德國大選將屆 謝絕領袖魅力

The most popular politician who would like to be chancellor isn’t on the ballot. The leading candidate is so boring people compare him to a machine. Instead of “Yes, We Can!” voters are being fired up with promises of “Stability.”

可能成為總理的最受歡迎政客，不在選票上。居於領先的候選人太無趣，人們將他和機器相比。沒有「是的，我們能！」選民對各種「穩定」的承諾感到激憤。

Germany is having its most important election in a generation but you would never know it. The newspaper Die Welt recently asked in a headline: “Is this the most boring election ever?”

德國正舉行一個世代中最重要的一次選舉，但你可能不會知道。《世界報》最近在標題這樣問，「這是歷來最無聊的一次選舉嗎？」

Yes and no.

是，也不是。

The campaign to replace Chancellor Angela Merkel after 16 years of her dominating German and European politics is the tightest in Germany since 2005, and it just got tighter. The Social Democrats, written off as recently as a month ago, have overtaken Merkel’s conservatives for the first time in years.

在總理梅克爾主導德國和歐洲政治16年後，這場準備取代她的競選是2005年以來最激烈的，且會更緊繃。直到一個月前都還很邊緣的社會民主黨，已超前梅克爾的保守派系，是近年首見。

But the campaign has also revealed a charisma vacuum that is at once typical of postwar German politics and exceptional for just how bland Merkel’s two most likely successors are. No party is polling more than 25%, and for much of the race the candidate the public has preferred was none of the above.

不過這次競選也顯露領袖魅力的真空狀態，這是戰後德國政治的常態，尤其顯示最有可能接替梅克爾的兩個人有多平淡。沒有政黨在民調中支持率超過25%，而競選中大多數時間，大眾偏好的候選人也非上述兩位。

Whoever wins, however, will have the job of shepherding the continent’s largest economy, making that person one of Europe’s most important leaders, which has left some observers wondering if the charisma deficit will extend to a leadership deficit as well.

然而，不論誰會勝出，將負責帶領歐陸最大經濟體，成為歐洲最重要的領袖之一，這也讓一些觀察家想知道，欠缺領袖魅力是否也會延伸為欠缺領袖能力。

While the election outcome may be exciting, the two leading candidates are anything but.

選舉結果也許令人興奮，兩名領先的候選人卻不讓人這麼覺得。

Less than a month before the vote, the field is being led by two male suit-wearing career politicians — one balding, one bespectacled, both over 60 — who represent the parties that have governed the country jointly for the better part of two decades.

距離投票日不到一個月，選舉由兩個穿西裝男性職業政客領先，一個禿頭，一個戴眼鏡，兩人都年過60，他們代表的政黨在過去20年中大部分時候聯合治理國家。

There is Armin Laschet, the governor of the western state of North-Rhine Westphalia, who is running for Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats. And then there is Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat who is Merkel’s finance minister and vice chancellor.

北萊因–西伐利亞邦邦總理拉謝特，代表梅克爾的保守派基督教民主黨參選。社會民主黨的蕭茲，是梅克爾的財政部長及副總理。

The candidate of change, Annalena Baerbock, the 40-year-old co-leader of the Greens, has a bold reform agenda and plenty of verve — and has been lagging in the polls after a brief surge before the summer.

代表改變的候選人，是40歲的綠黨共同黨魁貝爾伯克，提出大膽的改革政見並充滿活力，她在夏季之前支持度短暫上升，目前落後。

It’s a nail-biter, German-style: Who can most effectively channel stability and continuity? Or put another way: Who can channel Merkel?

這是德式的緊張：誰能最有效引領穩定與延續，或者說，誰能複製梅克爾？

For now it seems to be Scholz — a man Germans have long known as the “Scholz-o-mat” or the “Scholz machine” — a technocrat and veteran politician who can seem almost robotically on message. Where others have slipped up in the campaign, he has avoided mistakes, mostly by saying very little.

