Leaders from local Hakka groups yesterday slammed former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Wu Po-hsiung (吳伯雄) for calling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) a “pseudo-Hakka” and demanded that the KMT apologize for what they called its past policy of “linguistic genocide.”
Representatives from various groups and two DPP legislative candidates in Hakka constituencies demanded that Wu — a Hakka — and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who doubles as KMT chairman, apologize for the party’s suppression of languages other than Mandarin during the Martial Law era.
They also called for the establishment of a native language monument to remind Taiwanese of the long period of suppression in Taiwan.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
“Ma and Wu should be ashamed of themselves for being accomplices of the suppression, a serious crime against humanity,” Taiwan Hakka Society chairman Chang Yeh-shen (張葉森) said.
The leaders held the press conference in response to comments by Wu, who told a rally in support of Ma’s re-election campaign on Sunday that Tsai was a “pseudo- Hakka” because she could not speak Hakka and had not spoken it in more than 50 years.
Many people are not able to speak their mother tongue, such as Hakka, Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese) or any of the Aboriginal languages because the KMT only promoted Mandarin and prohibited the use of other languages for decades, Chang said.
In 1988, Wu, who served as minister of the interior and was regarded as a top Hakka politician at the time, and then-Cabinet member Ma did nothing to assist a Hakka awareness movement that had emerged that year and did not stop the KMT from the “Nazi-like” suppression of native languages and cultures, Chang said.
“It is ironic that now Wu is accusing people of not speaking fluent Hakka and Ma is busy telling people that he is Hakka, when he is not,” Chang said.
What really matters to Hakka, the second-largest ethnic group in Taiwan behind Hoklo, is whether a candidate is committed to promoting Hakka culture rather than his or her language proficiency, said Yiong Cong-ziin (楊長鎮), a DPP legislative candidate in Miaoli County.
“Ma, Wu and the KMT should look themselves in the mirror and think hard about why [Taiwan] was able to preserve Hakka and Hoklo during the Japanese colonial period [from 1895 to 1945], but it almost failed to survive the Martial Law period,” he said.
Huang Jen-shu (黃仁杼), a DPP legislative candidate in Taoyuan County, said several factors could contribute to or impair one’s Hakka proficiency, adding that lack of language proficiency should never be regarded as a “cardinal sin.”
Huang said that if Wu failed to apologize for his comments, he did not rule out organizing a protest in front of KMT headquarters.
The KMT would be the last political party to brag about its contribution to Hakka people, Taiwanese Hakka Association of the World chairman Peter Lo (羅能平) said.
“From what I’ve seen, the DPP established the Council for Hakka Affairs and the Hakka Television Service and it was committed to promoting cultural diversity during its eight years in power, while the KMT has done nothing in the past six decades,” Lo said.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
‘OF COURSE A COUNTRY’: The president outlined that Taiwan has all the necessary features of a nation, including citizens, land, government and sovereignty President William Lai (賴清德) discussed the meaning of “nation” during a speech in New Taipei City last night, emphasizing that Taiwan is a country as he condemned China’s misinterpretation of UN Resolution 2758. The speech was the first in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to give across Taiwan. It is the responsibility of Taiwanese citizens to stand united to defend their national sovereignty, democracy, liberty, way of life and the future of the next generation, Lai said. This is the most important legacy the people of this era could pass on to future generations, he said. Lai went on to discuss
MISSION: The Indo-Pacific region is ‘the priority theater,’ where the task of deterrence extends across the entire region, including Taiwan, the US Pacific Fleet commander said The US Navy’s “mission of deterrence” in the Indo-Pacific theater applies to Taiwan, Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Stephen Koehler told the South China Sea Conference on Tuesday. The conference, organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), is an international platform for senior officials and experts from countries with security interests in the region. “The Pacific Fleet’s mission is to deter aggression across the Western Pacific, together with our allies and partners, and to prevail in combat if necessary, Koehler said in the event’s keynote speech. “That mission of deterrence applies regionwide — including the South China Sea and Taiwan,” he
UNPRECEDENTED: In addition to the approved recall motions, cases such as Ma Wen-chun’s in Nantou are still under review, while others lack enough signatures The Central Election Commission (CEC) announced yesterday that a recall vote would take place on July 26, after it approved the first batch of recall motions targeting 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安). Taiwan is in the midst of an unprecedented wave of mass recall campaigns, following a civil society push that echoed a call made by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) in January to initiate signature drives aimed at unseating KMT legislators. Under the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), Taiwanese can initiate a recall of district-elected lawmakers by collecting
RSS