论澳洲淘金热中的“华人破坏环境”问题

On the Debatable Words about the Chinese Destructs Environment in the Australian Gold Rush

澳洲历史上对早期华人移民群体的认知存在片面化和简单化的现象。这种认知认为淘金热中的华人矿工一味淘洗废旧金矿并破坏了当地水源,而华人聚居区则是传染疾病的源头。"华人破坏环境"这一指责相当程度上为殖民当局出台排华政策提供了依据。通过对比研读当年矿区遗存的立法档案与民间资料,以环境史的视角重新切入这一历史观点,还原当时华人淘金活动的全貌,不难看出,早期华人移民开展了多样化的淘金活动,特别是将珠三角地区的传统劳作经验引入澳大利亚淘金热,而这并不必然破坏常规的采矿活动与生态环境。所以说华人对环境的破坏本身是种族歧视与迫害的直接产物,只不过它反过来又为种族歧视的进一步制度化与流行制造了所谓事实依据。通过批判淘金热时代"华人破坏环境"之话语,我们可以深入反省澳洲传统历史编纂中的种族歧视问题,也可以彰显华人移民在澳洲历史整体进程中的积极影响。

There is a simplified historical concept that the early Chinese immigrants, coming for the Australian gold rushes, were destructive to environment. They were accused of polluting watercourses in the goldfields and their settlements were dirty and threatening to the public health. Those words lead to unfair discriminative legislations on the Chinese immigrants. However with an environmental perspective and comparative studies on local archives and newspapers, this discourse is proved to be a racist bias while the Chinese activities were not nega-tive to local environment. In fact, the Chinese mining activities were various and sophisticated including those derived from their homeland of the Pearl River delta.