Brisbane’s Night of Broken Glass 布里斯班的碎玻璃之夜
On Saturday night, 5 May 1888, a mob reaching some 2,000 at its height stoned the glass fronts of most buildings tenanted by the Chinese in Brisbane. The Chinese were defenceless. They hid themselves in their buildings, out of harm’s way, as looting took place. All through that night the police showed little volition to quell the mob, until towards midnight when a mounted contingent dispersed the depleted mob.
Just one person was charged, for malicious damage to property, and on 30 May 1888 was pronounced “Not guilty”, in the Brisbane Supreme Court, by an all-white jury after 30 minutes’ deliberation. Aye, it was just a riot; nobody was at fault.
Afterwards the Chinese petitioned the Queensland Government for compensation, but it refused.
Brisbane’s Night of Broken Glass happened 50 years before the much-memorialised Kristallnacht that took place in Berlin in 1938. Ours is not widely known or even remembered, especially on occasions in the decades, since the 1973 introduction of multiculturalism, when the Chinese in Australia have been vilified and scapegoated.
Whence this forgetfulness?
1888 年 5 月 5 日星期六晚上，一群為數約二千人的暴徒，用石塊砸碎了布里斯班華人租用的大多數建築物的玻璃門窗。中國人手無寸鐵。 他們躲在自己的建築物內，以免在搶劫發生時受到傷害。 那天晚上，警察幾乎沒有表現出鎮壓暴亂的意願，直到午夜時分，一隊騎警才驅散餘下的暴民。
只有一人因惡意破壞財物而被法庭起訴。1888 年 5 月 30 日，布里斯班最高法院的全白人陪審團經過 30 分鐘的審議後宣佈他“無罪”。 是的，這是一場騷亂；沒有人有錯。
事後，華人社區向昆士蘭州政府提出賠償要求，但遭到拒絕。
布里斯班碎玻璃之夜發生在 1938 年備受關注的柏林Kristallnacht事件之前 50 年。 這個澳大利亞版本並不廣為人知，甚至沒有被記住，即使在 1973 年引入多元文化主義後的幾十年中，當澳大利亞華人遭到誹謗和當作替罪羊時。
這種健忘從何而來？
William Lane’s novella, ‘White or Yellow, the Race War of 1908 AD’ was aimed at influencing the populace into feeling existentially threatened.
The book was serialised during the election campaign in Lane’s own weekly paper, The Boomerang, with the last instalment being published on the morning of the election.
That last chapter described the killing of all the “evil Chinese characters” and the throwing of their bodies into the sea.
威廉·萊恩 （William Lane） 的中篇小說《白色或黃色, 1908年的種族戰爭》旨在影響民眾，讓他們感到生存受到威脅。
這本書在競選期間在Lane自己的周報 The Boomerang 上連載，最後一期在選舉當天早上出版。
最後一章描述了殺死所有〝邪惡的華人〞，並將他們的屍體扔進海裡。
