Atayal writer and activist Walis Nokan criticized the government’s policy toward Aborigines as “welfare colonialism,” saying that it was doing Aboriginal communities more harm than good.
Walis said he wanted to remind government officials and social organizations that if they really want to help Aborigines, they should first talk to the people to find out what they need, then adopt an encouraging approach to help those communities achieve their goals.
The Atayal writer made the remarks at the launch of his new book, City Cruelty (城市殘酷), in Greater Taichung on Saturday. The book contains stories of maladjustment and other problems that Aborigines experience when they migrate to urban centers in search of employment.
Photo: Hsieh Feng-chiu, Taipei Times
“Aborigines in Taiwan have been under colonial rule for more than 100 years. However, the free subsidies and general welfare programs available to Aborigines are not a good remedy for their problems,” said Walis, who worked many years in education and is an activist for Aboriginal societies.
“Under current policies, when fruit crops planted by Aborigine communities do not sell well, the government gives them benefits and subsidies for school tuition fee and financial aid for school lunches,” he said. “This kind of ‘welfare colonialism’ has created dependency among Aboriginals because they do not have to work hard and can still receive generous benefits and subsidies from the state. It also leads some to neglect their familial responsibilities, which are then passed on to teachers and social workers.”
“In some Aboriginal communities, even breakfasts are donated by philanthropic groups, so parents no longer have to provide breakfast to their children,” he added.
“For example, in the elementary school where I teach, students get free breakfast every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Yet because these students’ parents no longer have to provide breakfast, some students are not given anything to eat on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. This is one way in which overly generous welfare programs have created irresponsible parents,” Walis said.
In the past, parents worried about not being able to pay their children’s tuition fees, but now they worry that their kids will not have breakfast or lunch when they are not in school, Walis said.
He added that many well-intentioned people often donate old books to Aboriginal communities, but that he has noticed that most of these second-hand books do not interest the students.
“When I was managing the school library, I asked friends in the city to buy new books and mail them to schools in Aboriginal mountain villages. When I announced that new books were coming, students would line up eagerly to borrow them. Having more current, exciting material is the most effective way to arouse children’s interest in reading,” he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching