????在旁觀者看來，歐洲大陸正在經歷一場靈魂之戰。

????面對二戰以來最大規模的移民潮，歐洲不同國家的人民和政府做出了截然不同的反應，有人表現出徹底的仇恨和憤怒，有人則展示出令人難以置信的仁慈和慷慨。歐洲大陸的財富水平和歷史有著巨大的差異，如今面對難民潮，在如何應對方面，各國之間也出現了令人痛心的差別。

????上周末以來，數百名德國人和奧地利人驅車來到匈牙利，接走聚集在當地的難民，幫助他們完成這一苦難之旅，去追求更美好、更安全的生活。在維也納、慕尼黑和其他地區，也有數百人有組織地在車站向難民發放食物，提供棲身之所。這些都是普通人自發的、令人振奮的決定。面對嚴重的人道主義危機，他們做了政府未能做到的事情；上周，三歲小男孩艾蘭?庫爾迪的遺體被沖上土耳其海岸，而這些歐洲民眾樹立的形象，或許可以沖淡這一慘劇帶來的陰霾。

????但與此同時，德國仍不斷發生針對難民居所的縱火襲擊。上周末，德國西南部的羅滕堡發生了針對一處避難所的襲擊，導致五人受傷，而在德國東部的羅肯蘇斯拉，三棟預備用于容納難民的空房子在大火中被燒毀。警方懷疑這是人為縱火。

????面對各界要求政府發揮領導作用的壓力，歐洲各國的領導人也開始接受強制性配額制度，安置難民，以緩解希臘、意大利和匈牙利幾個主要難民集中點的壓力。法國總統弗朗索瓦?奧朗德稱，作為歐洲難民安置計劃的一部分，法國將接收2.4萬名難民。目前，歐洲聚集了12萬難民。

????奧朗德在新聞發布會中表示：“面對洶涌而至的難民，我們必須本著人道主義和負責任的態度進行應對。”

????這項決定需要一定的政治勇氣。為下一屆總統大選進行的民意調查顯示，反對移民的（和強烈反伊斯蘭的）馬林?勒龐已經領先。法國的民意調查還顯示，55%的民眾反對開放德國邊境。

????英國則選擇退出歐盟的移民安置計劃。之前，公眾突然高漲的同情心令政府措手不及，于是英國首相戴維?卡梅倫在周一表示，英國將再接收2萬名敘利亞難民。但這種態度并沒有聽上去那么慷慨，因為這個任務的跨度長達四年，不過面對巨大壓力，卡梅倫或許會在未來幾周做出更大的讓步。

????不過，目前的焦點依舊集中在德國。今年，德國預計將接收80萬難民和移民，這相當于德國總人口的1%。僅在上個月便有超過10萬名難民涌進德國。

????本周一，德國總理安格拉?默克爾在柏林召開的新聞發布會上表示：“我很高興看到德國成為許多海外人士心目中的希望之地。考慮到我們的歷史，這一點尤為可貴。”

????上周末，默克爾政府說到做到，開始行動起來。因為他們意識到，從長遠來看，解決難民問題不可能只依靠志愿者的貢獻。在今年大部分時間里，德國在應對希臘問題時給人留下了吝嗇、心胸狹隘的印象，但這一次，德國卻追加了60億歐元（約合67億美元）公共資金，用于解決難民問題。

????然而，此次移民危機的規模遠遠超過了1989年柏林墻倒塌和上世紀90年代巴爾干戰爭之后的移民潮，因此肯定會引起公眾和政府的警惕。財政吃緊和反對移民的情緒依舊是歐元區揮之不去的陰影。目前，整個歐元區的失業人數仍有1740萬人。許多在歐洲出生和長大的人前往伊斯蘭國，成為圣戰分子，因此人們對接收更多穆斯林會心存憂慮，擔心他們難以被同化（但這種擔憂有失偏頗，因為許多敘利亞難民都是在城市里長大的中產階級，他們接受過良好的教育，他們與富有的歐洲白種人一樣憎恨伊斯蘭國的原教旨主義。）

????巨大的分歧仍然存在：英國政府準備從約旦和黎巴嫩的難民營接收更多難民，但丹麥政府卻在黎巴嫩報紙上刊登廣告，警告難民，他們很難進入丹麥，而且他們在丹麥的生活會更加艱難。對于庇護權反對聲音最激烈的是匈牙利和其他后共產主義國家，這些國家似乎忘記了二十多年前，他們自己的國民是多么渴望逃離。

????目前，各界關注的焦點仍集中在人道主義方面。但焦點很快便會轉移。卡梅倫和奧朗德在周一決定加大軍事干預，這等于認同了一個觀點：化解難民危機的最佳途徑是解決導致難民涌入的根本原因。

????卡梅倫向議會報告稱，英國皇家空軍的無人機在八月份已經多次前往敘利亞作戰，擊斃了在英國出生、現為伊斯蘭國作戰的圣戰分子。雖然兩年前，英國議會曾駁回他要求對敘利亞實施空襲的提案。奧朗德表示，法國將派飛機在敘利亞開展軍事偵察，為可能的空襲做準備。

????但至少在目前，由于地面形勢錯綜復雜，強有力的軍事行動尚不是最佳選擇。英法兩國均痛苦地發現，僅靠空中打擊無法保衛和平。而要保持各方團結一致似乎也不可行，因為該地區主要的北約成員國土耳其，與伊拉克和敘利亞庫爾德人的沖突日益激烈。土耳其在周一再次對位于伊拉克境內的庫爾德工人黨武裝分子實施攻擊。周日，庫爾德工人黨武裝襲擊了土耳其東部的一個軍用車隊，造成了人員傷亡。

????即便最終實施軍事行動，至少它會有明確的起點和終點。但歐洲人的靈魂之戰何時才能有結果？他們如何保持基督教徒的慈悲之心，維護基本的人類尊嚴，同時制定出一項可行的政策，控制日益增多的難民對歐洲著名的社會保障體系造成的壓力？在可以預見的未來，這場戰爭恐怕將持續下去。（財富中文網）

????譯者：劉進龍/汪皓

????審校：任文科

????It’s like watching a battle for the soul of a whole continent.

