中国作家协会主管

五百年前，托马斯•莫尔创作了小说《乌托邦》。自问世以来，这本书以及“乌托邦”一词不断影响着全球各地的梦想家、思想家和评论家。“乌托邦”或是想象中的世界，或是事物的一种完美状态，抑或只是空想，它将我们本性中最好的以及最坏的一面呼唤出来。然而现如今，“乌托邦”的概念似乎早已远离我们的精神世界。

五百年前托马斯•莫尔创作《乌托邦》时，澳大利亚的土著居民正生活在我们脚下的这片土地上，带着我们古老的动人故事、传说中记载的法令、口口相传的史歌，尽职尽责地在这片土地上劳作。我们的祖先已经在此生活了五万多年，而今天我们中的许多人仍然居住在这里。最新的科学依据证实了我们已经了解的事实。自古代以来，在澳洲大陆的这片土地上发生过数次“几乎灾难性的气候变化”，但我们依然幸存至今日。

我不确定祖先们是否觉得我们的文化已达到乌托邦的境界，或是需要让乌托邦的思想融入到我们的精神和法律之中。但在今天，我们一直都梦想着从敌托邦（反乌托邦）中走出来，而这个敌托邦正是从他人的乌托邦思想和故事中创造出来的，关于我们应该成为怎样的人、做怎样的事。希望已经作为参照物嵌入了我们的人生，但我不认为我们的祖先希望实现乌托邦，因为乌托邦的思想会破坏维护世界平衡与和谐的法则，对于具有创造精神的人类来说，只有修复的行动才能体现出自己已将大地、海洋和天空的破坏和恢复能力都掌控在手中。

我相信，在多半恶劣的环境中我们一直都是朴素的现实主义者，深谙生存之道，忙着承担自己在这个世界的道德宗教体系中被赋予的责任。我们与邻居，和邻居的邻居一起，在这片大陆上，承担着相似共通的责任——传颂史歌，伟大的祖先给这片脆弱的领土创造了历史和法则，我们则负责守护这片休眠的大地。

于是，我们变得意志刚强、头脑冷静，总是对其他民族和他们古代的智慧充满好奇，让那些来自传统国家的智慧在我们神圣的文化中“安家落户”。一直以来，其他文化中的神圣故事或智慧不断融入到我们新创的歌曲与仪式当中，这是因为我们崇拜这些故事的伟大之处，并给予了回应。举几个例子，比如扛着耶稣的驴子、18世纪访问北领地顶端的麻卡仙人，还有近来极具破坏性的移动性气旋。

回顾家史，我发现我们家族继承了我曾祖父崔三博（音译）（来自中国广东）的园艺传统和烹饪技巧，同时也或多或少了解一些中国古代的知识。我时常会好奇他是怎样和来自宛依（澳洲原住民）(Waanyi)的曾祖母以及其他澳洲的歌者谈论中国文化，而他们又是如何让我的曾祖父融入到我们的文化之中。19世纪末20世纪初，澳大利亚北部有大量的中国人和澳洲土著居民结婚。

我曾经在《酒精之战》（Grog War）一书中，提到过关于我们对其他文化的好奇。1901年，人类学家鲍德温•斯宾塞和民族学家F.J.吉伦走访中澳地区后，在报告中说道，虽然当地土著居民生存条件极其恶劣，但各种仪式可一样不少，种类之多让两位学者记录地是筋疲力尽。

现在人们已经知道，当时那些瓦鲁孟古人（Warumungu）在积极尝试与白人（papulanji）建立道德和社会关系，但两位学者大大低估了仪式背后土著居民的精神思想，所以没能了解这些仪式所蕴含的深义。“瓦鲁孟古人认为，如果白人侵略者不理解，那么其他行为就会继续冒犯精神（Winkarra），而这些精神作为传统法则的一部分，会继续释放破坏力，伤害那里的土地和人类。”斯宾塞和吉伦未能表现出同等的智慧和准则，回应土著居民所献上的尊重，就意味着承认‘自己是“废物”，没有任何合法权利去影响人类的决策。’这时两位学者虽然对传统土著文化感兴趣并有所研究，但也只是把他们的研究对象称为“老黑”。

