【外交政策 12/01/26】非凡官僚联盟 － 漫画英雄与联合国

满仓

【中文标题】非凡官僚联盟 － 漫画英雄与联合国
【原文标题】The League of Extraordinarily Bureaucratic Gentlemen
【登载媒体】外交政策
【原文作者】COLUM LYNCH
【原文链接】http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/26/the_league_of_extraordinary_bureaucratic_gentlemen?page=0,0


DC的新漫画系列丛书会让联合国看起来更酷，或者至少更加有效率吗？



生活与艺术——或者说绘画艺术，是多么相似啊。在DC公司的最新系列漫画《国际正义联盟》中，各国政府纷纷倒闭；人们走上街头抗议；恐怖分子对国家机构展开进攻；美国的国际地位轰然倒地。

听起来有点熟悉吗？漫画反映现实，或者至少我们所惧怕的现实，是很正常的。这部漫画让我们看到了未来海龟湾的情景：世界的超级力量美国失去了联合国安理会常任理事国的位置，英国、中国和俄罗斯三巨头掌权，但世界各国不服从他们的指挥。

即使那些超级英雄所恪守的原则也背离了原来的方向。漫画中联合国情报部门的头头Andre Briggs对世界安全集团——由中国人、俄罗斯人和英国人组成的安理会——说：“人们对他们的政府丧失了信任，继而对我们也不再相信。”

Briggs说：“民众对所有政府机构的信任度降到了历史的最低点，每一级政府，包括所有的执法部门和安全机构都极度却少资源。我们认为，联合国应当组建一支自己的队伍，代表部分国家，用精良的装备解决这些问题。”

一家网络漫画杂志“漫画联盟”的首席主编Laura Hudson说，自从二战期间以来，漫画家们打破了宣传性和民族性的桎梏，创造了战争漫画的黄金年代，联合国的超级英雄历史由此而产生。“当代漫画家崇尚进步，而不愿意把漫画英雄灌输过多的美国英雄主义。”

在美苏敌对的年代，以及冷战后核武器迅速膨胀的时期，联合国充当过很多有关核武器灾难故事的背景。80年代末，蝙蝠侠的死对头小丑得到了一枚核弹，并把它出售给阿拉伯恐怖分子。后来他与霍梅尼拉上了关系，后者委任他为赴联合国特使，并免除了他一切罪责。Hudson说：“他在联合国全体成员国大会上发表讲话，说世界没有给予伊朗足够的尊重。讲话的同时，他在演讲大厅里排入有毒的笑气。他的计划后来被超人和蝙蝠侠破坏了，小丑也消失了。遗憾的是，我没有参与这些故事的设计。”

80年代末期，正义联盟的一个分支机构——全部由美国超级英雄组成的队伍，包括超人（尽管他是在氪星出生的）、蝙蝠侠和神奇女侠——把联合国放在故事的核心位置。一群超级英雄组成的跨国警察组织，在联合国的支持下试图在苏联解体后建立新型的国际合作关系。这里面甚至包括了一名苏联超级英雄——红色火箭。

1987年出版的漫画这样描述这个机构的使命：“曾经有这样一个美国正义联盟，它存在的年代里，世界上各国有自己的边境，英雄们向自己的国家效忠，并以此为荣。但是今天的世界已经不存在国家的边境了，国与国之间的界限必须要消除，这样我们的星球才能存活下去。”

这样的情节在当时或许太超前了，“全球主义”这个词直到1986年才被收入牛津英语词典。因此，在断断续续出版了36期之后，国际正义联盟在1994年被搁置起来。但是在2011年9月，它再一次出现了，来应对政府解决全球金融和安全危机所具有的信心和能力问题。在DC公司出版的52期漫画中，这些超级英雄纷纷疏远了他们与美国之间的关系。

2011年4月，超人与美国之间的密切关系影响到他保护伊朗抗议者的能力，他为此而烦恼不已。于是他来到联合国宣布放弃美国国籍。超人对美国总统的国家安全顾问说：“真理、正义和美国方式已经远远不够了。这个世界太小了，联系太紧密了。我已经厌倦让自己的行为被众人视作美国政策的大棒。”超人或许并不拥护美国例外论，但他仍然愿意走自己的路。

