【英语国际】巴西总统的新世界秩序

Next week sees the retirement of the man described by Barack Obama as “the most popular politician on earth”. President Luis Inácio Lula de Silva of Brazil, known simply as Lula, steps down after eight years in office, with a stratospheric approval rating of about 80 per cent. As a result, the Brazilian presidential election on October 3 will be a celebration of the past, as much as a signpost to the future. The almost certain winner will be Lula’s hand-picked successor, Dilma Rousseff.

Lula has not quite achieved the global renown and secular sainthood of Nelson Mandela. But the Lula and Mandela myths have something in common. In both cases, a moving personal struggle has merged with a compelling national story, turning a single man into a potent symbol of a whole country’s transformation.

The Lula story has already been turned into a film, even before the man has left office – and it is easy to see why. Lula was one of eight children in a poor family from one of the remotest regions of Brazil. He left school early, worked as a shoeshine boy and then as a lathe operator before becoming a militant trade-union leader. He was briefly imprisoned under Brazil’s military dictatorship. His first wife died young, while pregnant. But Lula triumphed over the odds to become “the poor boy who came from a shack to be president of Brazil”.

Brazil grew richer and more powerful during his presidency. But, like Mr Mandela, Lula resisted the temptation to cling to power. He has not tried to rewrite the rules to get a third term in office. In any case, with a protégé to succeed him, he will remain a very powerful figure.

Lula’s personal story has merged with the national narrative. For many years, Brazil has had something of a national inferiority complex. But like the poor boy made good, the country is now increasingly confident and assertive. The country has foreign reserves of more than $250bn and has recently discovered massive oil deposits offshore. Brazil provides the first letter of the Bric acronym that now defines the emergence of new, global powers. But it is less scary than China, less authoritarian than Russia and less chaotic than India.

The smiling, bearded avuncular Lula was the perfect, charismatic frontman for Brazil, reflected in successful campaigns to win the right to host both the Olympics and the World Cup. Lula’s formal retirement will allow Brazil to reflect on how far the country has come.

Of course, there are elements of myth in the Lula story. His personal and political life contain episodes of ruthlessness that are glossed over in the biopic version. Brazil’s transition to democracy took place well before he took office. The foundations of the country’s economic success were laid by the reforms of his predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso. One of Lula’s biggest economic contributions was simply not to mess things up – and this was achieved by the abandonment of the far-left policies that he had once advocated. It is true that Lula inherited a fiscal crisis and handled it with determination and aplomb. But much of the subsequent economic boom was down to the lucky fact of a global commodities boom, powered by Chinese demand. Lula has gained deserved credit for his anti-poverty policies. He has done less well in fighting corruption.

The notion of Lula the freedom-fighter also needs qualification. At home, the outgoing president has defended democracy. But he has pursued a foreign policy that is either cynical or naive – praising authoritarians such as Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Fidel Castro in Cuba and pursuing an unlikely and irresponsible courtship of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad.

Yet, for all the inevitable qualifications, Lula will deserve much of the hoopla and praise that surrounds his retirement. He will go down as the president who oversaw two historic transitions.

The first was the completion of Brazil’s embrace of capitalism and globalisation. In his early campaigns for the presidency, Lula had denounced “neoliberalism”. In office, he tackled inflation, paid back debt and fostered the conditions for Brazilian business to thrive internationally. As he noted wryly in a recent FT article: “There is no little irony in the fact that the union leader who once shouted ‘IMF out’ in the streets has become the president who paid off Brazil’s debts to the same institution – and ended up lending it $14bn.”

Brazil’s embrace of international capitalism under Lula has laid the foundation for the second transition, which has global significance. That is the emergence of a new “new world order” over the past decade. Unlike the previous “new world order” the latest iteration is not based on a “unipolar world” centred around the US and dominated by the west. The defining characteristic of this new “new world order” is the emergence of major economic and political powers in Asia and Latin America – with Brazil right at the forefront.

Just a few months ago, at a summit of the Brics, Lula proclaimed that – “Brazil, Russia, India and China have a fundamental role in creating a new international order”. Eight years ago, when Lula first took office, that statement would have sounded like hyperbole. Today, it simply sounds like a statement of fact. That is why the story of Brazil under Lula is much more than a movie-friendly myth.