古代的土著居民获取和存储知识的方式主要是依靠强烈的精神想象力，将未知事物形象化，通过转化来加以理解。 其中一个深刻的理解就是相信大地的本质十分强大，比人类自己强大得多，进而以此让我们每个人认识到自己是谁，同理，也能让一个国家认识自己。我最近听了Galpu氏族的长者——Djalu Gurruwiwi 的讲述，他是阿纳姆地东北地区(澳大利亚北部半岛地区) 的雍古族人，也是在迪吉里杜管（didgeridoo）的音乐和精神传统上普遍认可的权威。这位长者向我们讲述了土地强大的本质以及一些古老的故事和法则。     正是这些有影响力的歌者让我认识到我们的文化能够创造非凡的梦想家——富有远见的人。 在传统和当代经济学领域最为特别的一位梦想家就是“追踪者”蒂尔茅斯，他是阿伦特人。我为他撰写的书籍将于今年晚些时候由吉拉蒙多出版社（Giramondo）出版。

Djalu Gurruwiwi说，他演奏杜管时的声音，就像雷霆一般……穿透你的回忆……让人平静。 他说杜管的乐声有治愈作用，因为这种乐器非常神圣，代表着神圣的大地，并且能够奏出土地、海洋和天空的乐章。我们主权里的这个持续的古老的故事世界，稳固地生活在我们自己的脑海里，面对着继续发生在我们身上的一切。正是这种坚不可摧的传统智慧帮助我们在任何阶段都能取得成功，无论我们的故事怎样曲折交错，它都不会改变，凌驾于其他法则之上，贯穿始终。

我研究澳洲以及世界各地的故事已经多年，这是我一直觉得我必须要做的事情，以便让我的工作具有实用价值（包括写作）。令我越来越好奇的是，究竟是什么东西能够影响我讲故事的能力，让我的故事传遍世界各个角落？

人们一直在讲述我们的民族故事，但是土著居民并没有参与故事创作。所以问题就在于如果别人讲述我们的故事会对我所创作的故事产生影响，那么我又怎么成为一名“土著”作家呢？我想要探索，如果其他人害怕我们，并将这种恐惧灌输给我们，那我们还能发挥我们的想象力和创造力吗？我为什么还要创作呢？我为什么还要创作我已经创作的故事呢？这些是我在努力创作真实故事的过程中想要探索的问题；另一方面，我想知道，我是不是被其他人讲述的关于我们的故事所影响，习惯性地讲述着一类故事？我该如何解放思想，写出不同的东西？

我认为如果没有专门的平台来讲述土著的权利，如文化经济主权及安全保障权，那么随着时间的推移他们的选择就会越来越少，只能妥协让步，任由自己的文化和信仰根基遭受侵蚀。土著讲述者可能已经感到有必要对于讲故事的方式加以思考，就像2007年后，政府出台政策介入北方土著居民生活时，人们通过批判的方式所做的那样。我们也许会疑惑，人们将以何种方式听到我们的故事？我们讲故事的新标准又是什么？我们一旦做出让步，尝试将土著居民的故事或信仰与主流民族故事合二为一，就有可能动摇文化的存在、真实性以及文化发言权。

我们中的一些人可能对自己讲故事的能力已经失去信心，任由他人来讲述我们自己的故事。有些人可能已经决定要生活在更加专门化的内部分离形式中，在这样的形式中，我们只承认了解从古延续至今的文化规律、文化思想和文化信仰的价值；尽管表面上看起来是在委曲求全、受到压制，但这样的生活似乎有其合理之处，也有安全保障。不管政府部门的政策如何，我们会在虚设的隔离和相对的和平中饯行丰富的土著文化。即使是在资源匮乏需要依靠外部资源支持的情况下，我们也一直努力保护文化，这是关乎我们生存的大事。不断被重述的民族故事和平台已经深深扎根在澳大利亚人的心中，加深了土著居民的自觉意识和自我审查意识。一直以来，澳大利亚人就被引导着以这样的方式思考，并希望土著居民能够调整他们的行为方式，贴近官方的描述。那么我们将如何选择参照物？如何独立创作我们的故事，讲述我们的故事并付诸实践？我相信这将成为我们这个时代最重要的故事。

