A group of Aborigines yesterday protested in front of the Ministry of Education (MOE) building in Taipei, calling for an end to what the protesters called colonial assimilation education and deploring the China-centered and Han-centered history perspective instilled by the Republic of China (ROC) government since its arrival in Taiwan in 1949.
The ministry’s recent announcement of adjustments to be made to the high-school history curriculum, and the way they were decided upon, have set off a furor among the political opposition parties and in education and culture circles.
More than a dozen Aboriginal awareness groups joined the protest yesterday, criticizing repression by “alien regimes, of which the ROC is the ongoing one,” and the continuing deprivation of Aboriginal people’s rights to their languages and lands.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
“We spoke Japanese, but we were not imperial subjects; we speak Mandarin, but we are not yan huang zisun (炎黃子孫, descendants of emperors Yan and Huang),” Taiwan Aboriginal Society chairman Tibusungu Vayayana (汪明輝) said.
Yan huang zisun is a phrase used by the Chinese government and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to refer to a common ancestry among people of Chinese ethnicity.
“The 14 official Aboriginal tribes and those that have not been adequately recognized in Taiwan are not ‘the 56th ethnic minority group of China,’” he said, responding to a claim made by a member of the pro-China Anti-Independence-Oriented-History Front last week.
“We belong to the world’s indigenous community,” he said. “Studies have suggested that Taiwan was the place of origin of all Austronesian-speaking people.”
Tibusungu called for an autonomous education system for the Aboriginal people to “return the children back to their home in their native land,” citing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, ROC Constitution and the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act (原住民族基本法), which affirm or vow to protect cultural plurality and indigenous people’s autonomy.
Pangcah/Amis Guarding Union representative Daong said the “Han-centered textbooks” oversimplify and largely ignore the history of the nation’s Aborigines.
“The history textbook, for example, talks about Qing official Shen Bao-zhen’s (沈葆楨) policy of ‘Opening up the Mountains and Pacifying the Aborigines’ (開山撫番), but fails to mention the Kaliawan Incident in 1877” that resulted in the near extinction of the Kebalan and Sakizaya tribes, he said.
He brought up a list of rebellions and battles involving Aborigines fighting against invasive regimes that are “unfamiliar even to the ears of children of the tribes involved.”
Huang Chih-huei (黃智慧), chairwoman of the Millet Foundation, which aims to promote and preserve Aboriginal cultures, criticized the ministry’s claim that the curriculum has to abide by the Constitution.
“The government touted the ROC’s 103th birthday this year. How transient that is compared with the whole history of Taiwan. Not to mention that the history of the ROC Constitution, promulgated in 1946, is even shorter,” she said. “The Constitution is a product of history, not the other way around. It is just preposterous to say that history-writing has to follow the Constitution.”
Atayal priest Omi Wilang said they were told when they were young to be “proud Chinese” and tribes were forced to take up Chinese last names.
Saying that the adjusted curriculum is again inculcating the anachronistic notion of “a monolithic ‘Chineseness,’” he accused the ministry of degenerating into a “political hatchet man.”
Kao Ming-chi (高明智) of the Katripulr tribe, representing the Taiwan First Nations Party — the political party formed in 2012 for the rights of Aborigines, said that “the ROC government has problems understanding us even when we have long been speaking their language.”
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was questioned by prosecutors for allegedly orchestrating an attack on a taxi driver after he was allegedly driven on a longer than necessary route in a car he disliked. The questioning at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office was ongoing as of press time last night. Police have recommended charges of attempted murder. The legally embattled actor — known for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代) — is under a separate investigation for allegedly using fake medical documents to evade mandatory military service. According to local media reports, police said Wang earlier last year ordered a
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
President William Lai (賴清德) should protect Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), and stop supporting domestic strife and discord, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrote on Facebook yesterday. US President Donald Trump and TSMC on Monday jointly announced that the company would invest an additional US$100 billion over the next few years to expand its semiconductor manufacturing operations in the US. The TSMC plans have promoted concern in Taiwan that it would effectively lead to the chipmaking giant becoming Americanized. The Lai administration lacks tangible policies to address concerns that Taiwan might follow in Ukraine’s footsteps, Ma wrote. Instead, it seems to think it could
RSS