文化外交 讓博物館傳播文明
Cultural diplomacy is a phrase I have heard often during my museum career.
文化外交是一個我在自己的博物館職業生涯中經常聽到的詞。
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.
它用來描述文化機構領導人在主持日常工作之餘開展的那種沒有定義的高層次的軟性政治活動。
It is certainly neat, but it brims with false promise.
這個概念肯定優雅，但充斥着虛假承諾。
Every good museum operates on a political level, of course.
當然，每一個優秀的博物館都在某個政治層面上運營。
Collections build bridges between the past and the future, and links are created across cultures and ages.
收藏品爲過去和未來搭建橋樑，在不同文化和年代間建立聯繫。
But a museum is neither an embassy nor an office of state.
但博物館既不是大使館，也不是政府辦事處。
Museum directors for the most part are trained neither as diplomats nor as conflict negotiators.
多數博物館館長並非外交官或衝突談判者出身。
No war has ever started because of museums, nor has a museum ever prevented one from starting.
沒有一場戰爭因博物館而起，也沒有一個博物館曾經阻止戰爭的爆發。
This is not an argument for an apolitical arts world, however.
然而，這並非藝術界脫離政治的論據。
Today’s museums and collections must not only acquire, conserve, interpret and present objects.
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。
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.
鑑於目前的地緣政治狀況，它們還有責任聚焦於設計、藝術和創造性如何反映道德和倫理價值體系，並質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.
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；它們應該是辯論替代選擇的平臺。
The history of Europe in the 20th-century shows what happens when museums ignore this aspect of their role.
20世紀的歐洲歷史展現出博物館忽視這種角色時會發生什麼情況。
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.
例如，在德國的魏瑪共和國最後時期，文化界的人們沉默地目睹着盲目的民族主義演變爲國家社會主義，同時他們的機構演變爲宣傳機器。
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.
如今，在希特勒崛起近一個世紀後，位於德國東部薩克森地區的小鎮包岑(Bautzen)的新納粹在騷擾年輕移民。
The police response has been to place the migrants under house arrest.
警方的迴應是將這些移民軟禁。
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.
文化界的反對聲音在哪裏？爲什麼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雅的陳詞濫調，那麼這肯定是它應該介入的場合。
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.
湊巧的是，全球最美的一些伊斯蘭收藏品位於距離包岑僅30英里的地方，在德累斯頓國家藝術博物館(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.
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？在英國脫歐公投後（文化外交對此同樣無能爲力），我的一位法國同事給我發信息說，這意味着法國將會出現國家社會主義2.0。
But who is saying it in public? National museums, theatres and opera houses cannot be apolitical.
但誰在公開場合這麼說了？國家博物館、戲院和歌劇院不可能與政治脫離干係。
Those who maintain that they can, expose these institutions to malign political influence.
那些堅稱可以的人們，反而會讓這些機構暴露於惡毒的政治影響。
As for Brexit, no one can yet say where it will lead the UK, or even if the European project will survive the shock.
至於脫歐，沒有人能確定它將帶領英國走向何方，甚至不知道歐洲一體化計劃能不能挺過這一衝擊。
But we can be fairly sure that a hard Brexit will pose a serious challenge to art and culture in the UK.
但我們可以相當確定的是，硬性的脫歐將對英國的藝術和文化構成巨大挑戰。
Museums are businesses first and foremost.
博物館首先是企業。
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.
它們受到外匯市場的影響，依賴全球投資信心，然而，它們缺乏跨國綜合企業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.
去年，單單倫敦3家博物館吸引的遊客數量就超過威尼斯，英國文化產業的收入爲英國做出的貢獻是巨大的，在財務和其他方面都是如此。
Most meaningful cultural programmes are based on long-term collaborations with specialists around the world.
多數有意義的文化項目基於與全球專家的長期合作。
The international loans and the blockbuster exhibitions, which people in London now take for granted, were only made possible when borders became more porous.
國際展品租借和轟動一時的展覽（現在倫敦人已視其爲理所當然）只能在國際交流比較寬鬆的情況下出現。
Creating memorable exhibitions, securing rare loans and making defining acquisitions requires meticulous, dedicated work over many years.
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併購，需要多年一絲不苟專心致志的工作。
The uncertainty that has followed the Brexit vote has already consigned many such projects to the slow lane.
英國脫歐公投後出現的不確定性，已讓很多此類項目走入慢行道。
Imagine the impact that a visa requirement for Europe would have.
想象一下歐洲提出簽證要求後會造成的影響吧。
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.
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，我負責的最後一次展覽是對定義上世紀60年代末的革命和叛亂的研究。
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.
那段時期的文化遺產仍然是激烈辯論的主題，但這次展覽將及時提醒人們存在於文化中的反抗。
Nationalism means war, said François Mitterrand in one of his final speeches.
弗朗索瓦•密特朗(François Mitterrand)曾在他最後的一篇演講中說道：民族主義意味着戰爭。
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.
儘管文化外交永遠無法阻止衝突，但從幾個世紀的衝突和紛爭中存活下來的博物館收藏品，包含着人們駁斥民族主義所需的全部素材。
