It would be illegitimate to grant Aboriginal recognition to the nation’s Pingpu Aborigines, as they chose to be separated from other Aborigines throughout history, the Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP) said yesterday.
The council said in a statement released yesterday that the Pingpu do not meet the criteria to be officially recognized as Aborigines according to the Aboriginal Identity Act (原住民身分法), and that the Provincial Government of Taiwan did not make any mistakes in its call for Aborigines to register their identity in the 1950s and 1960s, “so, the Pingpu cannot legally be granted Aboriginal status.”
Article 2 of the act stipulates that only people who had household registration in Aboriginal regions before World War II, whose parents and grandparents were Aborigines or those who registered their Aboriginal identity in the 1950s and 1960s can be recognized as Aborigines.
PHOTO: CNA
However, many Pingpu argue that they never knew about the Aboriginal registration either because their families never received the notice, or because they didn’t consider themselves “mountain people” — the official term for “Aborigines” before 1994 — since they have always lived on flat land.
“In fact, throughout the course of history from the Qing Dynasty up until now, the Pingpu chose to live with the Han people, making them different from other Aborigines,” the council’s statement said. “If they want to become part of the family now, they should respect other Aborigines and not act like the ‘homeless beggar who kicked out the temple administrator.’”
The “homeless beggar” analogy is commonly used in Taiwanese to refer to a situation in which a person tries to get rid of and take the place of someone who once helped them.
“The Pingpu claim to be Aborigines, but they do not share the same historical legacy and lack interaction with Aborigines,” the statement said. “If the Pingpu are doing so in order to gain access to resources, we would like to ask a question: Did you, the Pingpu, stand with Aborigines when the Aborigines resisted Han domination?”
The statement said the CIP was created to serve all Aborigines, but not the Pingpu.
“We sympathize with the Pingpu for the loss of their languages and culture, and believe that the government should do something to make up for the injustice that they suffered — but it’s not the CIP’s responsibility,” the statement said.
The CIP released the statement in response to a demonstration outside the council headquarters in Taipei by around 100 activists seeking Pingpu Aboriginal status.
The Pingpu are made up of various Aboriginal tribes who used to inhabit flat regions across the country.
The Pingpu “disappeared” as they were culturally assimilated by intense interaction and intermarriage with Han migrants from China over the past 400 years.
In recent decades, Pingpu activists launched a campaign to restore their tribal identity and gain government recognition of their Aboriginal status.
Tuan Hung-kun (段洪坤), convener of the Tainan County Alliance of Siraya Communities, was upset by the council’s statement.
“I wonder how they would feel and what they would say if, 10 years from now, some of the Aboriginal tribes lost their culture because they had too much interaction with non-Aborigines,” Tuan said.
Taiwan Aboriginal Society chairman Wang Ming-hui (汪明輝) of the Tsou tribe said that a government agency should not make such statements.
“Some Pingpu may have worked with the Han during history, but they were forced to do so — they didn’t have a choice,” Wang said. “The CIP should be more open-minded about what the Pingpu want.”
“I am an [officially recognized] Aborigine and I welcome my Pingpu brothers and sisters to join us,” he said.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C
RSS