For decades, the Republic of China (ROC) government in Taiwan did its best to suppress Hoklo, otherwise known as Taiwanese. The language had been here for hundreds of years, ever since Chinese immigrants started arriving from Fujian Province. The means of suppression were absolute — no television broadcasts in Hoklo, Mandarin was to be spoken in the workplace, government officials spoke in the accepted language and children would be fined if they were caught speaking a local dialect at school.
Things have changed.
Taiwan has had two presidents who speak Mandarin as a second language — one of whom has a thick Hoklo accent. Numerous television programs are broadcast in Hoklo, schools teach the language to children who only speak Mandarin and it is no longer considered shameful to speak the language in the workplace.
However, in China today, things are going in the opposite direction. The government there is stepping up efforts to suppress Cantonese, much like the ROC did to Hoklo. A political advisory group in Guangdong Province recently suggested that local TV stations broadcast their prime-time programs in Mandarin instead of Cantonese ahead of the Asian Games — to be held in November — as a way to promote unity, create a good language environment and help non-Cantonese speakers.
However, this “suggestion” has been interpreted by many as an attempt to relegate the language of an entire population to second-class status, causing dissent.
It might seem like a good idea for the entire population of a country to speak the same language — it’s easier to communicate, education costs less and it is harder for ethnic divisions to form — but the fact is that in most countries, different communities speak different languages and therefore learn to become bilingual to communicate with their neighbors.
If language is nothing but a tool for communication, doesn’t it follow that having more than one tool is better than having just one? Being multilingual is a strength that should be promoted for the good of a nation.
Giving a language spoken by so many a secondary status only serves to weaken a nation because it pushes the people who speak that language to the bottom of the social hierarchy, causing them to resist the very government that is trying to promote unity.
Instead of heavy-handedly stepping on a language that more than an estimated 70 million Chinese citizens speak, Beijing should seek to promote multiculturalism inside its borders. This could be done by not simply pushing the official language over all others in education, government and mass media. People should be given the choice to express themselves in the language that they prefer, not the language that the state prefers. The alternative is to turn native Cantonese speakers into second-class citizens, in much the way Spanish-speaking people in the US have been marginalized for years because the language they speak at home is not the officially promoted language of the country. In an even more extreme case, the Kurds of Turkey were denied a popular outlet for their language for many decades, which in no small part has led to a violent campaign for their own independent homeland.
In the end, the result of attempting to squash a language is the same — marginalization, alienation and dissent. Recognizing the value of a language, promoting its use and giving its native speakers respect gains their trust and loyalty.
Banning Hoklo in Taiwan made people feel less loyalty toward the ROC, because its official language was alien. Giving Hoklo the respect it deserves went a long way toward healing the rift between the older generations of Taiwanese and the newer Chinese arrivals. China could learn much by studying the Taiwanese experience with the politics of language.
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under