Though ethnic issues in Taiwan are highly sensitive and emotional, a seminar attended by scholars and lawmakers yesterday shows that a rational and serious discussion on the matter is possible.
While Taiwanese people are talking about ethnic reconciliation, a high-ranking Hakka official said yesterday that reconciliation must not come at the price of a minority group's culture.
"Minority ethnic groups can only accept equality, goodwill and mutual respect, not ethnic integration," said Executive Yuan Hakka Committee member Yang Chang-chen (
For minority groups, ethnic integration (族群融合) implies their complete absorption by an overwhelming majority.
In a bid to bridge gaps and promote rational dialogue between ethnic groups, the Peacetime Foundation of Taiwan (台灣促進和平基金會) organized a seminar in which officials and scholars with different ethnic origins took part.
The conference began with a skit in which Chinese, Hakka, Tai-wanese Aborigines, foreigners, Hokklo people and foreign laborers pointed their fingers at each other for promoting negative stereotypes of various ethnic groups.
In the skit the mainland Chinese were stereoptyped as being "hypocritical and cunning," Hakka people as "selfish and stingy," the Hokklo people as "stupid and vulgar," while the Taiwanese Aborigines were portrayed as "lazy and alcoholic."
As a Taiwanese Aborigine, outgoing DPP legislator Payen Talu (巴燕達魯) complained that, for a long time, under whatever regime, Taiwanese Aborigines have never gained respect or received enough resources from the government.
"In our textbooks, there is not a single word to illustrate the culture of Taiwanese Aborigines. As a result of this, ethnic identity has become a serious problem among Aborigines."
Payen Talu said the reason why he joined the DPP was because he wanted to get involved in the process of Taiwan's democratization. "I don't want the Aborigines to be absent in this process," Payen Talu said.
However, Payen Talu lost in the Dec.1 election and blamed his defeat on the division of the Aborigines into subgroups, which jeopardized the chances of stronger candidates getting elected. "The Aborigines are pushed to the periphery in all fields of Taiwanese society," Payen Talu said.
Yang said that the Mandarin-language movement pushed by the KMT since 1949 has oppressed the Hakka language.
"Only when such historical pain is understood can reconciliation be possible," Yang said.
But, "if every ethnic group focuses only on its own pain, reconciliation cannot be accomplished," Yang said.
Ng Chiautong (黃昭堂), chairman of the World United Formosans for Independence, said the impression that his group cannot tolerate ethnic differences was not true.
Ng said that what really causes stress in the Taiwanese independence movement is the issue of national identity, rather than ethnic identity.
"People who identify themselves with Taiwan are our friends, and those who identify with the People's Republic of China are our enemies," Ng said. For Ng, there are only two ethnic groups in Taiwan -- Chinese and Taiwanese.
Kuo Li-hsin (郭力昕), a lecturer in the Department of Radio and Television at National Chengchi University, said that it is only through respecting ethnic differences that various ethnic groups can live together peacefully.
Kuo said that, as a second-generation mainlander, he believes the first step in reconciliation is "for the mainlanders to admit their original sin (原罪) and the wounds the mainlanders inflicted on indigenous Taiwanese people in the past."
"We have to face our original sin and develop a self-examination mechanism in our mind. Then the bias and discrimination can be removed," Kuo added.
Chiang Wen-yu (
Chiang stressed that the media in Taiwan have created three false images. The first is the image of Taiwan as being a disastrous society -- through broadcasting horrible images on TV 24 hours a day. The second is to exaggerate the importance of Taipei by ignoring other places in Taiwan. The third is the exaggeration of Beijing's influence by constantly broadcasting Chinese officials' threats to Taiwan.
"These factors become a bone of contention among different ethnic groups during election periods," Chiang said.
The scholar concluded that the media is responsible for for exacerbating ethnic conflict.
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