches a nerve. During the 1850s, German immigrants, along with the Irish, ran into a storm of violent nativist hostility whipped up by demagogues of the American party, who gloried in the nickname of Know Nothings. Sound familiar? In Louisville, Kentucky, 20 were killed in a blaze of riot and destruction, some of the victims burnt alive in their houses. There were similar anti-immigrant pogroms in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Cincinnati, all fuelled by Protestant paranoia about a Catholic plot to destroy American culture (most of the Germans were from Catholic parts of the country). The inventor of the telegraph Samuel Morse published a collection of Catholic-baiting harangues as Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States. For Shariaphobia read Pope-hatred; the rage of the nativists was identical.

這部廣告片觸動了人們的神經。在19世紀50年代，德國移民以及愛爾蘭移民遭遇了暴力的本土主義者的敵意風暴，這場風暴是由美國人黨(American party)的煽動者們掀起的，該黨以“一無所知”(Know Nothing)的綽號為榮。聽起來有些耳熟？在肯塔基州的路易斯維爾，20人在一場突然爆發的騷亂和破壞中死亡，其中一些受害者在自己家中被活活燒死。費城、巴爾的摩和辛辛那提也發生了類似的反移民集體迫害事件，它們全都受到新教徒無端恐懼（認為天主教徒密謀破壞美國文化，因為多數德國移民來自德國的天主教地區）的推波助瀾。發明電報的塞繆爾?莫爾斯(Samuel Morse)發表了一套對天主教“亮劍”的文集，即《反美國之自由的境外陰謀》(Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States)。不妨把當今的伊斯蘭教法恐懼症替換成對教皇的憎惡，那時和當今的本土主義者憤怒是一樣的。

On the matter of immigration — at once fundamental and divisive — the US has always suffered from a split personality. Some of its earliest eulogists like Hector St John de Crèvecoeur in the 1780s maintained that what made America exceptional was its allegiance to an idea — democratic liberty and equality — rather than to the ethnicity, religion and languages that generated tribal loyalty in the Old World. In heterogeneity lay its strength and moral authority. But nativist paranoia was never far away. A “Great Greaser Extermination Meeting” was called by California gold field miners against Mexicans and other Latin Americans presuming to get their share of the pans. In Los Angeles in 1871 at least 17 Chinese were tortured and hanged in a mass lynching whipped up by xenophobic agitators. Eleven years later a Chinese Exclusion Act precluded Chinese immigrants from ever qualifying for American citizenship, a race-driven ban that would last, shockingly, until 1943.

在既根本又導致立場分化的移民問題上，美國一向表現出分裂人格。18世紀80年代的赫克託?聖約翰?克雷夫科爾(Hector St John Crèvecoeur)等一些最早的歌頌者認為，讓美國卓越的是對民主自由和平等觀點的忠誠，而不是在舊世界生成部落忠誠感的種族、宗教和語言。美國的力量和道德權威源於其異質性。但是本土主義者的偏執從來沒有遠離。當年加州掘金者曾經召集針對墨西哥人和其他拉美人的“外國佬大滅絕會議”，想必是因為後者要分得自己的一杯羹。在1871年的洛杉磯，至少17名華人在一場由仇外的鼓動者發起的大規模私刑中受到嚴刑拷打，最後被吊死。11年後頒佈的《排華法案》(Chinese Exclusion Act)使中國移民終身無法獲得美國公民身份，令人震驚的是，這個種族禁令竟然一直持續至1943年。

These two historical impulses of welcome and rejection beat on into modern times. The rise of the cosmopolitan metropolis, swollen by immigrants, produced the Populist party of the 1890s, led by Thomas E Watson, champion of the agrarian poor. After a brief and doomed attempt to unite black and white against the cities, Watson turned viciously racist and anti-Semitic. The prejudice was anointed from on high as well as shouted from below. In 1911 when 11 Italians were lynched in New Orleans, the response of the brahmin politician Henry Cabot Lodge was to demand restrictions on their immigration. In 1896 the president of MIT, Francis A Walker, took it on himself “to arouse public opinion to the necessity of a further exclusion of elements?.?.?.?injurious to our national character”. Dystopian nightmares were conjured up of “police driving from the garbage dumps?.?.?.?miserable beings who try to burrow in those unutterable depths of filth and slime”.

歡迎和拒絕——這兩種歷史衝動延續到了現代。因移民而膨脹起來的世界主義大都市在19世紀80年代興起，催生了農業區窮人捍衞者托馬斯?E?沃森(Thomas E Watson)領導的民粹主義政黨。在短暫而徒勞地團結白人和黑人反對城市之後，沃森搖身轉變為種族主義者和反猶太主義者。偏見既源於高層的忽悠，也來自下層的呼聲。1911年，在11名意大利人在新奧爾良被私刑處死後，信奉婆羅門教的政客亨利?卡波特?洛奇(Henry Cabot Lodge)的迴應是要求限制他們移民。1896年，麻省理工學院(MIT)院長弗蘭西斯?A?沃克(Francis A Walker)給自己一個任務，要“喚醒公眾輿論，使其認識到有必要進一步排除……對我國的國家特色有害的因素”。反烏托邦的夢魘被想象出來，比如：“警察驅車碾過垃圾堆……試圖在那些深不可測的污泥裏苟延殘喘的可憐蟲”。

But the counter-sentiment of America’s open doors responded. Intended by its French creators to be a symbol of transatlantic republican solidarity, the Statue of Liberty originally had nothing to do with hospitality. Emma Lazarus’s great poem “The New Colossus”, though written in 1883, was only engraved on its plaque 20 years later, long after her death, and in recognition that the tide of opinion was going the other way.

