漫漫回家路

《回家的渴想》

 

    看完真人真事改編的《漫漫回家路》，不得不驚歎於一個五歲小孩的記憶力，自從那天堅持要陪哥哥於夜裏外出撿破爛幫補生計而不小心在車廂裏打盹之後，他便和哥哥失散，也就無法再回家了，也再也無法得知家人的音信。

 

    在印度本鄉穿州過省，在身無分文、語言不同的情況下，輾轉流落異地，在街頭露宿，避過擄拐孩童的拐子黨，只能在神壇前偷取祭品充飢，最終幸得途人把他帶往警署，被安排任住失蹤兒童收容所，也幸得外國家庭領養，能夠享受家庭溫暖、父母的愛、優渥的物質生活、受教育的機會，他有了家。

 

    然而念念不忘的還是那個家，為了那個城鎮的那個小村落的那個小巷中那些和他血脈相連的母親那張歷經貧窮而飽歷風霜滿紋皺紋的臉、和他彼此的兄長和在強褓中的妹妹，無所不用其極，踏遍千山萬水，怎樣都要回去。

 

    皇天不負有心人，在廿五年的失散後，他能和媽媽重聚，但遺憾的是哥哥在和他失散的那個晚上，被車輾斃了。

 

要是他那天晚上沒有和哥哥失散，他的生命也許要被改寫。後來的故事是幸還是不幸呢？印度每年有六萬名失蹤兒童，不曉得他們的際遇又怎麼樣了？他們又是否能找到他們的「家」？

 

由是我是如此珍惜和重視，我的家。

──2017年3月6日刊於《明報》

如果看了剧情简介，大概就不想看这部片子了，因为太像片子里那些白人的口吻在说话。
在茉莉的眼里一切阳光和微笑都是虚伪的魔鬼，而遮蔽太阳的乌云，磅礴的大雨才是逃向自由的天使。是呀，指向自由的是逃。
茉莉能逃过众多人的追踪包括擅长追踪术的土著，她的精明源自与苍鹰翱翔于天际的自由同样的空灵，也许逃不过猎枪，但它的一生是自由的一生。

　　1915年,内维尔被任命为西澳大利亚“首席保护官”。当年9月,他第一次到西澳大利亚南部视察,发现那里有很多混血土著儿童,他们恶劣的生活条件使他震惊。从此,内维尔开始寻求解决混血土著问题的方法。他深受1925年巴斯道《澳大利亚土著》的影响,坚信土著与白种人同属高加索人种。1930年,内维尔在《西澳大利亚人报》(West Australian)连续发表三篇文章,讨论混血土著问题。在第一篇文章中,他坚信纯血统土著将注定灭绝,宣称混血土著妇女与白人不断通婚,他们的后代将会成为白人;在第二篇文章中,他强调混血土著处境的艰难,突出解决混血土著问题的紧迫性;在第三篇文章中,为消除人们对种族婚姻的担心和疑虑,他宣称,1/4混血土著和1/8混血土著与白人没有明显差别,没有证据表明返祖现象的存在。内维尔坚信,1/2混血土著妇女与白人或者1/4混血土著与1/8混血土著男子结婚,就会产生白人血统越来越多的后代。1/2混血土著母亲是“血统改造”的起点,她们与白人男性结合所生的1/4混血土著(Quadroon)后代几乎与白人一样;1/4混血土著女性与白人男性结合所生的1/8混血土著( Octoroon)就完全与白人无法区分了。从1/2混血土著到1/4混血土著,再到1/8混血土著的过程,就是白人血统不断注入和土著血统不断被稀释的过程,从不是白人到几乎与白人相像,最后与白人无法区分、完全成为白人的过程。

