The Taipei Summer Universiade has brought the subject of the rectification of the nation’s name to “Taiwan” back into focus, and civic groups have held a number of events in support of “name rectification.”
However, there is not a consensus on what this means. The broader pro-independence momement has two viewpoints on name rectification.
One view is that Taiwan must establish itself as a completely new country, and that merely “rectifying” the name of the nation from the Republic of China (ROC) to Taiwan would be little more than “changing the broth without changing the herbs.”
In truth, the name rectification movement is part of a more comprehensive socio-cultural deconstruction and reconstruction.
The rectification of the nation’s name is a process of rejecting the given name and seeking to regain the nation’s own agency. It is not, and never has been, about simply changing the name by which the nation is referred to.
Colonialists seek, through a social deconstruction of the colonized, to replace their social framework with one that is beneficial to the colonial regime.
Taiwan has undergone this very process over the past century and especially since the ROC regime of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) arrived at the end of World War II.
That regime destroyed the diverse social structure in Taiwan and the ethnic identities therein and established in its place a monolithic Chinese national imagination and a contrived sense of identity with China.
Present name rectification movements, including those on the level of ethnicity, localization and national identity, all want to divest the country of the Chinese ethnic framework and return Taiwan to its original framework of diverse ethnic identities.
The naming of a country is one way in which colonialists exert ideological control and assimilate the local populace.
Kaohsiung’s Namasiya District (那瑪夏) is an example of this. It was long ago named Sanmin Township (三民) by the KMT regime and divided into three villages named Minzu (民族), Mincyuan (民權) and Minsheng (民生), a reference to ROC founder Sun Yat-sen’s (孫逸仙) “Three Principles of the People,” namely nationalism, democracy and livelihood.
It was not until 2007 that the district was renamed Namasiya, a phonetic transcription of the name of a traditional local figure, and the three villages called Nanisaru (南沙魯), Maya (瑪雅) and Takanuwa (塔卡努瓦).
Rectification movements such as the one that saw the renaming of Namasiya are about much more than changing the name of a place. Name rectification includes researching the forebears of local residents, discovering local history and establishing a link between the locals and the area.
On the micro-level it includes individuals’ mental states and ethical values, seeking to answer “who am I?” and “who are we?”
Many examples of this kind of name rectification movement, be it of ethnic or social groups, have occurred over the past decades.
The Taiwan name rectification movement is radical in nature, starting from toppling the very social structure and inculcating an identification with the locality and an ethnic group. If this is achieved, a change in national identity would follow as a matter of course.
From name rectification for a local area to the national level, these movements are appearing gradually. This is how the colonial social structure will be deconstructed and reconstructed anew.
As these converge, the nation’s politics will transform, forming the most persuasive force for Taiwan to achieve real autonomy and enabling it to become a normalized, independent nation.
Chen Chia-lin is deputy director of public relations for the Taiwan Solidarity Union.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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