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Mar 31st 2018 BRITAIN’S bloodiest battlefield of the past half-century was not in the Middle East, the Balkans or the South Atlantic. It was on home turf. A thousand British soldiers and police officers were killed in Northern Ireland during three decades of the “Troubles”, twice the number who died in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. The civilian death-toll was twice as high again. 在过去的半个世纪里，英国最血腥的战场不是在中东、巴尔干半岛或南大西洋，而是在自己的地盘上。在30年的“麻烦”中，数千名英国士兵和警察在北爱尔兰被杀，这是在伊拉克和阿富汗死亡人数的两倍。平民的死亡人数是这个数字的两倍。 Twenty years ago that awful conflict was ended by the Good Friday Agreement. As Britain and Ireland each softened their claim to the province, Protestants and Catholics agreed to share power in Stormont. The centuries-old question of to whom Northern Ireland belonged was carefully buried for future generations to unearth when they were ready. 20年前，“耶稣受难日”协议结束了可怕的冲突。随着英国和爱尔兰各自对该省的要求软化，新教徒和天主教徒同意在斯托蒙特共享权力。北爱尔兰的归属，这个有几百年的历史问题，已经为子孙后代精心埋藏好了，就等着他们准备好了的时候去发掘。 Now Britain’s impending exit from the European Union, foreseen by nobody in 1998, has posed the question again, long before Northern Ireland has an answer. Britain’s ruling Conservatives treat this as, at best, a detail and, at worst, an irritation on the road to Brexit. That is an error—possibly a fatal one. 在1998年还无人能够预见，现在的英国即将退出欧盟，在北爱尔兰还远远没有答案之前，这个问题又一次被提出了。 英国执政的保守党把这看作是，往好了讲，是英国脱欧路上的一个细节，往坏了讲，是脱欧路上的一种刺激。 这是一个错误 —— 可能是一个致命错误。 After two decades of peace, Northern Ireland is at once transformed and unchanged. Violence has dried up to the point where the crime rate is lower than the British average. Hotspots where armoured cars used to rumble now receive convoys of tourists. Yet beneath the bandage of the Good Friday Agreement, the healing has been slow. Protestants and Catholics still lead segregated lives. Just 5.8% of children are in formally integrated primary schools. Stormont is gridlocked and has been suspended for over a year. 在经历了20年的和平之后，北爱尔兰变了，同时也没有变。暴力事件已经发展到犯罪率低于英国平均水平的程度。装甲车过去隆隆作响的特点地方，现在可以接收到游客的车队。然而，在“耶稣受难日”协议的绷带下，伤口愈合缓慢。新教徒和天主教徒仍然过着种族隔离的生活。只有5.8%的儿童在正规的综合小学就读。斯托蒙特陷入僵局，已被暂停一年多。 In London some say that this shows the Good Friday deal has failed. That is to misunderstand its purpose. Peace agreements stop conflicts; reconciliation and integration are generational tasks. Chivvied along by the British and Irish governments, Northern Ireland’s parties had until recently kept faith. Society is changing too slowly, but it is inching forward. 在伦敦，有人说这表明了“耶稣受难日”的协议失败了。这是对其目的的误解。和平协议停止冲突；和解和融合是世代的任务。在英国和爱尔兰政府的敦促下，北爱尔兰的政党直到最近才保持信心。社会变化太慢，但它正在缓慢前进。 Brexit now threatens this. Britain and Ireland are too distracted to give enough attention to Belfast, which looks like the child in an acrimonious divorce. Britain squandered its standing as a neutral referee when the Conservatives formed a governing alliance with Northern Ireland’s main unionist party and the Labour opposition voted in a vocal republican as its leader. The Irish government has aggravated tensions by reviving talk of unification, something it previously tiptoed around. Both prime ministers must now go out of their way to show they are committed to getting Stormont up and running. 脱欧正在威胁着这个。英国和爱尔兰太过分散，无法给予贝尔法斯特足够的关注，贝尔法斯特看起来就像一个离婚的孩子。当保守党与北爱尔兰主要的统一党结成执政联盟时，英国浪费了它作为中立裁判的地位，而工党的反对党则投票选出一个直言不讳的共和党人作为它的领袖。爱尔兰政府通过恢复有关统一的言论，加剧了紧张局势，而之前对此一直是小心翼翼的。两位首相现在都必须走自己的路，表明他们致力于让斯托蒙特继续运转。 