　　“血统改造”的关键在于白人男性接受混血土著女性并与之结合。为此,一方面,内维尔不断宣扬混血土著女性“举止文雅、声音柔和”,“1/2混血土著女孩文静而自信,而1/4混血土著女孩更具魅力,她们拥有赤褐色或金色的头发、蓝色的眼睛和傲人的身材。”另一方面,内维尔主张,从小把混血土著从土著中隔离出来,隔断他们与土著家庭和社区的联系,以白人标准对他们进行教育和培训。1933年,在内维尔的支持下,一个专门收养1/4混血土著儿童的机构在珀斯建立,即凯特修女(Sister Kate)混血土著养育院。内维尔希望,通过确保1/4混血土著女孩的健康成长,促进她们与白人男性结合。为了强化隔离教育,内维尔成功说服莫斯里王家委员会,推动议会于1936年修改《1905年土著法》,授予他更大的权力全面控制混血土著。内维尔相信,纯血统土著终将灭绝,对现有混血土著儿童实施隔离,严格控制混血土著的婚姻,鼓励混血土著女性与白人男性婚配,这样坚持下去,整个土著种族将最终从澳大利亚社会彻底消失。

　　1927-1939年,塞西尔·库克(Cecil Cook)长期担任北方领地“首席保护官”。他上任之时,北方领地白人人口以每年1%的速度减少,而混血土著人口却以每年2%的速度增长。如果不采取措施,他预计,在15年或20年内,混血土著人口将超过白人。1931年4月,库克认为,这种情况将对北方领地的种族纯洁构成巨大的威胁。他主张,采取措施鼓励白人男性和混血土著妇女的通婚,通过这种婚配,混血土著就会逐步被吸收到白人社会之中,到第五代,至多到第六代,澳大利亚土著将会完全消失。混血土著问题也将以土著种族的完全消失和他们的后代吸收进白人血统之中而得到彻底解决。

　　为实现“血统改造”计划,库克采取的首要措施是对混血土著实施隔离教育。在库克担任北方领地“首席保护官”期间,被隔离的混血土著儿童增加了70%。⑤混血土著儿童被从土著聚居区缺乏教育与培训、经常受传染疾病威胁的恶劣环境中隔离出来,安置在艾利斯斯普林斯、达尔文和派恩克里克(Pine Creek)等地的教养院。库克把混血土著适龄女孩送往达尔文女修道院,在没有女修道院的艾利斯斯普林斯,则把她们安置在邦吉洛( Bungalow)的混血土著养育院。库克希望,教养院以白人儿童的标准对他们进行抚养、教育和培训,以便把他们“提升到白人的水平”。接受基本教育与培训之后,库克安排混血土著男孩到养牛场劳动,混血土著女性则作为“血统改造”的试验对象。他坚信,接受过教育和培训的混血土著女孩能够得到白人男性的认可和接受。1933年,库克宣称,许多白人男性准备迎娶混血土著女性,并把后代留在家里抚养。

　　作为负责北方领地土著事务的联邦政府代表,库克试图把混血土著的“血统改造”推广到其他各州。1937年4月21-23日,联邦政府组织召开第一次全国土著会议。除塔斯马尼亚外,大陆五个州和北方领地负责土著事务的主要官员十余人参加会议。在坚信“纯血统土著即将灭绝”的同时,与会代表普遍视混血土著为严重的种族问题,主张应把混血土著吸收进白人人口之中。南澳大利亚政府代表J.B.克莱兰教授建议,鼓励混血土著女性与白人男性的婚姻,以最终把他们吸收进白人之中,并要求联邦政府提供经费对“血统改造”进行研究。内维尔则系统地介绍了西澳大利亚“血统改造”的进展。“血统改造”得到除布莱克利外的其他与会代表的赞同。最终,会议通过题为《种族命运》的决议,宣称“土著居民的命运,而不是纯血统士著的命运,在于最终被澳大利亚人口所吸收。因此,建议所有努力都应该指向这一目标”。这一原则性的决议,确认了土著问题就是混血土著问题以及处理混血土著问题的基本思路在于把他们吸收进白人之中,但并未明确地规定如何吸收混血土著,则为各州留下足够的空间自主设计,只是“建议所有努力都应该指向”吸收混血土著的目标。尽管没有明确地把“血统改造”写进决议,但决议实际上接受了混血土著“血统改造”。

