Taiwan Church News

3381 Edition

December 12 - 18, 2016

Church Ministry

Council Of Indigenous Peoples Held International Conference On Taiwan's Aboriginal Policy

Reported by Chiu Kuo-rong

In order to review Taiwan's current aboriginal policy and celebrate the 20 anniversary of the establishment of Council of Indigenous Peoples(CIP) under Taiwan's Legislative Yuan, an international conference, entitled as "The Indigenous Administrations and Legal Systems International Conference: Comparisons among Taiwan, United States, and Canada", was held at Hsin-chuan district of New Taipei City on 9 December, 2016. Six CIP high-ranking officials also attended this conference to co-host and respond different issues raised by the engaged scholars and the participating audience.

Based on his comparative studies betweenCanada and Taiwan, investigating their respective aboriginal agency and related administrations, Dr Kuan Da-wei, an associate professor of department of ethnology at National Cheng-Chi University, reported his findings toward his two problematics: (1)what is the ideal of a legal joint-government for both a central government and her subordinate aboriginal autonomy? (2) how to proceed a better management after natural disasters like typhoon, mud-slides, and etc devastated the aboriginal society within a country?

On the legal basis of a joint-government for a central government and her respective aboriginal autonomy, which played acritical role to set up an aboriginal reserve area, Dr Kwan pointed out that such basis was done via a long term of negotiations in Canada, while in Taiwan it was stipulated to be exclusively designed and worked out by central government.

It is hard to tell, though, which model is better, i.e. a long term of negotiation vs central planning, but the advantages of Canadianmodel through a long term negotiation are that the aboriginal became a real party owning subjective dominance over this joint-government, observed Dr Kuan, adding that a seeming efficient but actually idle administration in Taiwan's central government not only obstruct the delivery of a joint-government but also place an intolerably administrative limit on many aboriginal rights which had already been granted by The Indigenous Peoples Basic Laws.

As to the question, how to do a better management after natural catastrophes, Dr Kuan reminded the audience that,as shown in his studies of the experiences of Canadian government, it is not enough to restore the infrastructures only after natural disasters had happened. The point is to keep functional a social network within the aboriginal society, indicated Dr Kuan, meaning that an efficiently horizontal communication between central government's agencies and a perpendicular integration to include aboriginal cultures, knowledge, and resources would be the best option in need!

Mr Alang Manglavan, director of Public Construction Department of CIP, affirmed Dr Kuan's findings and suggestion to ease the devastating post-trauma via a constructive research into the social contexts of the aboriginal cultures. Among 748 aboriginal tribes across Taiwan, now there were 47 tribes extremely vulnerable to their environmental danger like earthquake, typhoon, and mud-slides etc, reported Alang Manglavan, adding that these were the aborigines desperately needed to be supported by a conservative policy - the victimized aborigines could leave the damaged household or tribe location, yet never leave their valley or mountain - which is full of aboriginal wisdom!

Translated by Peter Wolfe