国际正义联盟中的二线英雄们组建了一支鱼龙混杂的国际维和部队，这些人向联合国效忠，对抗那些常规军队和传统执法机构无法处理的、针对人类的威胁。

这其中包括新版本的俄罗斯超级英雄红色火箭加夫里尔•伊万诺维奇；中国功夫大侠铁面将军方致富；英国超级女英雄Dora Leigh Godiva，她用带有魔力的头发吸引异性，再将其打败；来自非洲撒哈拉的雌狐Mari Jiwe McaCabe；挪威的冰人Tora Olfsdotter和巴西的火人Beatriz Bonilla Da Costa。这些人的首领是美国人金色先锋，一个戴着面具、自私自利的家伙，其真实身份是啤酒厂家的代言人。这群超级英雄很快卷入一场必败的战争，对手是试图毁灭这个星球的外星机器人。Briggs之所以选择金色先锋，是因为他在社交方面的专长可以让漠不关心、满腹狐疑的公众接受这支队伍。

在经历了开局的混乱之后，金色先锋把队伍召集到一起，又说服曾经拒绝接受他领导的绿灯侠和不被国际正义联盟容纳的蝙蝠侠。当外星来客Samarai和Peraxxus试图利用机器人榨干地球上的资源，并把这个星球转卖给星际中间商时，超级英雄们战胜了他们。

这部漫画的首席作家Dan Jurgens说，金色先锋的动机“很单纯”，但这个角色盲目迷恋名人效应和成为超级英雄的机会。Jurgens是金色先锋人物的设计者，他说：“他是这么一种人，他会说：‘我只做好事，只做对的事情。但是如果我能有机会代言某个牌子的意大利通心粉，我会非常高兴，因为这是我的老本行。’我觉得所有人都变得更加世故了，这就是这本漫画书的主题。”

Jurgens说，尽管他个人对联合国怀有好感，但在作品中他还是把这个组织描绘成一个在道德上相当激进、在本质上非善非恶、既是人们爱戴、又是人民憎恶的目标，就像现实中的世界一样。抗议者包围了位于华盛顿特区的司法大厅，这里已经被联合国租下。建筑物上贴满了抗议标语，谴责联合国的行为，批判它与超级英雄同流合污。一名抗议者喊道：“英雄们对联合国俯首帖耳？一群叛徒！”

另一个人说：“我们来到这里是因为联合国占据了司法大厅，这是我们的地盘，是一个标志！如果我们不能拥有它，谁也别想！”他后来伙同反联合国恐怖分子炸掉了司法大厅。

把联合国作为故事背景是刻意为之的，Jurgens说：“在国内，我们或许自大地认为联合国就应当是受美国掌控的机构。我可没有这种想法。”

但是联合国的领导人绝非光明正大的英雄。情报部门的头脑人物Briggs在把超级英雄计划推销给联合国决策成员时，阴险地向所有人保证，招募这些雇佣兵的好处绝对超过了潜在的风险。如果他们成功了，或许名声扫地的联合国将重振雄风。Briggs又说：“如果他们失败了，我们就让他们背黑锅。”

是的，这只是一本漫画书，但是现实世界中类似的事情并不少见——从三巨头主导联合国决策的建议（苏联在40年代曾强力主张），到冒险组建毫无准备、资源匮乏的维和部队执行任务（译者注：有关此事件的详细描述可参考：【外交政策110910】让我们深思战争－和平或许并不遥远中“维和部队不起作用”章节）。实际上，这种让不切实际的改革家们组建一支薄弱的武装力量，来对抗全球威胁的观念，深植于联合国各个成员国的头脑中。

杜鲁门总统曾经提出过，把国际武装力量的使用权交给联合国，来应对全球和平威胁。从那以后，一旦危机出现，联合国总会萌发出把一支精干的快速武装力量投入战场的念头。但联合国成员国最终拒绝了这个提议，原因是担心秘书处无力控制独立的武装力量。在漫画中，联合国的领导人似乎也有同样的顾虑。轴心决策成员、中国代表包女士对Briggs说：“我对此持保留态度，这或许会让我们栽个大跟头。我们曾经讨论过这个建议，我们依然要对此说不。”

在现实世界中，中国在联合国的使节与俄罗斯一起否决针对叙利亚的决议，并且反对重新任命一支曾经在达尔富尔发现中国非法军火交易的德国武器专家。包女士秉承了这一传统，她毫不犹豫地说不。她投票否决了国际正义联盟中能力最强的超级英雄——蝙蝠侠，原因是他不服管。包说：“我认为这支队伍要受我们的控制，所以，不！”

不甘示弱的俄罗斯代表投票否决了塑料人——“怪里怪气的家伙”和蓝甲虫——“菜鸟一个”。他们的反对最终用典型的联合国方式得到了解决：中国和俄罗斯的超级英雄也在正义联盟中谋得一席之地。

“只要俄罗斯人的肌肉和光荣事迹有得到展现的机会，我会投票赞成！”英国代表也暗示她欢迎一个英国超级英雄——Godiva的加入：“能不能用个英国人交换我手里的一票？”

他们的小算盘都得逞了。那么美国的超级英雄们都在哪儿？在这个典型的后美国时代漫画书中，他们似乎没有立足之地。



原文：

Can DC Comic’s new comic book series make the U.N. look cool -- or at least effective?