在创作过程中我深入思考，试图在作品中创造一个世界，以澳洲为起点，走向全球。例如我的小说《天鹅之书》，被评为敌托邦之作，但实际上这本书是对希望的深刻批判，就像我的小说《卡奔塔利亚》，是为了说明土著居民的法律比其他法律更加自由，更加超越界限。

制造希望也许是讲故事的目的之一，但我们还需要更远大美好的目标，保持源源不断的想象力，让想象随着故事的希望一起闪闪发光。

Literature Mobility and Place

Alexis Wright

Five hundred years ago, Thomas More wrote the novel Utopia. This book, and the word it created, has continued to influence dreamers, thinkers, and critics across the globe. This word for an imagined place, or state of things where everything is perfect, or of what is utopia, has appealed to the very best and worst of our nature, but in the world today, such an idea seems as far removed from our thinking as ever.  

Five hundred years ago while Thomas More was writing Utopia, Aboriginal people in Australia were living with our own powerful ancient stories, our storied laws, our song lines and responsibilities to the very same places or regions where our ancestors had been living for fifty thousand years or more, and where many of our people still live today. New scientific evidence verifies what we already knew of our survival and permanency to the same regions on the continent through ‘almost cataclysmic shifts in climate,’ from ancient times.

I am not sure if our ancestors felt that they had achieved utopia in our culture, or needed utopian ideas to be embedded in our spirit, or in our laws, but today, we never stop dreaming of a better day from the dystopia created from other peoples’ utopian ideas and stories about who and what we should be. Ideas of hope have become embedded as reference points in our entire lives, but I do not think that our ancestors had utopian longings, because utopian thoughts would have upset the laws for balance and harmony of our world, and only the recuperative acts of the creation spirits as still living entities, held the overall destructive and restorative power over land, water and skies.   

I believe that we were always just plain realists in mostly a harsh environment. We were practiced in the art of survival, and were fully occupied with responsibilities for an ethical and religious system tied to our universe. We were joined to our close neighbors and theirs across the entire continent, with each having similarly connected responsibilities for song lines, to care for the resting places of powerful ancestral beings that had created the stories and laws of our environmentally fragile domain.

This makes us a tough-minded philosophical people who have always been interested in other peoples, other ancient knowledge, to find accommodation in our sacred knowledge for caring for traditional country. There have been holy stories from other cultures, or understandings incorporated into new songs and ceremonies, because our people have respected and responded to the powerful nature of some of these stories. A small example is reverence for the donkey carrying Jesus, or the Macassans visiting the Top End of the Northern Territory in the 18th century, or in recent times, a destructive travelling cyclone.  

When I look at the history of my family, I believe that we have inherited my Cantonese great-grandfather Chui Saam Bo’s horticultural traditions and culinary skills, and perhaps also, we also inherited a mingling of Chinese ancient knowledges.  I often wonder about the conversations he may have had with my Waanyi great-grandmother and our song people about Chinese culture, and how they had incorporated him into our culture. There were a large number of Chinese Aboriginal marriages in the late 19th and early 20th century in Northern Australia.

I once wrote something about our interest in other cultures in my book Grog War, where the anthropologist Baldwin Spencer and ethnologist F.J. Gillen while visiting Central Australia in 1901, reported that while the Aboriginal people they encountered were living in extremely poor conditions, they had performed such a number of ceremonies, that Spencer and Gillen said they were quite exhausted in keeping up with their records.  

It is now understood that the Warumungu were conducting an active attempt to establish a moral and social relationship with these papulanji (white people), but Spencer and Gillen greatly underestimated the Warumungu minds behind the display, and so were unable to conduct a reciprocal deep understanding of what it meant to be on Warumungu land. ‘Without an understanding by the white invaders, the Warumungu believed the Winkarra (spirit) beings would continue to be offended by the forms of behavior that had come from somewhere else. These spirits, which were part of the traditional Law itself, would continue to release their destructive powers over the land and people living on it.’ The failure of Spencer and Gillen to mount an equivalent display of knowledge and Law, to return the honor bestowed by the Warumungu, was to admit ‘to being “rubbish people,” without any legitimate right to influence human decision making.’ At that time, these two men with all of their scholarship and interest in traditional Aboriginal culture only referred to their specimens as “niggers.”

