Taiwan Church News

3309 Edition

July 27 - August 2, 2015

Editorial

How Can We The Aboriginal Keep Silent?

To express respect to the global aboriginal cultures, UN designate the annual August 9 as "The International Dayof the World's Indigenous Peoples" since 2005. Mr. Ban Ki Moon, the Secretary-General of United Nations, also said: "The world’s indigenous peoples have preserved a vast amount of humanity’s cultural history...But we must do even more. Indigenous peoples still experience racism, poor health and disproportionate poverty." Therefore, the human rights of the indigenous peoples is always deemed as an important index about the human rights development in each country.

In June 2013, when the former KMT Honorary Chairman Wu Po-hsiung met Xi Jinping, General Secretary of theChinese Communist Party, Wu said flatteringly that "people have no rights to choose their ancestor". Following his thought, the aboriginal peoples in Taiwan named as the Austronesian peoples are all the Chinese! Is that right?

Even the aboriginals in Taiwan is collectively enlisted as the 56th minority people in China. No wonder, the KMTPresident candidate Hung Hsiu-chu would propose her reckless China policy as "One China, Same Interpretation" to please China. The aboriginal peoples are the host of this island, kinds of exodus refugees persecuted by their mother governments were well received and healed through this amazing land with generous peoples. How come this home could be sold to the other country, once the adopted ones got the political power. What kind of logic it is?

Under Ma Ying-jeou's administration, the indigenous policy not only could not improve the quality of life or promotethe economic benefits for the aboriginal people, but import volumes of cheap agricultural products to batter the fragile aboriginal economy. The aboriginal conservation areas, like mountain, coast, lake and river suitable to develop tourism industry, were awarded to big corporations in the name of BOT. All these counter-productive policies seriously suppress the development and well-beings of the aboriginal peoples in Taiwan.

Ghandi once said, "I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any." Ken Hale, the distinguished MIT linguistics professor, once said that the loss of a language is the loss of a whole intellectual life and a culture. Especially, “The death of a language,” he added, “is a disaster. It’s as if someone had dropped a bomb on the Louvre.” Contrasting these wise sayings with the impending "K-12 curriculum" and "new curriculum guidelines", it makes us heart broken to learn the aboriginal languages courses are going to cut short to increase more lessons about the Chinese culture, history and classic language. In the eyes of the Chinese, the aboriginal cultures, histories and languages in Taiwan are perhaps no more than outdated odds and ends in some alien culture!

In recent days, especially when the high school students stand up fighting for their own rights of education, how can we as the aboriginal in Taiwan keep silent? Like the youth pledge that "This is our own country, we will save it by our own strength!", we the aboriginal shall also boldly respond "This is our own people, we will save it by our own strength!" As the Scripture said in Genesis 1:26-27 & 2:7, "God created humankind in his image, according to his likeness; God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man become a living being", every people in God's eye is so precious and unique. Therefore, we should respect and learn from each other.