How life imitates art -- or graphic art, at least. In DC Comics' new series, Justice League International, governments are going bankrupt, the masses are out in the street protesting, terrorists are blowing up state institutions, and the United Nations' credibility is in tatters.

Sound familiar? It's only natural that comic strips reflect the real world, or at least our worst fears about it. This comic version of life at Turtle Bay provides a glimpse of a future where the world's declining superpower, the United States, appears to have lost its seat on the Security Council and a triumvirate headed by Britain, China, and Russia are calling the shots -- but the rest of the world isn't listening.

Even the superheroes follow a moral compass that routinely swerves off course. "People have lost faith in their own governments, and by extension, us," Andre Briggs, the comic strip head of U.N. intelligence, tells the Global Security group -- a three-person Security Council headed by Chinese, Russian, and British officials.

"Confidence in every level of authority is at an all-time low. Every government, and by extension, every law enforcement agency and security forces, is woefully under-funded and lacking resources," says Briggs. "We believe it's time for the United Nations to assemble its own team, representing select nations, uniquely equipped to overcome those issues."

The United Nations has had a long, though intermittent, history in the world of action heroes, providing comic book artists with a symbol for breaking with the propagandistic and nationalist themes that marked the Golden Age of war comics during World War II, says Laura Hudson, the editor in chief of ComicsAlliance, a major online magazine on comic culture. "Modern comic book writers tend to be a progressive lot, and less inclined to infuse superhero books with the idea of American exceptionalism."

The U.N. formed a backdrop for many of the themes of nuclear holocaust at the height of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry and the post-Cold War proliferation of nuclear weapons. In the late 1980s, the Batman's nemesis, the Joker, acquired a nuclear weapon and sold it to Arab terrorists. He then established contact with the Ayatollah Khomeini, who appointed him as his U.N. envoy, granting him diplomatic immunity for his crimes. "He subsequently gives a speech to the General Assembly about how the world fails to show enough respect for Iran while filling the room with toxic laughing gas," said Hudson. "His plan is foiled by Superman and Batman, and he later disappears. I am making none of this up."

But it was The Justice League International, which got its start in the late 1980s as an offshoot of the Justice League -- the latter led by All-American superheroes like Superman (though he was born on Krypton), Batman, and Wonder Woman -- that placed the U.N. at the center of the action. Acting under the auspices of the United Nations, a new multinational corps of superheroes tapped into the possibilities for international cooperation unleashed by the demise of the Soviet Union. It even included a Soviet superhero, Rocket Red.

"Once upon a time there was the Justice League of America," read the mission statement to the comic's launch in late 1987. "But that was another era, when the world could afford borders and boundaries, when heroes could claim national loyalties and feel justified in their claims. But in today's world there's no longer room for borders and boundaries. The walls between nations have to fall if our planet is to survive."

That might have been a bit ahead of its time -- "globalism" didn't even enter the Oxford English Dictionary until 1986. So Justice League International was shelved in 1994, after a stop-start run of only 36 issues. But it was re-launched in September 2011, tapping into the global crisis of confidence in the ability of governments to solve the world's financial and security troubles. It's release -- part of a re-launch of 52 comic strips introduced by DC Comics -- comes at a time when comic superheroes have been distancing themselves from the United States.

In April 2011, Superman -- fretting that his close association with the United States had undercut his ability to defend anti-government demonstrators in Iran -- went to the United Nations to renounce his American citizenship. "Truth, justice and the American way -- it's not enough anymore. The world's too small. Too connected," Superman tells the U.S. president's national security adviser. "I'm tired of having my actions construed as instruments of U.S. policy," he adds. Superman may not be a fan of American exceptionalism, but he's still inclined to go it alone.

The somewhat second-tier stars of Justice League International, however, form a motley crew of multinational superheroes, who have been hired by the United Nations to confront threats to mankind that conventional armies and law enforcement agencies can't handle.