目前看來似是蕭茲，德國人認識已久的「蕭茲機器人」或「蕭茲機器」，一名技術官僚及資深政客，傳達訊息時像是機器人。其他候選人在選戰中不小心失言時，他避免犯錯，大多數是因說得很少。

緬甸僧侶曾領導抗爭 今對政變意見分歧

Day after day, despite a raging pandemic and the threat of snipers’ bullets, a small band of Buddhist monks in burgundy robes gathers in the city of Mandalay in Myanmar. Their acts of dissent last only a few minutes, hasty candlelight vigils or flash-mob protests in the shadow of a monastery with gilded eaves.

一天又一天，總有一小群穿著酒紅色僧袍的僧侶，不顧新冠肆虐和子彈威脅，聚集在緬甸瓦城。他們表達異議的行動只持續幾分鐘，在一座金屋簷的寺院附近舉行短暫燭光守夜或快閃抗議。

The clerics’ demand is lofty: men in uniform, men who protest a bit too loudly that they are pious Buddhists, must exit politics. The military has dominated Myanmar for the better part of 60 years, most recently by staging a coup against an elected government and killing more than a thousand people for daring to oppose its power grab.

這群僧侶訴求很大：穿軍服的男人，抗議得有點大聲以致不能算虔誠佛教徒的男人，應退出政治。軍方在過去60年裡大部分時間統治緬甸，最近一次是藉由發動政變推翻民選政府，並殺害千餘名反對軍方奪權的民眾。

“In the future, there should be no dictatorship at all,” read one sign held aloft by a monk Monday.

一名僧侶周一高舉標語「未來根本不該有獨裁者」。

In an overwhelmingly Buddhist nation where monks are seen as the supreme moral authority, the political chaos since the Feb. 1 coup has laid bare deep divisions within Myanmar’s clergy. While a minority of monks have openly joined the protest movement, and hundreds have been imprisoned for it, clerics have not taken the leadership role that they were known for in past bouts of resistance to the military. Some prominent monks have even given the generals their blessing.

在佛教徒占壓倒性多數、僧侶被視為最高道德權威的緬甸，從2月1日政變開始的政治亂局，暴露出緬甸佛教僧侶內部嚴重分歧。雖然少部分僧侶公開加入抗議，其中數百人因此入獄，但僧侶並沒擔負起領導抗爭的角色，跟他們在過去幾波反軍政府示威潮中不同。有些知名僧侶甚至祝福軍方將領。

This split in the monastic community, Buddhist clerics say, is partly due to the military’s assiduous courting of influential monks, luring them with donations and promises that soldiers, more than civilian leaders, are the true defenders of the faith. Harder-edged tactics have also been used to discourage monks from protesting, as armed security forces occupy monasteries — potential centers for resistance — and order clerics to return home, citing the pandemic.

佛教僧侶說，僧侶界對軍方態度不一，部分是因軍方籠絡具影響力的僧人，捐獻香油錢取悅他們，並保證軍人而非文人領袖才是佛教真正捍衛者。軍方也採用較強硬手段阻止僧人抗議，如武裝部隊占領可能成為反對運動核心的僧院，並以疫情嚴重為由命令僧侶回家。

The relative absence of monks from the protests, particularly in the first weeks after the coup, has not matched the broader mood in Myanmar. Millions marched in the streets after Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the army chief, ordered the jailing of elected leaders. Even today, as security forces shoot protesters on sight and the coronavirus rips through the country, pockets of democratic rebellion have endured.

僧侶參與反政變示威相對不踴躍，在政變發生頭幾周尤其如此，與緬甸廣大人民心聲不合。緬甸國防軍總司令敏昂萊大將下令關押民選領袖之後，數百萬人上街遊行抗議。就算是現在，安全部隊當場對示威者開槍和疫情蔓延全國之際，仍有少部分民主人士持續抗爭。

For centuries, Myanmar’s monks have taken bold political stands, from hunger strikes demanding independence from Britain to street protests against the army’s rule in 2007. And although the government-run national clerical council mostly capitulated to the new order imposed in February, some monks have defied it.

幾百年來，緬甸僧侶一直採取大膽的政治立場，從絕食抗議要求脫離英國獨立，到2007年上街反對軍方統治。雖然政府組織的全國僧侶委員會成員大多屈服於2月起軍方的新秩序，但也有僧侶反抗。