转载自http://www.convictcreations.com/culture/movies/rabbitprooffence.html

Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)
Director - Phillip Noyce
“Nevertheless, there’s still plenty worth watching from the land of Oz and starting on October 28, Beijing is hosting its annual Aussie film festival…But(sic) the highlights are(sic) Noyce’s Rabbit Proof (sic) Fence, shot by Chris Doyle, which deals with the plight of aboriginal children forcibly removed from their families under a racist government programme designed to destroy aboriginal culture (sic) and forcibly integrate native Australians.” (2005 advertisement for Australian movies in China)

Australia does not have a commercially successful arts sector and the ideologies displayed in the creation and promotion of Phillip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence helps explain why. Rabbit-proof Fence was a typical product of the contemporary Australian artist that feels status in making ignorant statements about their culture, and inevitably undermines any sense of affinity the Australian public has to their arts sector as a result.

In theory, Rabbit-Proof Fence was meant to be a political movie showing support for Aboriginal culture and educating Australians about the untold Aboriginal story. In practice, the movie contained almost no examples of Aboriginal culture. Even the music was foreign. Director Phillip Noyce preferred the music of Englishman Peter Gabriel to the music of the people he claimed he was fighting for. Furthermore, despite claiming that he wanted to give Australians a history lesson, Noyce showed that he wasn't particularly educated in the very basics of Aboriginal history himself. When promoting his movie, Noyce said:

"For me, Rabbit-Proof Fence the movie will be as much about stolen history. History that we Australians needed to reclaim...Until 1967, Australian Aborigines couldn’t vote and were not counted as citizens." (1)

In truth, the 1967 referendum that Noyce was referring to had nothing to do with Aboriginal voting rights or citzenship. When the colonies of Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and NSW framed their constitutions in the 1850s, they gave the vote to all male subjects over the age of 21, Aborigines included. Admittedly, most Aborigines didn’t know about their voting rights and perhaps didn’t care. It wasn’t until the 1890s that any Aborigines actually commenced voting.

When the various colonies federated into one nation in 1901, Aborigines were not given the federal vote. However, they did retain their state voting rights and these state voting rights gave them federal voting rights. Under section 41 of the federal constitution, any person who held a state vote also held a federal vote. Legally, Aborigines in NSW, Tasmania, Victoria, and South Australia have been allowed to vote in all federal elections. Aborigines were formerly given the federal vote in 1962.

The 1967 referendum that Noyce mistakenly believed was about giving Aborigines the vote was really about whether to include Aborigines in the federal census and whether the federal government should be allowed to make laws specifically for Aborigines. When the Australian constitution was written in 1901, the federal government had been denied the power to make laws specifically for Aborigines. Although it could make laws for all Australians, Aborigines included, it could not single Aborigines out. For example, it could not make laws to remove Aboriginal children from Aboriginal parents, even if the removal was deemed to be in Australia's interests or the interests of the children. This power had been reserved for the states.

It is not without irony that it was only in 1967 that the federal government gained the power to make the Aboriginal-specific laws that Noyce believed it had from 1900-1970, and believed it had used to create the stolen generations. Perhaps Noyce was aware of the truth, but simply lied about it because it conflicted with his political aim of making the federal government apologise to the stolen generations. If not, he was an extremely arrogant man for relying upon incorrect oral history for his facts and thinking this oral history was sufficient for him to then go forth and play the teacher to other Australians.

In regards to citizenship, Aborigines became British citizens the moment Captain Cook annexed Australia in 1772, in accordance with British law. However, counting them in censuses was difficult because Aborigines did not have fixed addresses, did not lodge birth certificates, did not lodge death certificates and often changed their name according to which tribe they lived in. Furthermore, they often did not speak the same language as the census officers and might well of speared any census officer that came wandering with census forms.

