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DPP, KMT are ignoring Aborigines

Ahead of next year's presidential elections, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) has proposed reforming Taiwan and has launched a nationwide trip to listen to grassroots opinion. Meanwhile, the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) nominee Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is scheduled to publish a book outlining his concept of a "new Taiwan" and is planning to give speeches on his pro-localization discourse in colleges and universities across the nation in a bid to attract young voters.

Looking at all this from the perspective of the nation's Aboriginal peoples, both political parties only care about political power, and there is nothing new in their ideas on a future "new Taiwan."

During the 2000 presidential election campaign, Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) signed the New Partnership Treaty Between the Indigenous Peoples and the Government of Taiwan (原住民族和台灣政府新夥伴關係條約). Although the Aboriginal Basic Law (原住民族基本法) was passed in 2005, that law today exists in name only.

For example, a Tsou tribal leader and his son who confiscated honey collected by a Han Chinese man on Aboriginal land in 2003 were prosecuted and convicted. More recently, attempts by Aborigines to safeguard the waters near Orchid Island (蘭嶼) from large-scale fishing by non-Aboriginal-owned vessels have been seen as an unfair restriction. And in April, three Aborigines were sentenced to six months in prison and fined NT$160,000 each because the Forestry Bureau accused them of theft after they removed the remainder of a fallen tree in Smangus, a remote Atayal village in Hsinchu County, in an attempt to maintain their traditional land. These and other incidents are examples of state violence.

Returning to the presidential campaign, Hsieh's proposal to divide Taiwan into six provinces of equal size in a bid to boost competetiveness does not include a blueprint for any self-governed Aboriginal territory. His gesture of donating some books to to an Aboriginal tribe in Beinan Township(卑南鄉), Taitung County, smacks of tokenism.

Meanwhile, the head of the KMT's Culture and Communications Committee, Yang Tu (楊渡), has said that Taiwan is a typical immigrant society that has experienced seven waves of immigration, namely during the Ming dynasty, then under the Dutch and the Spanish, under Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功), during the Qing dynasty, during the Japanese era, under the KMT government, and most recently of foreign spouses. Yu said that all these immigrants have enriched Taiwanese culture.

Not only did this constitute yet an example of how Aborigines were only mentioned in passing, it also failed to mention Taiwan's foreign laborers, while denigrating foreign spouses by putting them at the same level as the KMT regime.

Ma's "new Taiwanese" discourse goes no further than the 1995 "new rising peoples" discourse, which divided Taiwan's population into four major ethnic groups.

Both discourses marginalize Aborigines and ignore foreign laborers.

Hsieh also avoids Aboriginal policy and the issues of immigrants and foreign laborers. He is traveling across Taiwan to secure support for his campaign, not to reform the nation.

In fact, behind both the DPP politicians' deceitful hypocrisy and the KMT politicians' thoughtless ignorance we see how the quest for votes and power makes them care for nothing but putting on a show and doing well in public opinion polls.

Because they want a historic foundation for taking Aboriginal land, they see no need to reflect over the fact that every ruler of Taiwan -- the Spanish, the Dutch, Cheng, the Japanese and the KMT and DPP governments ? has been a colonial ruler.

After taking over Taiwan, they have all exploited the disadvantaged.

This helps to explain why the DPP government is playing on Minnan chauvinism to change Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall into the National Taiwan Democracy Hall, while the KMT feels forced to take ridiculous action in response.

Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) absurdly renamed the section of Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office as "Anti-Corruption Democracy Square," triggering Aboriginal protest. However, nobody has proposed tearing down the statue of Cheng in the Chihkan Tower (赤崁樓) in Tainan to safeguard pro-localization values and Aboriginal values in the name of transitional justice.

Both camps use "think globally, act locally" as their slogans, but are unable to reflect on a future based on human and cultural diversity and cannot appreciate traditional Aboriginal lifestyles and their contributions to environmental protection. They also ignore the human rights of foreign spouses and Southeast Asian workers.

As the presidential election approaches, we get an old discourse on a new Taiwan, with foreign laborers and Aborigines being overlooked. How can we expect such politicians to bring new hope for this land and its people?

Along Chen is an assistant professor in the Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management at Kainan University.

Translated by Eddy Chang
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