The government must take steps to legally preserve the diversity of Taiwan's multicultural society while simultaneously working toward ethnic reconciliation, said academics and experts at the Ethnic and Cultural Development Conference yesterday.
Future policies should legalize the use and establish the importance of local languages, seek to accurately reflect a multicultural Taiwanese identity and avoid the assimilation-focused policies of the past, they said.
Over 200 participants gathered to talk with academics and political figures in the National Central Library on the first day of the three-day conference sponsored by the Council for Cultural Affairs, Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP), Council for Hakka Affairs, the Ministry of Education and the Veterans Affairs Commission.
In his opening remarks to the conference, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) urged people to forget the mistakes of the past and focus on the future.
He called for mutual acceptance and understanding between ethnic groups in order to work together for a more prosperous Taiwan.
"The ethnic conflict and racism that exists in Taiwanese society comes mainly from the political oppression of the past half century, mistaken ethnic assimilation policies, and unrealistic conditions for a national identity -- not from conflict and biases between ethnic groups," Chen said.
Focus on law
A focus of the conference yesterday was a draft law making all the languages used by ethnic groups in Taiwan national languages.
The proposed national languages development law would guarantee equal respect for all Taiwan-ese tongues, such as Hakka, Hoklo and all Aboriginal languages, Chen said.
The law, emphasized Chen, would not demand that everyone learn all national languages and would establish Mandarin as the official language to be used in government and administrative proceedings, said Chen.
Legal recognition of each dia-lect's status is important, Chen said, because without such recognition "there would still be a long way to go towards ethnic reconciliation."
Chen called on the conference participants to think of a framework for including a promised chapter on ethnic affairs in Chen's proposed new constitution.
In response to Chen's call, conference speakers talked about ways to guarantee ethnic rights and develop local cultures and languages yesterday.
To preserve Aboriginal cultures, the government should draft legislation promising Aboriginal peoples that it will never enact assimilation or ethnic cleansing policies, said Yohani Isqaqavut (
As a further proof of its commitment, the government should recognize the Pingpu people (
Several speakers emphasized the importance of Chen's national languages law as well, pointing out that many minority dialects are dying out.
Dialects dying out
"Although 77 percent of the ethnic Hoklo speak Hoklo at home, about 20 percent speak Mandarin in the home. For the Hakka, the percentage of people speaking Mandarin at home [41] exceeds that of those speaking Hakka [31], and we don't even need to talk about the huge number of Aboriginals that do not speak their native tongue in the home," said Peter Tuin (張學謙), a professor at National Taitung University.
Speakers called for the discontinuation of the term "Taiwanese" as a reference to the Hoklo dialect.
"All Taiwan's languages should be called `Taiwanese,'" said Council of Hakka Affairs Chairman Lo Chao-jin (
Aside from minority representatives speaking at the conference, audience members also spoke up and called for the establishment of a Hoklo cultural council akin to the Council of Hakka Affairs and the CIP.
"Even though the Hoklo people are the majority in Taiwan, that doesn't mean that Hoklo culture and language shouldn't be protected and promoted," said Wei Ming-te (
The Hoklo people and language were also repressed under the KMT government's assimilation policies of the past 50 years, Wei pointed out, a fact that was echoed by numerous other audience members and speakers such as keynote speaker Stephane Corcuff, a visiting scholar at Harvard University's Fairbank Center for East Asian Research.
Search for identity
During his remarks, Corcuff linked Taiwan's cultural debate to its people's continuing struggle with Taiwan's national identity by examining the history behind cross-strait relations.
The connection between one's ethnic group and view of Taiwan's identity as either an independent country or part of a "Republic of China" stems from the arrival of Chiang Kai-hek (
At the time, given the struggle for recognition that both Chiang and the ROC government was facing domestically and internationally, the KMT began to deepen Chinese aspects of Taiwan society and rewrite Taiwanese history, he said.
New consciousness needed
As a result, Taiwanese people have developed differing collective consciousnesses over the course of the past 50 years, Corcuff said.
"If Taiwan wants to keep its ability to preserve civil peace in a future that will probably be more and more tense, it must start right now to imagine a mode of national identification based on citizen's consciousness and to invent a new culture of national allegiance," Corcuff said.
Yesterday's conference sessions were part of the Council of Cultural Affairs' Multicultural Citizens' Festival this weekend.
To learn more about festival events, see the event's Web page at www.cca.gov.tw/cforum/culture_citizen/p2.html.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
Myanmar has turned down an offer of assistance from Taiwanese search-and-rescue teams after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the nation on Friday last week, saying other international aid is sufficient, the National Fire Agency said yesterday. More than 1,700 have been killed and 3,400 injured in the quake that struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Worldwide, 13 international search-and-rescue teams have been deployed, with another 13 teams mobilizing, the agency said. Taiwan’s search-and-rescue teams were on standby, but have since been told to stand down, as