I’ve come back from three recent trips to Ireland marvelling: this is what a grown-up country looks like. A giant, potentially divisive issue comes along — the sudden prospect of a united Ireland, a republican dream since long before Irish partition in 1921 — and instead of treating it as a winner-take-all, biff-bang argument as in certain countries one could mention, almost all Irish seem determined to move slowly, seriously and fairly. How to reassure mostly Protestant Unionists in Northern Ireland, who for generations have identified as British? I’ve seen a hall full of Irish people applaud a woman urging them “to be open and inclusive to Unionists”. The 4.8m Irish in the Republic and 1.9m in Northern Ireland still face a scary decade. Irish unification could revive the north’s violent Troubles. But blessedly, most Irish people realise that. Here’s a rare case of a country learning from history.
最近我去了三次爱尔兰，对这个国家相当敬佩：这是一个成熟国家该有的样子。一个巨大的、潜在造成分裂的问题扑面而来——爱尔兰统一的前景突然浮现，早在1921年爱尔兰分治之前很久，共和主义者就抱有这一梦想——然而与某些国家不同，几乎所有爱尔兰人都决定缓慢、认真且公平地采取行动，而不是将此当作一场你死我活、赢者通吃的争论。如何安抚北爱尔兰占人口多数、世世代代自认为是英国人的新教统一主义者（unionists，支持北爱尔兰留在联合王国的人；支持南北爱尔兰统一的人被称为“共和主义者”(republicans)——译者注）？在一个大厅，我看到一位女士赢得了在座爱尔兰人的喝彩，她力劝人们“持开放心态，包容地对待统一主义者”。在爱尔兰共和国的480万爱尔兰人以及在北爱尔兰的190万爱尔兰人仍然面临着前途未卜的10年。爱尔兰统一可能会令北爱尔兰不安定时期(Troubles)死灰复燃。但幸运的是，大多数爱尔兰人都意识到了这一点。这是一个国家从历史汲取经验教训的罕见案例。