殖民与种族创伤:新马华文文学中的灾难书写

Colonization and Racial Traumas:The Disaster Writing in the Singaporean and Malaysian Chinese-language Literature

自19世纪以来为了逃避战乱等灾难,华人开始大量移居至南洋,然而并没有迎来想象中的乐土。此时的英国殖民者将华人作为苦力极尽剥削,王润华透过"橡胶"等植物意象,隐喻了华人的身不由己。随着太平洋战争爆发,不得不面对更加暴虐的日本殖民,不管是被强奸以致发疯的女性,还是被杀害的游击队,亦或是后来的新加坡大屠杀,都给华人族群带来了巨大的创伤。这样的创伤并没有随着殖民统治结束而完结,从马来西亚建国初期马来人对华人的追杀,乃至到后来的五一三种族冲突,华人都不得不面对日趋严峻的局势。面对本土政权的打压,以及强势的西方文化,新马华文传统将如何维持下去,也成了新马知识分子的忧思。新马华人作家正是透过灾难书写,以见证文学的方式打捞被湮没的历史,试图对人们进行创伤疗愈,并以此作为一种对国家强权的抵抗。

Beginning in the 19th century when they,to escape from disasters such as wars,the Chinese people went to Southeast Asia in large numbers although they did not reach a paradise as they had imagined.By then,the English colonizers had maximized their exploitation of the Chinese as coolies.Wong Yoon Wah,through such plant images as rubber,provided a metaphor for the Chinese who did things in spite of themselves.With the breakout of the Pacific War,they had to face the more cruel Japanese colonization as the raped women gone mad,the massacred guerrilla and the subsequent Singapore Massacre led to huge traumas to the ethnic Chinese,which did not end with the colonial rule.The killings of the Chinese in the early days of the founding of Malaysia and the subsequent 13 May Incident made it impossible for the Chinese not to have to face the increasingly serious situation.It then became a concern for the Singaporean and Malaysian intellectuals as to how to keep the Chinese-language tradition in Singapore and Malaysia in the face of pressures from the native governments and the strong Western culture.It is through the disaster writing that writers of these two countries dredge the drowned histories by way of witness literature in an attempt to cure people of their traumas and as a resistance to the power of the state.