但是，與之對立的美國開放情懷作出了迴應。自由女神像(Statue of Liberty)最初由法國人制作，旨在作為大西洋兩岸共和人士團結的象徵，與好客沒有什麼關係。愛瑪?拉扎露絲(Emma Lazarus)儘管在1883年就已寫下了《新的巨像》(The New Colossus)這首偉大的詩歌，但在20年後它才被刻在自由女神的底座上（當時拉扎露絲已經去世很久），此舉相當於承認輿論在轉向。

The “America first” slogan adopted by President Trump was coined by Woodrow Wilson to protect his position of neutrality in the first world war — shortly before abandoning it. It was later hijacked by William Randolph Hearst to mean exclusion, race purity and isolation. He gushed over Hitler and handed the slogan on to Charles Lindbergh’s campaign. The clamp on immigration, already tight in the 1920s, was fastened tighter still as millions of Jews were abandoned to persecution and then extermination.

特朗普總統喊出的“美國優先”口號是由伍德羅?威爾遜(Woodrow Wilson)創造的，用來捍衞他在一戰期間所持的中立立場——此後不久他就拋棄了這一立場。後來威廉?蘭道夫?赫斯特(William Randolph Hearst)劫持了這個口號，來表示排外、種族純潔和孤立立場。他對希特勒(Hitler)讚不絕口，並將這個口號交給查爾斯?林德伯格(Charles Lindbergh)的中立宣傳活動。已經在20世紀20年代收緊的移民政策被進一步收緊，而與此同時數百萬猶太人遭到拋棄，任由他們遭到迫害和後來的大屠殺。

So the moral stench of anti-immigrant xenophobia is nothing new in American history. What is new is that it now lodges in the White House. This is a radical departure from presidential norms, Republican as well as Democratic. Kennedy’s Nation of Immigrants, the cause his brother Robert (who completed and published the book in 1964) claimed was dearest to JFK’s heart, was the push which brought Lyndon Johnson to abandon geographically-based quotas in his immigration act of 1965. Ronald Reagan declared his aim to secure control of American borders but not before he had given an amnesty to 3m illegal immigrants. George W Bush tried time and again to persuade his party towards a humane immigration policy and, six days after 9/11, made a point of going to the Islamic Center in Washington to denounce precisely the conflation of Islam and terrorism that now animates the incumbent.

因此，在美國曆史上，反移民仇外心理的道德惡臭不是什麼新鮮事。新鮮的是它現在入住了白宮。這是對總統規範（無論是共和黨還是民主黨）的根本背離。肯尼迪的《移民國家》(Nation of Immigrants)——在1964年完成並出版該書的他的兄弟羅伯特稱，這是他最鍾情的事業——推動林登?約翰森(Lyndon Johnson)在1965年的移民法案中拋棄了基於地理位置的配額制度。羅納德?里根(Ronald Reagan)曾宣佈控制美國邊境的目標，但那是在他大赦300萬非法移民之後。喬治?W?布什(George W Bush)再三試圖説服自己的政黨出台一項人道主義移民政策，並且在2001年9/11恐怖襲擊事件爆發6天后，特意前往華盛頓的伊斯蘭中心，譴責把伊斯蘭與恐怖主義混為一談——而現任總統振振有詞地把這兩者混為一談。

The world is separating into two irreconcilable halves: those who want to live only alongside those who look, pray and speak like them, and those millions in the great ethnically jumbled cities who want to share the neighbourhood.

世界正分裂為不可調和的兩部分：那些只希望和與他們外貌、祈禱和説話方式一樣的人為鄰的人，還有那些在種族大雜燴的都市裏希望共享社區的數以百萬計的人。

This may be the year of the rampart builders. But the future will see them crumble. It felt like that, anyway, when I flew into JFK last Saturday evening. Passing from walls lined with state troopers I emerged from the terminal into a swaying singing crowd of demonstrators. Among them was a young woman wearing a broad smile and a sign reading, simply, “Make America Greet Again”.

今年可能是建造城牆的一年，但它們將會在未來倒塌。不管怎樣，當我在最近的一個週六晚飛抵肯尼迪機場的時候就是這麼感覺的。穿過州警組成的人牆，我從航站樓出來看到一羣揮舞着標語、喊着口號的抗議者。他們當中有一個帶着燦爛笑容的年輕婦女，她的標語上寫着“讓美國再次歡迎”(Make America Greet Again)。