Michael Rudolph 2006:

“From Forced Assimilation to Cultural Revitalization: Taiwan's Aborigines and their Role in Taiwan Nativism”.

In: Barry Sautman (ed) 2006, Cultural Genocide and Asian State Peripheries, New York: Macmillan Palgrave (ISBN-10: 1-4039-7574-4), p. 63-102.

Abstract

If the uninformed reader looks at the manifests and pieces of documentary literature written and published by members of Taiwan’s aboriginal elite in the course of the 1990s, he can easily get the impression that all endeavours of Taiwan`s Han to create a democratic Taiwan vis-à-vis the mainland’s authoritarian rule were in vain: Charges of ‘internal colonialism’ and ‘forced assimilation’ of Taiwan’s aboriginal people, ‘intentional destruction’ of their cultures and languages by the Han-government, and even of ‘political persecution’ and ‘genocide’ are no rarity.

The image suggested by this terminology hardly matches with the fact that all these accusations can be openly discussed and published in Taiwan, nor does it match with the long list of successes aboriginal elites proudly presented in the years after 1990, including the increase of reservation land (1990), the increase of the number of political representatives (1992), the recognition of the aboriginal status of Aborigines and their self-chosen name in the constitution (1994), the right for rehabilitation of personal names (1995), as well as the implementation of mandatory Aboriginal mother-languages education (1996) and the implementation of the Council of Aboriginal Affairs (1996), only to name a few.

This article on the one hand discusses the political background that made these successes possible. The influence of Taiwan’s anthropologists, the Christian church, the political opposition, but also the nativist tendencies within the ruling KMT-government were important factors. On the other hand, the article investigates the reasons for the harsh and drastic undertones in the voices of aboriginal elites. Besides the contention that several problems still need to be solved - like the nuclear waste problem on Lanyu or the economic misery of Taiwan’s aborigines in general - and that competing aboriginal leaders often tend to put some stress on these deficiencies in order to appear more convincing in their activities, I also argue that the use of a rough and sometimes exaggerated language is `part of the play` in Taiwan, where aboriginal elites in a Fanonian sense try to display an undominated aboriginal ‘subjectivity’ (zhutixing) and where Han elites do not mind that some light is shed on the liberal handling of ethnic politics in a multi-cultural Taiwan, where anything can be said and any voice can be heard.

Keywords: Taiwan Aborigines, ethnic elites, cultural genocide, aboriginal subjectivity

Barry Sautman in his introduction to the volume (Sautman 2006: 17):

In the 1990s, liberalization in Taiwan included the provision of rights to aborigines, such as increased reservation land and political representation, mother tongue education, and the establishment of cultural institutions. Aboriginal elites nevertheless continued to charge the KMT regime with genocide and ethnocide. Michael Rudolph explains that the use of such “rough and sometimes exaggerated language” was part of efforts by aboriginal elites to establish their own subjectivity and to gain attention for their cause, particularly from the local and international mass media. The continued levelling of such charges was also seen as helpful to the aboriginal leaders’ allies in the political opposition, the Democratic Progressive Party, which won power in 2000. After that event, charges of genocide and the like have virtually disappeared, despite the still highly disadvantaged position of aboriginal peoples in Taiwan society. Rudolph contends that claims of cultural genocide, even where solely polemical and metaphorical, may be unavoidable given the fierce jockeying for media attention engaged in by many groups and, however false the charge may be, its levelling still might be acceptable “as a kind of ‘warning signal,’ ” designed to alert the world to the precarious situation of an indigenous or minority peoples’ culture.