试论澳大利亚多元文化主义

A Tentative Exploration of Multiculturalism of Australia

多元文化主义虽源于加拿大,但作为政府的一项政策,却在澳大利亚得到充分的发展。澳大利亚是一个由许多不同民族背景的移民组成的国家,随着澳大利亚历史上三次大的移民浪潮发生,澳大利亚的移民政策也经历了由“同化、融合”转向“多元主义文化”。澳大利亚正是以其社会的宽容性、包容性和文化的多样性而形成澳大利亚民族的一个特征,并且这种多元文化主义作为澳大利亚价值观的核心已得到牢固的确立。本文在对多元文化主义溯本求源的同时,着重对澳大利亚多元主义文化的形成及特点作一述评;同时还注意从澳大利亚“白澳”政策的失败来窥视澳大利亚多元文化形成的必然性,从民族中心论的衰落来关注多元文化主义产生的民族性与世界性。

Though multiculturalism originated in Canada as a government policy, it has been fully developed in Australia. As is known, Australia is a country consisting of immigrants with many different nationalities, and its immigrant policy, with three great immigrant waves in its history, has also experienced dramatic changes from 'assimilation', 'mixture' to 'multiculturalism'. Tolerance, inclusiveness and cultural diversity have now become a prominent feature of the Australian nation and multiculturalism has been firmly established as the core of Australian value system. This essay, while tracing the origin of multiculturalism, tries to comment on the formation of Australian multiculturalism as well as its features. At the same time it examines the inevitability of Australian multiculturalism from the failure of Australian 'White Australians' policy and also probes into the issue of the nationalism and cosmopolitism.