Politicially correct slogans easily win universal support among the public. Politicians and community leaders therefore never forget to holler a few such slogans when appearing in public, claiming that they will take some practical action to achieve the goals expressed in the slogans.
While they may be moving at an idealistic level, these slogans are impossible or difficult to act upon or are unsuitable for implementation. Loudly voicing these slogans may therefore bring the opposite social result from the message that is voiced. The "ethnic integration" slogan that has been bandied about in the wake of the presidential election is one such slogan.
As the name implies, "ethnic amalgamation" implies a blending of people with different ethnic backgrounds that in the end will create a situation where "you are me, and I am you" and where no one can recognize their own original ethnic background.
Although such a social ideal may move people, it is in fact undesirable. If ethnic amalgamation really becomes an implemented policy, it could be a violation of human rights, and it could also be in direct violation of the Constitution. Clause 9, Article 10 in the June 1997 constitutional amendment, states that "The State affirms cultural pluralism and shall actively preserve and foster the development of aboriginal languages and cultures." In other words, the Constitution guarantees the rights of indigenous peoples (which can be extended to include other ethnic groups) to develop their languages and cultures, and does not want them to be arbitrarily blended with Taiwan's other ethnic groups.
I believe that the reason why "ethnic amalgamation" could become accepted as a politically correct slogan was the mistaken myth that the US is a great ethnic melting pot, and that this melting pot can serve as an educational example for ethnically troubled nations and regions around the world. The US has never been an ethnic melting pot, and the more than 200 years of US ethnic politics cannot be used as an educational example for other nations.
Israel Zangwill's 1908 play The Melting Pot describes a love story between a Russian Jew and a Russian Cossack. Although the play did not live on for long, its name became an image for the American nation. However, although the US indeed deserves the melting-pot image when it comes to the descendants of European immigrants, all similar peoples with similar languages, this melting pot does not melt the other non-European immigrants and native Americans.
This is also the reason why, half a century after The Melting Pot, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. had to make his softly accusing and moving speech "I have a dream." His dream was this: "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. ... I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Today we see these as simple and humble demands (although if King had been living in contemporary Taiwan, he would have added "or the amount of media exposure they are accorded" after "the color of their skin.")
Although today there are more African Americans in the US that can meet white Americans on equal terms, we must not forget the majority of areas that never make it into the limelight. White and black Americans still live under a substantially racially segregated system, and many native Americans still live in poverty on reservations. The ideological point of view that the US is a great ethnic melting pot has long allowed mainstream society (white Protestants and Catholics) to ignore the marginalization of groups outside the mainstream, and even advocate the idea that "it is your own problem if you don't blend in, not society's" based on their firm belief in the false melting-pot idea.
Fortunately, from the 1970s onward, mainstream society stopped praising the melting-pot idea, replacing it with the promotion of multiculturalism and the "salad bowl" metaphor, which sees people as the individual pieces of lettuce, peppers, carrots or corn that give the salad its special character. It is this combination of characteristic flavors (not a melting-together of flavors) that make up the special American bowl of salad.
In 1997, Taiwan affirmed the value of cultural pluralism in an amendment to the Constitution. Academia Sinica scholar Chang Mao-kuei (
In response to the social division and disorder following on the presidential election, many politicians have once again brought out the anachronistic, outdated (and possibly unconstitutional) "ethnic amalgamation" slogan, trying to turn it into a target of public worship. This is a true reversal of development toward a diverse democratic society.
What Taiwan needs today is the energetic promotion of reconciliation between ethnic groups and the elimination of historic and structural injustices together with active affirmation, respect and praise of the culture of each group, and not a prostration before an ethnic unification idol.
Chi Chun-chieh is an associate professor at National Dong-Hwa University. Translated by Perry Svensson
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