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Opium: Flower power
鸦片：罂粟花的力量
The history of the opium trade helps explain the modern world.
鸦片贸易的历史有助于解释现代世界。
Smoke and Ashes. By Amitav Ghosh.
《烟与灰》。阿米塔夫·戈什著。
The opium poppy looks delicate and innocuous.
罂粟看起来娇嫩无害。
But for Amitav Ghosh, an Indian writer, it is “one of the most powerful beings that humans have encountered in their time on Earth”.
但对于印度作家阿米塔夫·戈什来说，罂粟却是“人类在地球上遇到的最强大的生物之一”。
Mr Ghosh’s elegant history of the plant’s influence is both a tribute to what he calls “the historical agency of botanical matter” and a reckoning with the imperial past.
戈什的这本文笔优雅的植物影响史既是对他所说的“植物在历史上的作用”的致敬，也是对过去帝国主义的清算。
The book’s origins lie in his trilogy of “Ibis” novels, set in the thick of the opium trade in the 1830s.
这本书发端于他的三部曲小说《艾比斯》，故事发生在19世纪30年代鸦片贸易的高峰期。
The research Mr Ghosh carried out while writing them prompted him to probe how the drug trade shaped free-market capitalism and globalisation.
戈什在写这些故事时进行的研究促使他去探索毒品贸易如何塑造了自由市场资本主义和全球化。
Opium has been prized as a sedative for 5,000 years.
鸦片作为镇静剂已经有5000年的历史了。
Mr Ghosh’s account begins with Catherine of Braganza marrying King Charles II in 1662.
戈什的叙述始于1662年葡萄牙布拉干萨王朝的凯瑟琳公主嫁给了英国国王查尔斯二世。
Her dowry included a casket of Chinese tea and some small islands off India’s west coast.
凯瑟琳公主的嫁妆包括一盒中国茶叶和印度西海岸的一些小岛。
The fashion for tea simmered quickly in Britain, with the East India Company (EIC) controlling its import.
随着东印度公司控制了茶叶的进口，喝茶的风尚在英国迅速升温。
The EIC funnelled goods to China from India.
东印度公司从印度向中国运送货物。
An appetite for one of these, cotton, was already strong.
中国对其中一种货物——棉花——的胃口已经很大了。
But the EIC began coercing Indian farmers to grow a different crop that, used recreationally, would turn countless people into addicts.
但东印度公司开始强迫印度农民种植另一种作物，这种作物如果用于娱乐，会让无数人染上毒瘾。
Europeans did not invent the opium trade.
欧洲人不是发明了鸦片贸易。
Rather, they expanded modest local practices into a rapacious global enterprise.
而是将小规模的当地买卖扩展为贪婪劫掠的全球企业。
Mr Ghosh argues that the Dutch created the first “imperial narco-state” in the 17th century.
戈什认为，荷兰人在17世纪创建了第一个“帝国主义毒品国家”。
The model was “perfected by the British”, who promoted the convenient myth that “non-white people were by nature prone to addiction and depravity”.
这一模式“由英国人进行完善”，英国人借此推广了“非白人天生容易染上毒瘾和堕落”这一便于他们的谣言。
When China banned the import of opium in 1729, the British turned to smugglers who called themselves “private traders”.
中国在1729年禁止鸦片进口，于是英国人转而求助于那些自称“私营商贩”的走私者。
Most of the characters he depicts are venal.
戈什描绘的大多数人物都是贪污腐败的。
One exception is Lin Zexu, a Chinese civil servant.
其中有一个例外，就是中国的人民公仆林则徐。
In 1839 he complained in an undelivered letter to Queen Victoria that opium traders were “perfectly careless about the injuries they inflict” in their “inordinate thirst after gain”.
1839年，他在给维多利亚女王的一封未送达的信中抱怨说，鸦片商人在“对利益的过度渴求”中，对“他们造成的伤害完全不在乎”。
Americans felt that thirst, too.
美国人也感受到了这种对利益的渴求。
“Send ships immediately to China,” John Adams urged Congress in 1783, as “this trade is as open to us as to any nation.”
“立即派船去中国，”美国总统约翰·亚当斯在1783年敦促国会，因为“鸦片贸易哪个国家都能做，我们也能做”。
Soon families in New England grew rich from it, pouring some of their gains into philanthropy—which enriched many institutions, including Ivy League universities.
很快，美国新英格兰地区的家族就因此变得富裕，他们将部分收入投入到慈善事业中，这让包括常春藤盟校在内的许多机构变得资金丰厚。
The largesse resembles that of the Sackler family, whose company, Purdue Pharma, has done much to fuel the present century’s epidemic of opioids (a class of painkillers that can be derived from or simulate opium).
这种慷慨类似于赛克勒家族的行为，他们的普渡制药公司为本世纪的阿片类药物泛滥起到了很大的推波助澜的作用(阿片类药物是一种可以从鸦片中提取或模拟鸦片的止痛药)。
The trade’s legacy endures in other ways.
鸦片贸易的遗产在其他方面延续了下来。
“Cities that are now pillars of the modern globalised economy—Mumbai, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai—were initially sustained by opium,” writes Mr Ghosh.
戈什写道：“如今成为现代全球化经济支柱的城市--孟买、新加坡、香港和上海--最初都是靠鸦片支撑的。”
Colonial policies continue to shape regional disparities in India.
殖民政策如今也继续影响着印度的地区差距。
In what is now Bihar, the EIC ruthlessly exploited peasant farmers, whereas in Malwa, another opium-producing area, it was unable to exert as much power.
在现在的比哈尔邦，东印度公司无情地剥削农民，而在另一个鸦片产区马尔瓦，东印度公司则无法发挥那么大的权力。
The regions’ health, education and crime statistics reflect their historical differences.
这两个地区的健康、教育和犯罪统计数据反映了它们之间的历史差异。
As Mr Ghosh marvels at opium’s ability “to spin off new and more potent versions of itself”, including its synthetic analogue, fentanyl, his emphasis on the drug’s degree of agency can feel exaggerated.
戈什惊叹于鸦片“能衍生出新型更强力的药物”（包括类似鸦片的合成性药物芬太尼），但他对鸦片的作用的强调可能有些夸张。
(He also has a weakness for the phrase “and so on”.)
(他也有喜欢使用“等等”这个短语的毛病。)
But he tells his intricate story with verve.
但他富有激情地讲述了这个错综复杂的故事。
Anger bubbles up, as he points the finger at multinational companies whose success is tied to the opium trade.
当他将矛头指向那些借由鸦片贸易而获得成功的跨国公司时，戈什的愤怒情绪高涨。
The author sees a “ray of hope” in how anti-opium activists built an international alliance in the early 20th century.
作者从20世纪初反鸦片活动人士建立国际联盟中看到了一线希望。
Today activists and courts are taking opioid merchants to task, demanding tens of billions of dollars in damages.
现在，活动人士和法院正在批评阿片类药物商人，要求数百亿美元的赔偿。
But the darker message of “Smoke and Ashes” is that when a drug epidemic abates, forgetfulness follows.
但《烟与灰》传达的更令人灰心的信息是，当毒品泛滥减弱时，健忘随之而来。
Addiction often returns.
毒瘾往往会卷土重来。