被巴拉克?奥巴马(Barack Obama)形容为“全世界最具人望的政治家”将于下周卸任。执政8年后，支持率高达80%的巴西总统路易斯?伊纳西奥?卢拉?达席尔瓦(Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva)——人们简称他卢拉——就要下台了。因此，10月3日的巴西总统大选既是一场欢送过去的庆典，也是通向未来的一个路标。卢拉亲手挑选的接班人——迪尔玛?罗塞芙 (Dilma Rousseff)几乎肯定会当选。

卢拉没有赢得纳尔逊?曼德拉(Nelson Mandela)那样高的国际声望和尘世圣徒般的地位。但两人的传奇故事具有共同之处：可歌可泣的个人奋斗史与可敬可佩的国家发展史相融合，让个人成为整个国家转型的有力象征。

卢拉尚未卸任，他的故事就已经被拍成了电影。个中原因可想而知。卢拉出身在巴西偏远地区的一个贫穷家庭，家中有8个小孩。他早年辍学，先后当过擦鞋童和车工，后来成为一名斗志昂扬的工会领导人。在巴西军事独裁时期，他曾短暂入狱。他的第一任妻子早逝，当时已怀有身孕。但卢拉战胜了命运，“穷人家的孩子”当上了巴西总统。

在他任总统期间，巴西变得越来越富有，越来越强大。但是与曼德拉一样，卢拉抵制住了紧抓着权力不放的诱惑。他从来没有试图改写规定，以便获得第三个任期。不管怎样，由门徒继任，他仍将是一位极具影响力的人物。

卢拉的个人发展史与国家发展历程相交织。许多年来，巴西一直背负着某种国家自卑情结。但就像穷小孩终于功成名就一样，这个国家如今也越来越自信。巴西拥有逾2500亿美元外汇储备，最近还发现了储量巨大的离岸油田。代表新世界强国崛起的“金砖四国”一词，首字母就来自巴西，可巴西不像中国那么令人畏惧，不像俄罗斯那么独裁，也不像印度那么混乱。

蓄着胡子、笑容慈祥的卢拉具有超凡魅力，是巴西的完美代表，他在任期内成功为巴西赢得了奥运会和世界杯的主办权。卢拉的正式引退，将让巴西有机会去思考这个国家已经走了多远。

当然，卢拉的故事中也有虚构成分。他的个人和政治生活中含有人物传记中不会提到的冷酷无情的片段。早在卢拉就任总统之前，巴西就已经走上了民主转型之路。他的前任费尔南多?恩里克?卡多佐(Fernando Henrique Cardoso)所进行的改革，为巴西的经济成功奠定了基础。卢拉最大的经济贡献之一，就是不把事情搞得一团糟——实现的途径是放弃了他曾经提倡的极左政策。卢拉当时的确接手了一场财政危机，处理得沉着而且果断。但是，巴西其后的经济繁荣，在很大程度上要归功于一个幸运的事实：中国需求推动了全球大宗商品繁荣。卢拉的脱贫政策为他赢得了应得的声誉。他在打击腐败方面则相对逊色。

卢拉也不是完全意义上的自由斗士。在国内，这位爽直的总统一直捍卫着民主。但他推行的外交政策不是有点冷嘲热讽的意味，就是过于天真——他对委内瑞拉乌戈?查韦斯(Hugo Chávez)和古巴菲德尔?卡斯特罗(Fidel Castro)的专制政权赞许有加，还力图向伊朗总统马哈茂德?艾哈迈迪-内贾德(Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad)示好——巴西与伊朗修好既不可能也不负责任。

然而，尽管卢拉有着这样或那样不可避免的缺陷，但他退休之际所获得的宣传与称颂还是名至实归。他将作为见证了巴西两次历史性转变的总统，安然引退。

第一次转变是巴西完成了对资本主义与全球化的接纳。在竞选总统的早期活动中，卢拉曾经痛斥“新自由主义”。上任后，他抗击通胀，偿还债务，培养了有利于巴西企业在全球发展的条件。正如他最近在英国《金融时报》的一篇文章中自嘲的那样：“曾经在大街上叫嚣着‘国际货币基金组织(IMF)滚出去’的工会领袖，如今却成为了偿清巴西IMF贷款的总统——最终还借给该组织140亿美元，这相当讽刺。”

在卢拉领导下，巴西接纳了国际资本主义制度，为其具有全球意义的第二次转变奠定了基础。那便是过去十年间，一个新的“新世界秩序”的出现。和上一个“新世界秩序”不同，这个最新版本不是基于以美国为核心的“单极世界”，也不是为西方所主导。这个新的“新世界秩序”的决定性特征是，亚洲和拉丁美洲经济与政治大国的崛起——而巴西正是领军人物。

就在几个月前的金砖四国峰会上，卢拉宣称：“巴西、俄罗斯、印度和中国在创建新的国际秩序方面扮演着重要角色。”放在8年前卢拉首次上任时，这会像是在吹牛；今天听来，它不过是对事实的陈述。正因为此，卢拉领导下巴西的发展历程，远不止是一段适合拍成电影的传奇。

译者/何黎