This paper originally comes from:
Michael
Rudolph,
Heidelberg University, Institute of Chinese Studies; Email: mirud@gw.sino.uni-heidelberg.de
The
Emergence of the Concept of `Ethnic Group` in Taiwan and the Role of Taiwan`s
Austronesians in the Construction of Taiwanese Identity“[1]
2.
Endeavours to reorganize collective memory in Taiwan after the lifting
of martial law in 1987
3.
Adoption of the concept of `ethnic group` in Taiwan
4.
From the `question ofprovincial
origins' to `Taiwan- versus China-consciousness`
5.
The discourse of `Taiwan`s four great ethnic groups` and Taiwan`s Aborigines
a)
Gain of trust in front of Taiwan`s non-Hoklo electorate
b)
Demarcation against Taiwan`s Mainlander-Han
c)
Challenge of China`s nationalistdiscourse
6.
Re-amalgation of`Taiwan`s four great
ethnic groups` into `Taiwan`s fate- and life community`
7.
Taiwan as the centre of the pacific world
8.
Reaction of the PRCh
9.
Conclusion
When
Li Denghui was officially elected president in 1990 and hence was reconfirmed
in his role as the first Taiwan-born president in Taiwan`s history, a profound
cultural transformation took place on the island. After four centuries
of domination by foreign powers (the Spain, the Dutch, the Chinese, the
Japanese and the Mainlanders (lit.: `people from the external provinces`))
who had come as refugees from the mainland with Chiang Kai-shek after 1945),
the issue of identity search of the Taiwanese now became a theme of growing
significance in the political arena, tolerated now as it didn`t collide
with Li`s endeavour to consolidate his power vis a vis the Mainlanders
who were still represented in the government and in the military. At the
same time, there also occurred a re-evaluation of Taiwan`s relationship
to the communist mainland, that tried to hinder this development by more
and more aggressive contests of its sovereignty and that once again emphasized
it’s
conviction of cultural and genetic homogeneity of Taiwan`s and China`s
population.
The
re-negotiation of cultural identities in Taiwan and the construction of
a particular history and culture that differentiated Taiwan from China
also had its impacts on Taiwan`s indigenous population, that – though consisting
of at least 12 Malayo-Polynesian groups – makes up no more than 1,6% of
the population in Taiwan. For the first time in the history of interaction
of Han and Non-Han, the languages, cultural traditions and value- and moral
systems of ethnic minorities now received attention – an attention that
in its last consequence not only involved the official recognition of Taiwan`s
Aborigines as indigenous people, but that was also accompanied by the implementation
of specified cultural institutions. Partly responsible for these political
successes were the endeavours of the social movement of Taiwan`s Aborigines
(Taiwan Yuanzhumin shehui yundong),[2]
a movement that in the years succeeding to its foundation in 1984 had developed
rather slowly in its struggle against discrimination and social marginalization,
but that after 1990 suddenly received growing respect.
This
paper explores those reasons that were responsible for the re-evaluation
of the status of Aborigines in Taiwan. As I indicated above, among the
factors involved, there were endogenous as well as exogenous factors: While
the integration of this group into the political and cultural discourse
of Taiwan originally happened rather occasionally in the course of `ethnizaton`
that took place during the power struggle between Taiwan`s Han und Taiwan`s
Mainlander-Han, it became soon clear thatAborigines
– once defined and marked as a distinct ethnic group – could play a decisive
role in the process of identity formation of Taiwan`s population, due to
the characteristics of `indignity` that sticked to them. My hypothesis
here is that Aborigines were given a key position in the process of construction
of an over-arching Taiwanese identity and the construction of an alternative
cultural memory in Taiwan after 1990.
2.
Endeavours to reorganize collective memory in Taiwan after the lifting
of martial law in 1987
In
his reflections on the structures of collective memory, Jan Assmann (1997)
contends that after a period of 40 years, the memory of a generation of
people with shared experiences comes to a critical stage. After this period,
those who were witnesses of significant events as adults gradually step
out of professional life. When they die, their memory - or better: the
`social frame` in which their memory was organized - vanishes, and certain
aspects that have not been transformed into cultural memory yet may fall
into – or may be left to - oblivion.[3]
If
we look at Taiwan, Taiwanese Han elites[4]
showed tremendous efforts to prevent that the memory of the Mainlanders,
who had ruled Taiwan for over 40 years after the withdrawal of the Japanese,
could transform into collective memory, and tried to influence the formation
of the latter according to their own convictions. This process began exactly
in those years when Mainlander elites memory had begun to wither away and
other memories in Taiwan that had been kept quiet for more than 90 years,
finally had the chance to express and to organize themselves again.