The Aboriginal ancient form of gaining and retaining knowledge belongs in the realm of having an intense spiritual imagination, and of visualizing, translating and making sense of the unknown. It is a deep understanding that the powerful nature of the land is greater than oneself, but which fills us with the knowledge of who we are, and as being one and the same as country. I recently listened to Djalu Gurruwiwi, a senior member of the Galpu clan, from the Yolngu people of North East Arnhem Land, and universally recognised authority on the musical and spiritual traditions of the yidaki (didgeridoo). He spoke of the powerful essence of the land that informs our ancient knowledge of stories and laws.  

It is from such important song men and women that I know we are a culture that creates extraordinary visionaries – the people who see. One of the most special visionaries in the field of our traditional and contemporary economics was the late Tracker Tilmouth, an Arrente man whose book I wrote will be available by Giramondo Publishing later this year.  

Djalu Gurruwiwi said that when he blows the stories of the yidaki it is, like the thunder… same thing… sees into your memories… calms people down. He said that the yidaki could heal you because it is a very sacred instrument that represents sacred ground, and knows how to sing the land, sea, and sky. This continuing ancient informed story world of our sovereignty lives firmly in our own minds in the face of all that continues to happen to us. It is this unbreakable traditional knowledge that has helped us to success through time, and is fixed and transcends any other law in the multi-stranded helix nature of our storytelling.

Through many years of researching stories from all over the world and through my own communities, which I have always felt I had to do to understand how to be useful in my work – including being a writer – I have grown more curious about what would impact on my ability to tell stories that might be embraced anywhere in the world.

Aboriginal people have not been in charge of the stories other people tell about us in the national narrative. The question then was, how should I be an Aboriginal writer when the stories that were being told nationally about us would shape and impact on what I can do as a writer? I wanted to explore what happened in our imagination and our creative efforts when we write under the cloud of those who fear us, and who instill their fear in us. Why do I write at all? And why do I write what I write? These are questions I wanted to explore while trying to create stories more authentically; and on the other hand I wondered, am I just telling stories I have been conditioned to tell by the stories other people tell about us? How would I free my mind to write differently?

I felt that with no dedicated platform for developing stories about Aboriginal rights, including cultural and economic sovereignty and security, as time goes by there will be even fewer options for Aboriginal people to tell their stories without compromising or further eroding fundamental principles of culture and belief. Aboriginal storytellers may feel the need to make more deliberate choices in the way we tell stories, as many have done through the force of criticism during the government policy era of the Intervention into the lives of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory that begun in 2007. We might ask, how will my story be heard? What is the new benchmark of articulation here? We risk our cultural existence, authenticity and voice if we accept a pattern of compromise by trying to construct a story or belief that matches the mainstream national story for Aboriginal people.

A number of us might just allow other people to continue being the storytellers about us, because we have lost confidence in our ability to articulate our own stories. Some of us may have taken the decision to live in a more specialized form of interior separatism, where we only recognize and remain familiar with the value of continuing cultural laws, ideas and beliefs, where our lives seem to make sense, have security and surety, while the surface appears both patronized and controlled. We will continue, despite government policies, practicing a rich Aboriginal culture in virtual isolation, and in relative peace, even though the struggle to maintain culture without resources, or being dependent on outside resources, will always be there, and one of the biggest issues of our survival. The repetitive national narrative and platform has become more firmly established in the mind of Australians, and works to deepen Aboriginal self-consciousness and self-censorship. Australians have been historically trained to think this way, and expect Aboriginal people to reset their behavior to approximate the official story. I believe how we choose our own reference points, and how we develop our own practices of story making, storytelling and practice, will become the most important stories of our times for us.

I try to create worlds in my work that begin locally and expand globally in journeys of deep thinking to create for instance my novel The Swan Book, described as dystopian, but in fact, is a deeply felt critique of ideas of hope, just as my novel Carpentaria, was written to demonstrate the liberating and transgressing power of Aboriginal law over other laws.

Hope may be an objective of storytelling, but we all need bigger and better ideas that will not allow our imagination to dwindle, but to shine brightly with hope for stories.