从歪嘴首相想到的

在网上看到一篇介绍日本最有可能的下任首相人选麻生太郎的文章，里面谈到了他显赫的家世背景。我突然联想到自己去年为高中校刊写的一篇文章，其中一段谈到：

It is also a plain fact that in the non-Western world, all the successful countries are not democratic, or were not democratic when they were undergoing rapid economic progress. Japan can still not be called a true democracy today, since only one party, the Liberal Democrats, dominated the political power since 1945; the same is true in Singapore and Malaysia. Both Taiwan and South Korea were not democratic during their best times of the 1970s and 1980s. And Britain was also sensible enough not to grant any form of democracy to her territory of Hong Kong during 155 years of rule there; in fact the governor of Hong Kong, the highest executive officer of the islands, had never even been a local resident.

我当时说日本算不上是真正的民主国家，因为到现在都只有自民党一党独大，这个国家从未经历过完整的政党轮替，当然也就还没有完善的两党监督机制。但其实日本政治的不民主更体现在它的寡头性质，几十个政治世家就实际主宰了日本政坛。拿历任的日本首相来说，但凡普通中国人叫得出名字的那几个，从森喜朗、桥本龙太郎、小泉纯一郎、安倍晋三、福田康夫到今天的麻生太郎，父祖辈里都找得出几个官拜内阁大臣乃至首相的政客。自民党内的派系林立，既有斗争又有共同的利益，最后的结果不是欧美式的竞争式民主，更像是一种寡头专制。反正只要排排坐吃果果，首相的宝座总是在那几个有政治背景的寡头之间轮换着主人。

所以有人说民主不只是一种体制，更是一种文化。我觉得这说法很对，但也正因为民主是一种文化，它就是难以移植，或许根本无法移植和复制到不同的文化传统中去的。日本拥有不输给任何欧洲国家的经济科技实力和教育文化水平，从1945年起又实践了超过60年的西方式的政治体制，却依然传承不到纯粹的西式民主。而伟大的西方媒体，显然对这种“有日本特色的民主主义”，是不带任何批判的。