The recent uproar over offensive comments posted online by former official Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英) has sparked a lot of discussion about ethnic prejudice, with many people suggesting that Taiwan needs an ethnic equality law. However, it is doubtful whether the ideal of ethnic equality could be effectively brought about through such legislation.
The notion of ethnic equality touches upon almost every aspect of life. While it is an ideal worth striving for, it is hard to define in legal terms. For example, the concept of ethnic equality ought to include economic equality. Should we then take wealth from better-off ethnic groups to subsidize those that are, on average, not so well off?
I think the ideal of ethnic equality would be more effectively put into practice through other laws that are more concrete and easier to implement, although long-term education is also necessary. The most important feature of such a body of legislation would be a language equality law.
Generally speaking, language is the most important basis for an ethnic group’s existence and for its cultural and social survival. Communities identify themselves by their languages and take pride in them.
These days, elementary schools provide mother-tongue classes. Multilingual announcements can be heard on public transportation. There are radio and television programs and Web sites in languages other than Mandarin and these other languages are spoken in councils and the legislature.
These may lead some people to ask if this means that Taiwan now has freedom of expression for other languages. Of course not. All the examples mentioned above only show that the government has stopped enforcing Mandarin and suppressing other tongues.
We are still a long way from seeing equal respect accorded to Taiwan’s languages. The most important point of a language equality law would be to give all the nation’s tongues equal official status — in the Constitution, at all levels of government and at all official occasions.
From the perspective of users of the different languages, the advantage would be that someone who is most at home speaking Rukai, for example, would, in Rukai-speaking areas, be able to make official inquiries in Rukai, and the government department in question would be obliged to find someone who understands Rukai to deal with the matter.
This would make knowledge of Rukai an advantage in the workplace, so more people would want to learn it. Then the Rukai language and Rukai culture would be enriched and passed on to younger generations.
When all community languages are respected by the state and can be used on all kinds of formal and important occasions, then speakers of all languages will be able to speak out in their own tongues with dignity and assurance.
Only then will linguistic prejudice between different communities gradually disappear — and that means non-Aborigines’ prejudice against Aborigines as well as the tendency for fluent Mandarin speakers to look down on those who are not.
Chi Chun-chieh is an associate professor at the Institute of Ethnic Relations at National Dong Hwa University.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
Taiwanese pragmatism has long been praised when it comes to addressing Chinese attempts to erase Taiwan from the international stage. “Taipei” and the even more inaccurate and degrading “Chinese Taipei,” imposed titles required to participate in international events, are loathed by Taiwanese. That is why there was huge applause in Taiwan when Japanese public broadcaster NHK referred to the Taiwanese Olympic team as “Taiwan,” instead of “Chinese Taipei” during the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. What is standard protocol for most nations — calling a national team by the name their country is commonly known by — is impossible for
China’s supreme objective in a war across the Taiwan Strait is to incorporate Taiwan as a province of the People’s Republic. It follows, therefore, that international recognition of Taiwan’s de jure independence is a consummation that China’s leaders devoutly wish to avoid. By the same token, an American strategy to deny China that objective would complicate Beijing’s calculus and deter large-scale hostilities. For decades, China has cautioned “independence means war.” The opposite is also true: “war means independence.” A comprehensive strategy of denial would guarantee an outcome of de jure independence for Taiwan in the event of Chinese invasion or
A recent Taipei Times editorial (“A targeted bilingual policy,” March 12, page 8) questioned how the Ministry of Education can justify spending NT$151 million (US$4.74 million) when the spotlighted achievements are English speech competitions and campus tours. It is a fair question, but it focuses on the wrong issue. The problem is not last year’s outcomes failing to meet the bilingual education vision; the issue is that the ministry has abandoned the program that originally justified such a large expenditure. In the early years of Bilingual 2030, the ministry’s K-12 Administration promoted the Bilingual Instruction in Select Domains Program (部分領域課程雙語教學實施計畫).
Former Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry spoke at the Yushan Forum in Taipei on Monday, saying that while global conflicts were causing economic strife in the world, Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy (NSP) serves as a stabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific region and offers strategic opportunities for small island nations such as Fiji, as well as support in the fields of public health, education, renewable energy and agricultural technology. Taiwan does not have official diplomatic relations with Fiji, but it is one of the small island nations covered by the NSP. Chaudhry said that Fiji, as a sovereign nation, should support
RSS