令所有澳洲新移民讨厌至极的人物宝琳韩森最近经常出现在电视屏幕上,前一阵七频道的社交舞大赛她像极一个小丑却也大出风头,昨天居然又出现在九频道由EDDIE主持的名人大富翁竞猜募捐现场。虽然前一阵由于她的选举丑闻,韩森被关进监狱,令华人等大快人心一段时间,但不久即出狱,似乎比以前更加风光,竞相被各电视台邀请。这个臭名昭著的澳洲一国党前党首,由街边炸鱼小店的老板娘起家,能一路走到今天,其身后的社会和文化大背景非常值得新移民深思。
宣扬一国,强烈排挤其他种族的一国党主旨,实际只是五六十年代白澳政策的回头。在移民相对较少,民风更加淳朴保守的昆州居然曾经很得人心。比较已经非常国际化的大都会悉尼和墨尔本,昆州对移民的接纳程度以及社会文化适应度都远远跟不上大量涌入的移民潮,在这个巨大反差中,给了一国党存在的空间。
种族歧视的阴影,在一些角落依然顽固的存在着。在一些澳洲人礼貌的微笑背后,隔膜冷漠一样不可忽视。作为任何一名留学生或者新移民,都会在生活中不可避免地或多或少遇到一些不舒服的情况。来澳几年来,我也不是没有遇到过非常无礼的澳州人。但总的来讲,大多数人是礼貌有礼和非常友好的,有的甚至非常淳朴可亲。作为一名中国留学生,我想,我们不应该总是考虑到种族歧视的问题,而是应该身体力行的为中国人,为移民阶层树立一个好的形像,移民和澳洲社会的互动会更加良好,而且涓涓细流汇成海洋,当我们真正可以融入到这个社会,一国党会逐渐失去生存的土壤,逐渐被唾弃,直到彻底消亡。
我很不喜欢初见面的澳洲朋友猜我是什么日本人或者韩国人;我很无奈看见很多华人移民的BMW和奔驰酷车无视人行横道旁等待过马路的澳洲老人或者孩子横冲直撞;我很无奈我的一些同胞在澳人聚居的宁静小区彻夜狂欢,音乐扰民;我很气愤看到在三令五申的禁令之下,墨尔本宁静的企鹅岛上依然对着惶恐不安的归巢小企鹅们挥动相机叽叽喳喳的中国观光豪客;我心痛那些无视他人,无视修养礼貌,无视别国文化习俗和社会行为准则的自私自大和无礼猖狂,一个人的肆意妄为往往连累了所有的黄皮肤,甚至所有的外国移民。
在日益全球化的今天,无论是世界的哪个角落都有移民的身影。作为生活在海外的华人,如何能够在彻底融入社会,追求事业生活理想的同时,为整个华人社区形像,为整个移民阶层的形像提升所做的思考和行动,都是非常必要的,也应该是我们每时每刻应该注意和省思的课题吧。希望通过我们的努力,让韩森之流俱无藏身之地!我们欣喜看到,曾经支持过韩森的很多澳洲人已经幡然醒悟,一国党越来越失去民众支持和席位,成为一纸空壳,连韩森其实也从一个政治人物沦为大家饭后的笑柄和电视上张牙舞爪的丑角。大家再接再励,韩森彻底退出舞台的日子应该不远了。
与所有的海外朋友们共勉。
FYI:BBS article about Pauline Hanson:
Hanson has cut a controversial figure ever since she founded the anti-immigration One Nation Party.
Depending on your point of view, she could go down in history as either inspirational battler for the rights of the ordinary Australian, or a symbol of the worst in reactionary, white Australian conservatism.
At the height of her influence in the late 1990s, this red-haired, hard-edged, twice-divorced mother of four shook the political establishment, provoked outrage, and inspired a legion of satirists.
Already regarded as a loose cannon, in the 1996 federal elections she stood as an official Liberal candidate in the safe Labor seat of Oxley in Queensland.
Just over two weeks before the election date, the Liberal Party disowned her over comments on race and immigration.
Mrs Hanson contested the seat as an independent and sensationally won.
But that victory was a minor tremor compared to the earthquake triggered by her maiden speech to the Federal Parliament later that year.
Australia, she said, was in danger of being swamped by Asians.
She denounced the inequality of giving welfare money to Aborigines that was not available to other Australians.
Bureaucrats, fat cats, do-gooders, big business, foreign investors and the United Nations received a tongue-lashing, too.
Left-wing Labor and conservative Liberal politicians united in their condemnation, Church leaders and newspaper editorials criticised her - but Pauline Hanson apparently tapped a deep dissatisfaction in the country with the two main parties and the established order.
She appealed across party lines to working class white males, who saw in this former fish-and-chip-shop owner somebody who was like themselves.
Opponents picked apart naive policies on issues such as taxation, and the media delighted in "Hansonisms".
One famous televised exchange in October 1996 saw respected interviewer Tracey Curio ask Mrs Hanson whether she was xenophobic.
Her startled reply, "Please explain!" entered the national lexicon.
She was a nervous and inarticulate performer in front of the cameras.
Yet, while in favour, she was able to depict her detractors as intellectual snobs, a self-interested elite. The more she was ridiculed, the more her popularity grew.
With the launch of her One Nation Party in 1997, Pauline Hanson took her policies to voters across the country.
In Queensland's state elections the following year, the party won 11 out of 78 seats with 23% of the vote.
Decline
But in the 1998 federal elections, Pauline Hanson was rejected by voters and saw her national profile and popularity decline.
In the November election, hanson and her party failed to win a single seat.
In the months beforehand, Prime Minister John Howard had moved his party sharply to the right, introducing a controversial but popular policy of turning away boatloads of asylum seekers before they could reach Australia's shores.
Mrs Hanson complained that she had lost because the Howard Government had stolen her policies.
But by then she had another battle to face - she was being investigated for fraud over allegedly obtaining illegal government funds to set up One Nation, tarnishing her image as an honest, hard-working woman of the people.
In January 2002, she announced her retirement from politics to concentrate on fighting the allegations.
In August 2003 she was found guilty of illegally using the names of 500 members of a support group to register One Nation as a political party, as well as fraudulently obtaining almost A$500,000 (US$325,000) in electoral funds.
She was jailed for three years, serving 11 weeks of that term before an appeal court quashed her conviction in November 2003 and ordered her released.
Analysts say One Nation is largely responsible for forcing the issue of race to the forefront of Australian politics, but it has so far failed to persuade Australians it is worthy of more than a protest vote against the established parties.
But Pauline Hanson still manages to excite deep passions among her supporters.
(Paste) Pauline Hanson-Fruit Loop or Deranged Nazi?
You be the judge.Pauline Hanson is a triumph of democracy. The people have the right to decide who will represent them, no matter how repellant, how repugnant, how simplistic, how stupid.
She is democracy's biggest curse. No matter how repellant, how repugnant, how simplistic, how stupid the people are, they can always elect someone worse.