Even though Aborigines were British citizens in 1772, giving Aborigines the protection of British citizenship was problematic. For most of Australia's early years, being a British citizen meant little more than obeying British laws designed to protect each citizen or a vested interest. These laws could not easily be applied to hunter gatherer tribes. For example, to protect women from men, from 1838 to 1902 it was declared illegal to swim during the day in NSW. The exposure of flesh was deemed to put men into uncontrollable states. Even though the law was deemed to be in the individual's welfare, it simply wasn't pratical to send soldiers out into the hunter gatherer communities to force Aborigines to wear clothes. Furthermore, even if the laws could have been applied to hunter gathering communities, Australia's penal colonies were not the type of societies that any individual could be considered fortunate to be part of. To the contrary, if an individual wasn't bound by the laws, then there was some good fortune in that. Arguably, the bush was so important to the early colonial identity because the bush offered an escape from British citizenship, and the oppressive laws that British citizens were bound by.

After Rabbit-proof Fence won best picture in 2002, Noyce used his acceptance speech to criticise the federal government for not apologising for "its" policy of removing mixed race children from their communities from the 1900 to 1970. He then criticised Australians for losing their humanity.

Although some Australians were attracted to the "moral courage" shown by Noyce, other Australians were turned off by a movie that undermined the sense of community that could motivate Australians to think that their arts sector had value. As for people in the arts who supported making the movie, the story itself undermined their sense of pride in being Australian. It certainly didn't make them want to get out onto the streets to wave the Australian flag.

Ironically, some journalists highlighted the fact that Noyce himself shared a number of parrallels with A.O Neveille, the bad guy of the movie. Firstly, Noyce also scoured bush camps to find his Aboriginal actors and believed he was giving them an opportunity for a better life. Secondly, Everlyn Sampi, the star of the movie, was not always grateful for the opportunity given to her by the white man. She was rude to Noyce and kept running away. In response, Noyce abused her and said she showed “signs of the worst behaviour that I’ve observed. ” Noyce then explained to journalists,

“During the rehearsals, she ran away twice. We found her in a telephone booth ringing up inquiries trying to book a ticket back to Broome….I found myself thinking, ‘I have to look after her. She can live with us. I’ll send her to school.'”

When reporter James Thomas asked Noyce if he had noticed a commonality between his own attitudes and those of Neville, Noyce said,

“Well, I suppose in one way you could say that in a different context, in a different time, I’m A.O. Neville promising these young Aboriginal children a better life, asking them to do things that are against their instincts, perhaps because it’s for their own good. But we do live in a slightly different world...”

Noyce failed to elaborate on how the worlds were different. For many Aborigines in bush camps, the lifestyle today isn’t much different to what it was like 70 years ago. Furthermore, whites such as Noyce continue to look upon the camps with the same judgemental attitudes that they did in the days of A.O Neville. The only real difference is that the whites deal with their prejudices in a different way. A.O Neville dealt with them via a policy of assimilation. Although Noyce was assimilationist in his actions, he was also in denial about himself.

Unfortunately, calling Australians racist was not a way for him to open his own mind, provoke discussion on a very difficult topic, or foster respect for the Australian arts sector. All he did was show that if Australia had a history of bigotry, that history is alive and well today amongst people who think they are free of it. It takes more than calling a long-dead figure of history a racist to be open-minded. The only reason to do it would be to show one's own perceived superiority.

Noyce's innability to deal with cultural diversity
Many supporters of the stolen generations campaign have argued that the state government policies that resulted in mixed race children being removed from their mother's communities were a form of cultural genocide. Ironically, Rabbit-proof Fence was also a form of cultural genocide because it almost completely omitted any evidence of Aboriginal cultures. Instead, the movie was about whites doing bad things to Aborigines. By victimising Aborigines, Noyce didn't have to learn anything about them or show their culture in any meaningful form. Such was the focus on white culture, the music of Peter Gabriel, an Englishmen known for his progressive humanitarian causes, was used in preference to Aboriginal music.