????The peoples and governments of Europe have reacted in wildly differing ways to the biggest migration of people since the end of World War II, ranging from outright hostility and violence to scarcely-credible displays of humanity and generosity. The continent, with its hugely varied wealth levels and history, is bitterly divided on how to cope–and it shows.

????Over the weekend, hundreds of Germans and Austrians drove to Hungary to pick up refugees and help them complete their arduous journey to a better, safer life. Hundreds more organized to provide the newly arriving with food and shelter at rail stations in Vienna, Munich and elsewhere. These were spontaneous, uplifting decisions by ordinary people to do what their governments had failed to do in the face of a terrible humanitarian emergency; they created images that went as far as anything could to countering that of three year-old Aylan Kurdi’s body, washed up on a Turkish shore last week.

????Yet at the same time, the wave of arson attacks in Germany against homes earmarked for refugees continues. Over the weekend, Five people were injured in an attack on an asylum in Rottenburg in south-west Germany, while three empty buildings slated to house refugees in Rockensussra in the east of the country were destroyed in a fire. Police suspect arson.

????Under pressure to provide leadership, European leaders are starting to come round to accepting a mandatory quota system for resettling refugees to relieve the pressure on the worst choke points in Greece, Italy and Hungary. French President Francois Hollande said his country would take 24,000 as part of a plan to resettle across the E.U. 120,000 migrants currently stuck there.

????“Faced with this inflow of refugees, we have to act with humanity and responsibility,” Hollande told a press conference.

????That’s an act of some political courage in a country where the anti-immigrant (and very anti-Islamic) Marine Le Pen is already leading opinion polls for the next presidential election. Opinion polls in France still show 55% of the population opposed to the country opening its borders à l’allemande.

????In Britain, which has an opt-out from the E.U. plan, Prime Minister David Cameron said Monday the U.K. will take 20,000 additional Syrian refugees after being wrong-footed by an abrupt surge in public sympathy. The gesture isn’t as generous as it sounds because the number is supposed to be spread over four years, but the pressure on Cameron seems likely to lead to much bigger concessions in the coming weeks.

????But the focus remains squarely on Germany, which expects to receive 800,000 refugees and migrants–equivalent to 1% of its entire population–this year. Over 100,000 arrived last month alone.

????“I am happy that Germany has become a country that many people outside of Germany now associate with hope,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told a news conference in Berlin Monday. “This is something to cherish when you look back at our history.”

????Over the weekend, Merkel’s government put its money where its mouth is, fully aware that it can’t rely on volunteer contributions for the long term. The country stereotyped for most of this year as tight-fisted and narrow-minded in its dealings with Greece approved an extra €6 billion ($6.7 billion) of public spending to address the refugee issue.

????But a migration crisis that goes far beyond anything seen either after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 or the Balkan wars of the 1990s can’t help but cause alarm, both at the popular and government level. Money is still tight and anti-immigrant sentiment still throws a long shadow in a Eurozone where there are still 17.4 million unemployed. Many, having seen images of European born-and-bred jihadis going off to join Islamic State, fret about accepting more Muslims who they fear would be hard to assimilate (albeit that fear seems ill-judged, given that many of the Syrian refugees are urban, educated, middle-class people who abhor the backward fundamentalism of IS as much as any wealthy white European).

????Inconsistencies abound: while the British government prepares to take more refugees from the camps in Jordan and Lebanon, the Danish one is taking out ads in Lebanese newspapers warning them about how it’s making it harder for them to move and live in Denmark. The most strident opponents of the right to asylum are Hungary and other post-Communist countries, who seem to have forgotten how keen their citizens were to flee only two decades ago.

????Attention is rightly focusing on the humanitarian aspects of the crisis right now. But it may start to shift soon. Both Cameron and Hollande moved closer to military intervention Monday, in a nod to those who argue that the best way to stop the crisis is to stop the cause of the refugee flow.

????Cameron told parliament that Royal Air Force drones had flown sorties in Syria in August, killing British-born jihadis fighting for Islamic State. That’s despite parliament rejecting his proposal to bomb Syria two years ago. Hollande, meanwhile, said France would start military reconnaissance flights over Syria in preparation for possible airstrikes.

????But a cogent military campaign is off the cards for now at least, due to the bewildering complexity of the situation on the ground. Both France and the U.K. are painfully aware they can’t secure peace with airstrikes alone. And keeping a coalition together seems impossible, given that Turkey, the region’s key NATO member, is increasingly in conflict with the Kurds in Iraq and Syria. Turkey’s airforce renewed airstrikes Monday against Kurdish PKK fighters in Iraq after the PKK attacked a military convoy in eastern Turkey Sunday, causing fatalities.

????A military campaign, if it ever comes, will at least have a distinct start and end. But the battle for Europe’s soul–how to meet the demands of Christian charity and basic human decency while devising a practical policy for managing the ever-growing numbers straining its famed social safety nets–it would be foolish to expect an end to that in any foreseeable timeframe.