Above all, Brexit has revived nagging questions of identity. The Good Friday Agreement and both countries’ membership of the EU allowed people to forget about whether they felt Irish or British. Their option of dual citizenship, the invisible border and growing north-south co-operation, on everything from electricity markets to health care, blunted the distinction. Brexit sharpens it again. 最重要的是，退欧让人们重新开始絮叨身份的问题。“耶稣受难日”协议和两国的欧盟成员国身份，让人们忘记了自己是爱尔兰人还是英国人。他们的双重国籍、无形的边界和不断增长的南北合作，从电力市场到医疗保健，都削弱了这种区别，脱欧又让它重新显现。 This is clearest at the border. Britain says it will leave the EU’s single market and customs union, and that new technology will let it do this without any new infrastructure or inspections at the Irish frontier. The EU (and plenty of others) doubt that this is possible. The EU argues that such technology does not yet exist and says that if Britain cannot come up with a more convincing plan, Northern Ireland must maintain customs and regulatory alignment with the EU. In effect, that would create a border between it and Britain. 这在边境是最明显的。英国表示，它将离开欧盟的单一市场和关税同盟，而新技术将让它在爱尔兰边境，在没有任何新的基础设施或检查的情况下做到这一点。欧盟（以及其他许多国家）怀疑它的可能性。欧盟辩称，这种技术还不存在，并表示如果英国不能拿出一个更有说服力的计划，北爱尔兰必须维持与欧盟的海关和监管协调。实际上，这将在北爱尔兰和英国之间建立一个边界。 A farewell to arms For The Economist, this is not much of a conundrum. We have long argued that Britain would be better off staying in the customs union and single market; that this also keeps Ireland’s border invisible only adds to the case. Polls suggest that most voters agree. But the government believes that anything less than a hard Brexit would betray the referendum. 对于经济学家来说，这并不是一个大难题。长期以来我们一直认为，英国最好留在关税同盟和单一市场；也只有在这种情况下，爱尔兰的边境才能不被看到。民意调查显示，大多数选民都同意这一观点。但英国政府认为，任何没有达到硬退欧的事情都是在背叛公投。 Some Brexiteers dismiss the border question as a ploy by Ireland and “Remoaners” to wheedle a soft Brexit. They are being superficial and reckless. Northern Ireland’s Catholics are deeply unsettled by Brexit, which undermines assumptions on which the Good Friday Agreement was made. Protestants are jumpier still. In recent decades they have lost their grip on government, business and the public sector; they will soon be outnumbered. Erecting barriers between either community and the place each considers its home would cause anguish. 一些退欧派人士认为，这一边界问题是爱尔兰和“偏远地区”的一种策略，目的是诱惑英国软退欧。他们是肤浅的、鲁莽的。北爱尔兰的天主教徒对英国退欧深感不安，这破坏了“耶稣受难日”协议的假设。新教徒更加忐忑，近几十年来，他们已经失去了对政府、商业和公共部门的控制；他们很快就会被超越。在社区和每个人都认为是自己的家园的地方设置障碍会引起痛苦。 Again, Brexiteers play this down, arguing that a border like Canada’s with America would be easy enough to cross, and that trade between Northern Ireland and the south is small. Some have even said Ireland should leave the EU and join a single market with Britain, so strong are the commercial links. 再一次，退欧派认为，像加拿大和美国这样的边界很容易跨越，北爱尔兰和南部之间的贸易规模很小。一些人甚至说，爱尔兰应该脱离欧盟，与英国一起加入一个单一市场，因为他们的商业联系如此紧密。 To understand why this misses the point, they should examine their own triumph in 2016. They won the Brexit referendum because arguments about culture and identity trumped those about economics. Some of the MPs telling the Irish to calm down about the prospect of a few cameras and customs officers are outraged at the news that British passports are set to be made by a French company. Brexit suggests that, when people feel that remote elites are trampling on their culture and threatening their identity, they react unpredictably. Northern Ireland is a dangerous place to put that theory to the test. 要理解为什么这一点没有切中要害，他们应该审视自己在2016年取得的胜利。他们赢得了英国退欧公投，因为有关文化和身份认同的争论战胜了经济学。一些议员要求爱尔兰人对未来的前景冷静下来，一些海关官员对英国护照将由一家法国公司制造的消息更是愤怒。退欧表明，当人们觉得遥远的精英们正在践踏他们的文化并威胁他们的身份时，他们的反应是不可预测的。北爱尔兰是一个可以把这个理论应用到测试中去的危险的地方。 This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "Identity theft" 英文原文选自《经济学人》 |
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