The cultural censorship was not surprising considering the morality of hunter gatherer communities was, and continues to be, confronting to people living an urban existence. For example, in 2005 an Australian court heard that a 55-year-old Aboriginal elder had anally raped a 14-year-old girl, imprisoned her for four days and repeatedly beat her with a boomerang. In the man's culture, his actions were perfectly acceptable. The girl had been promised to him at the age of four, and she had dishonoured him by having a boyfriend before their marriage. According to traditional law, the elder was perfectly entitled to educate her in the manner that he did. In fact, a case could be made that if he didn't, he was not fulfilling his duties as an elder. The girl's family had further legitimised the actions of the man. Her grandmother had collected the girl, and taken her to the man so that he could rape and punish her.

The case posed numerous questions that had to be answered. Firstly, should the man be punished in light of the fact he was practicing his culture? Secondly, what protection did the child deserve under the Australian legal system? Thirdly, what should be done with the child in light of the fact that her family had arranged the child’s marriage, and then facilitated her rape to teach her a lesson? Should she be removed from the family, or left in its care? (The judge gave the man a one month prison sentence and sympathised with him in regards to his cultural predictament. The feelings of the child were not made public other than the fact she had lodged the initial complaint with police. While the man's culture had been respected, it had come at the expense of recognising the equality of the child as an Australian.)

From the 1900s to 1970s, the same questions were dealt with by social workers wanting to help Aborigines. Should they have respected traditional law and excluded the child from the protection of the Australian legal system, or removed the child in the belief the child would have had a better life by doing so? Either choice would have reflected a form of racism. To deny the child protection of the legal system would have meant the child was not being recognised as an Australian. To provide protection would have been a form of cultural imperialism.

Because such cultural dilemmas were too problematic for Noyce to think about, he simply omitted all aspects of Aboriginal culture that he couldn't deal with. In a nutshell, he put himself in denial to deal with his prejudices. He called others racists in order to see himself as open-minded.

Noyce showing Neville talking about advancing Aborigines to white status. If the depiction were true, then Neville would have been no different to every concerned citizen that defines Aborigines as "disadvantaged" today. By defining Aborigines as disadvantaged, concerned citizens are defining non-Aborigines as the advantaged models that Aborigines should aspire to be like. All government funded programs to lessen "disadvantage" are really programs to "assimilate." While the labels might be different, in substance they are the same.

 
1)Rabbit-Proof Fence: Phillip Noyce's Diary http://www.landmarktheatres.com/Stories/rabbit_frame.html

文明的可笑之处大抵在于身处于任何一种文明中的人都自以为掌握了真理。用一种倔强坚持自己的文明，用一种粗暴去干涉另一种文明。
我更愿意相信文明与文明之间只是不同，而不在于高低。在无数类似的故事中，白人对于被征服的文化略显可爱or可笑地企图去消灭或同化，而在他们看来只是是在做一件对的善事，为何那些低等之人反而不领情。无论是什么方式，或许都只是文明的幼稚和不自信。文明与文明之间是否需要互相妥协，是否可以互相理解。有时候甚至连理解都是不需要的，而是承认相互的不同，而由此给予彼此空间和尊重。
至于电影的细节，其实无须太过苛求。喜欢那种不带太多情感渲染的叙事方式。真正的坚持和向往，并不需要用力过度。那些单纯的心灵总是拥有更简单直接的坚持和力量。

their feet scuffed up dust that settled behind them as quickly as it was raised. They lifted their eyes with each step they took, peering toward the horizon for the first red rays of the sun. She went down the road drawing one foot from behind and hurling it in front of her with her might. There was no other way she could move herself over the ground.

---Erskine Caldwell