Though ethnic issues in Taiwan are highly sensitive and emotional, a seminar attended by scholars and lawmakers yesterday shows that a rational and serious discussion on the matter is possible.
While Taiwanese people are talking about ethnic reconciliation, a high-ranking Hakka official said yesterday that reconciliation must not come at the price of a minority group's culture.
"Minority ethnic groups can only accept equality, goodwill and mutual respect, not ethnic integration," said Executive Yuan Hakka Committee member Yang Chang-chen (
For minority groups, ethnic integration (族群融合) implies their complete absorption by an overwhelming majority.
In a bid to bridge gaps and promote rational dialogue between ethnic groups, the Peacetime Foundation of Taiwan (台灣促進和平基金會) organized a seminar in which officials and scholars with different ethnic origins took part.
The conference began with a skit in which Chinese, Hakka, Tai-wanese Aborigines, foreigners, Hokklo people and foreign laborers pointed their fingers at each other for promoting negative stereotypes of various ethnic groups.
In the skit the mainland Chinese were stereoptyped as being "hypocritical and cunning," Hakka people as "selfish and stingy," the Hokklo people as "stupid and vulgar," while the Taiwanese Aborigines were portrayed as "lazy and alcoholic."
As a Taiwanese Aborigine, outgoing DPP legislator Payen Talu (巴燕達魯) complained that, for a long time, under whatever regime, Taiwanese Aborigines have never gained respect or received enough resources from the government.
"In our textbooks, there is not a single word to illustrate the culture of Taiwanese Aborigines. As a result of this, ethnic identity has become a serious problem among Aborigines."
Payen Talu said the reason why he joined the DPP was because he wanted to get involved in the process of Taiwan's democratization. "I don't want the Aborigines to be absent in this process," Payen Talu said.
However, Payen Talu lost in the Dec.1 election and blamed his defeat on the division of the Aborigines into subgroups, which jeopardized the chances of stronger candidates getting elected. "The Aborigines are pushed to the periphery in all fields of Taiwanese society," Payen Talu said.
Yang said that the Mandarin-language movement pushed by the KMT since 1949 has oppressed the Hakka language.
"Only when such historical pain is understood can reconciliation be possible," Yang said.
But, "if every ethnic group focuses only on its own pain, reconciliation cannot be accomplished," Yang said.
Ng Chiautong (黃昭堂), chairman of the World United Formosans for Independence, said the impression that his group cannot tolerate ethnic differences was not true.
Ng said that what really causes stress in the Taiwanese independence movement is the issue of national identity, rather than ethnic identity.
"People who identify themselves with Taiwan are our friends, and those who identify with the People's Republic of China are our enemies," Ng said. For Ng, there are only two ethnic groups in Taiwan -- Chinese and Taiwanese.
Kuo Li-hsin (郭力昕), a lecturer in the Department of Radio and Television at National Chengchi University, said that it is only through respecting ethnic differences that various ethnic groups can live together peacefully.
Kuo said that, as a second-generation mainlander, he believes the first step in reconciliation is "for the mainlanders to admit their original sin (原罪) and the wounds the mainlanders inflicted on indigenous Taiwanese people in the past."
"We have to face our original sin and develop a self-examination mechanism in our mind. Then the bias and discrimination can be removed," Kuo added.
Chiang Wen-yu (
Chiang stressed that the media in Taiwan have created three false images. The first is the image of Taiwan as being a disastrous society -- through broadcasting horrible images on TV 24 hours a day. The second is to exaggerate the importance of Taipei by ignoring other places in Taiwan. The third is the exaggeration of Beijing's influence by constantly broadcasting Chinese officials' threats to Taiwan.
"These factors become a bone of contention among different ethnic groups during election periods," Chiang said.
The scholar concluded that the media is responsible for for exacerbating ethnic conflict.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS