用征服者的战利品表演“友谊”：一场关于记忆的武器化叙事Performing 'Friendship' with Conquest Loot: The Weaponisation of Memory
查尔斯三世和马克龙在拜席挂毯前表演的这场“友好协定”(entente amicale)，是一次教科书级别的表达武器化。这件长70米的织物记录的是什么？是诺曼征服，是一场血腥的入侵、屠杀与权力篡夺。然而在权力的认知入口中，这段暴力史被重新定义为“记忆与艺术”，被包装成“信任的象征”。
这种叙事逻辑极其阴险：它通过将直接暴力 (direct violence) 转化为审美客体，从而在文化层 (cultural layer) 完成了对暴力的洗白。当查尔斯说这件作品提醒两国“紧密相连”时，他实际上是在利用元暴力 (meta violence) 抹除被征服者的主体性。在男本位的战争叙事中，征服被简化为“共同的过去”，而那些在征服中被剥夺生命与土地的无名之辈，在这种“高级”的文化交流中彻底消失了。
更讽刺的是，这场交换被描述为“互信”。一个国家将战利品借给另一个国家，然后以此证明两国关系良好。这本质上是一场权力的共谋 (complicity)：英国和法国的统治者们通过交换彼此的“战利品”，在公共空间里构建一套关于“文明”与“合作”的虚假叙事，以此掩盖现代政治中依然存在的结构性博弈——比如文中提到的通过合作减少难民跨境。他们用一千年前的血腥刺绣作为掩体，试图让当下的政治操弄看起来像是一种温情的文化传承。
这种“美学化”的胜利，恰恰是文化暴力的最高形式：它让人们忘记了暴力本身，转而崇拜暴力的遗迹。
The 'entente amicale' performed by King Charles and Emmanuel Macron before the Bayeux Tapestry is a textbook case of the weaponisation of expression. What does this 70-metre fabric actually record? The Norman Conquest—a bloody invasion, massacre, and usurpation of power. Yet, in the cognitive entry points of power, this history of violence is redefined as 'memory and artistry' and packaged as a 'symbol of trust.'
This narrative logic is insidious: by transforming direct violence into an aesthetic object, it completes the whitewashing of violence at the cultural layer. When Charles claims the tapestry reminds the two nations they are 'bound together,' he is utilizing meta violence to erase the subjectivity of the conquered. In a masculine-centric war narrative, conquest is simplified into a 'shared past,' while the nameless thousands who lost their lives and lands in that conquest vanish entirely within this 'sophisticated' cultural exchange.
The irony is that this exchange is framed as 'trust.' One nation loans spoils of war to another to prove their relationship is healthy. This is essentially a form of complicity among elites: the rulers of the UK and France exchange their respective 'loots' to construct a fake narrative of 'civilisation' and 'cooperation' in the public sphere, masking the structural games of modern politics—such as the mentioned cooperation to reduce migrant crossings. They use a thousand-year-old bloody embroidery as a shield to make current political manipulation look like tender cultural heritage.
This 'aesthetic' victory is precisely the most advanced form of cultural violence: it makes people forget the violence itself and instead worship its relics.