2021年2月3日
Orwell對The English People不見得有太多好評,最愛譏評他們的hypocrisy,但還是有如下的一段禮讚:「One of the basic folk tales of the English-speaking peoples is Jack the Giant-killer—the little man against the big man...And the popular attitude to foreign politics is nearly always coloured by the instinct to side with the under-dog.」
Orwell一口氣舉出在普法戰爭、清日之戰、愛爾蘭內戰、蘇聯侵吞芬蘭與乎西班牙內戰之際,英國民情輿情俱倒向弱勢的一邊,「One must conclude that in this matter the English common people have lagged behind their century. They have failed to catch up with power politics...」
當然,Orwell說的English people不見得包括大權在手的高眉establishment,他心上的「the English people proper」是「the working masses who make up seventy-five per cent of the population.」
可是,今天,除了the English people proper外,由Boris Johnson到Keir Starmer到Ed Davey,在朝在野的establishment也主張向我城人仔廣開門戶,Orwell或會欣然一笑,事關他曾寄語英國:「If the English took the trouble to make their own democracy work, they would become the political leaders...probably of some other parts of the world.」
遠見識見,公道公義,俱沒有版權。
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