They include an updated version of the Russian superhero, Gavril Ivanovich, or Rocket Red; a Chinese action figure, Zhifu Fang, or August General in Iron; a British super-heroine, Dora Leigh Godiva, who uses her superhuman hair to attract potential mates and to foil villains; Vixen, or Mari Jiwe McaCabe, from somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa; Norway's Tora Olfsdotter, or Ice; and the Brazil's Beatriz Bonilla Da Costa, better known as Fire. Led by an American -- Booster Gold, a coiffed, self-centered shill for corporations that sell beer and other products -- the superheroes quickly stumble into a losing battle with extraterrestrial robots bent on the destruction of the planet. Briggs has selected Booster because his expertise in public relations will help sell a weary and skeptical public on the superhero force.

After a bungled start, Booster Gold pulls the team together and with the help of Guy Gardner; the Green Lantern, who initially refuses to serve under the Booster; and Batman, who is barred from joining Justice League International, they prevail over the space-born Samarai, Peraxxus, who is seeking to harness the robots to suck out all of earth's resources for resale to other alien conglomerates.

Booster's motives are "pure," says Dan Jurgens, the comic book's chief author, but the character is also drawn by the celebrity and the endorsement deals that come with being a superhero. "He's the kind of guy who says ‘'I'll do what's good and what's right but if I can pick up an endorsement for a particular brand of macaroni that's great, 'cause that's how I make my living,' says Jurgens, Booster's creator. "I think we've all grown a bit distrustful. And that's what this book is all about."

Jurgens says that while he, personally, has been favorably disposed to the United Nations he sought to portray the world organization as morally ambiguous, neither intrinsically good nor bad, and a target of intense affection and revulsion, much as it is in the real world. Protesters ring the Washington, D.C.-based Hall of Justice, which has been leased to the United Nations, with placards denouncing the organization and criticizing the superheroes for joining forces with it. "Heroes following the U.N.'s marching orders? Bunch of sell outs," says one protester.

"We came here cuz the U.N. took over the Hall of Justice," says another, before conspiring with a group of anti-U.N. terrorists who blow up the Hall of Justice. "It's ours. A symbol! If we can't have it, no one should."

The decision to place the United States in the background was also intentional. "Within this country we're probably arrogant enough to think that the U.N. should be an American-controlled institution. I don't have that thought," says Jurgens.

But the U.N.'s foreign leaders are hardly heroic. In selling his plan for a superhero brigade to the U.N. big-wigs, Briggs cynically assures them that any benefit of enlisting the support of these hired guns will outweigh the risks. If they succeed in their mission, they will hopefully restore luster to the tarnished reputation of the organization. "If they fail," Briggs notes, "We blame them."

Yes, it's just a comic book, but the story finds many real world parallels -- from the decision to place a U.N. triumvirate at the head of the organization (the Soviets pressed for that in the 1940s) to the risks of sending an ill-prepared, poorly resourced peacekeeping mission on an assignment. Indeed, the very idea of assembling a nimble force of internationals do-gooders to confront the global threats has deep roots at the United Nations.

President Harry Truman floated the idea of placing international forces at the disposal of the United Nations to confront threats to global peace. Ever since, the U.N. has flirted with the establishment of a lean, rapid reaction force that could spring into action when a crisis first emerges. But the U.N. membership has ultimately refused to allow the U.N. secretariat to create its own independent force out of fear it could not be controlled. And the U.N. comic book leadership seems to share those concerns. "I remain skeptical. This might well blow up in our face," China's representative on the global steering committee, Chairwoman Bao, tells Briggs. "We have flirted with this notion before. We keep saying no."

Like her real world counterparts in the Chinese mission to the United Nations -- which joined Russia in vetoing a resolution on Syria and blocked the reappointment of a German arms expert who discovered illicit Chinese ammunition in Darfur -- Chairman Bao has little qualms about saying no. She vetoes the selection of the Justice League International's most able superhero, Batman, on the grounds that he would be impossible to manage. "I thought the idea was a team we could control," Bao says. "No."

Not to be outdone, the security group's Russian delegate blocks the nomination of Plastic Man -- "too whacko" and the Blue Beetle. "Nyet. No rookies." In classic U.N. fashion, their objections to authorizing the force are overcome by securing jobs for Chinese and Russian superheroes on the new Justice League.

"As long as Russian sinew and glory are represented I vote yes. Da!" The British rep also hints at the trade off when she welcomes the selection of the British superheroine Godiva. "Trying to buy my vote with a Brit, are we?"

Yes, it seems they are, and it seems to be working. So where do the Americans figure in all this? In this truly post-American century comic book, it seems they just don't get a say.

lilyma06

没看过这个漫画哎。。。

ykfo2

还是五道杠威武

南瓜大仙

没看明白