Among
the most engaged `cultural architects` at that time were the members of
the opposition party DPP, that had been founded in 1986, but that was not
fully legalized until 1989. Most of them being of Hoklo-origin – i.e.,
the biggest Han-Chinese group on the island comprising approx. 77% of the
total population -, they contended that the Taiwanese had a four hundred
year old history on Taiwan.[5]
This history included the common experiences of a creative pioneer settler
people from South China that developed a particular language and culture
after their exodus from China in the 17th century and that had
endured domination by several foreign powers, everyone of these taking
to force in the process of subjugation of Taiwan`s population. Incidents
that were still remembered by the people were the incident of February
28, 1947, as well as the Formosa incident in 1979. It were these things
that constituted the culture of the Taiwanese, and it were these things
that should be mediated in Taiwan`s schools, instead of Mandarin, Yangzekiang,
Peking opera, Long Wall and Anti-Japanese war.
Critics,
however, pointed out that the differences articulated in contrast to the
mainland culture were in reality minute and surmountable. In addition,
there suddenly appeared further groups within Taiwan`s society that tried
to make their own claims on Taiwan`s history. A group that showed some
discontent with the unilateral request formulated by the Hoklo were Taiwan`s
Hakka, another Han-Chinese group in Taiwan whose members counted about
9% of Taiwan`s total population and who had always had difficulties to
assert themselves against the Hoklo. In a well-organized `Return our mother-language`
(huan wo muyu) movement in 1988, representatives of this group argued
that they spoke an own Chinese language and that their ancestors had been
living on Taiwan at least as early Taiwan`s Hoklo. Actually, their culture
was even closer to the center of 5000 years old Chinese culture (zhongyuan)
than the culture of most other Han, a fact that should cause Hakka culture
to be revered and respected as much as Hoklo culture. What the members
of the Hakka-movement failed to realize was that just this `closeness to
the `zhongyuan`` they appealed to had lost much of its former attractivity
by the end of the 1980s; accordingly, their movement did not get much support
from the side of the Hoklo.
As
for Taiwan`s Aborigines, a fourth group of people on the island, their
social movement had reached a first climax at the end of the 1980s due
to the new political freedom people suddenly enjoyed in Taiwan. Nevertheless,
the focus of their movement at that time was not yet directed at the attainment
of cultural rights, but against cultural discrimination and social marginalization.
In protests against the `myth of Wu Feng`[6]
in Taiwan`s schoolbooks and in demonstrations for the `return of land`
seized by Han-Chinese in the course of the last centuries, KMT-government
as well as the Han in general were asked to conform to a more fair treatment
of the Yuanzhumin in accordance with internationally recognized
indigenous peoples rights. Only when plans for a constitutional reform
came into close touch after the official vote of Li Denghui as president
in 1990, intellectuals und political representatives of this group also
began to concentrate on the question of the status of Aborigines in Taiwan`s
society. With much emphasis, they pointed to the value of indigenous languages
and cultures and to the necessity to assure Aborigines` physical and cultural
survival as a people by implementation of special administrative and educational
organs on the central government level and by giving them a parliamentary
status. Contrary to the movement of the Hoklo, the supporters of a souvereign
Taiwan - especially the Hoklo-Elites - welcomed the Aboriginal movement
very much, as the demands did not obstruct their nationalist aims.
3.
Adoption of the concept of `ethnic group` in Taiwan
The
willingness to accept the demands of the Aborigines - a people that before
had never been much valued in Taiwan - was closely related to the perception
of these people as a special `ethnic group` in Taiwan.
If
we look at the Western understanding of `ethnic group`, we realize that
it is a very vague and ambiguous term. In academic texts, 'ethnic group'
is most commonly defined as a group whose members have a common group-name,
a common language, a common myth of decent, common characteristics in territory,
history, culture, religion as well as a certain feeling of solidarity that
distinguishes
them from other groups with whom they interact and co-exist. It is emphasized
that these criteria are subject to continuous change and may also be absent.
This means that common genealogical characteristics can in one case play
an important role, where in the other case they may be totally missing
or only of minor significance. Nevertheless, 'ethnic group' today is often
used as an euphemism for `race', there exists a diffuse understanding that
'ethnic group' also includes 'racial' similarities. Because of the flood
of different definitions, the use of the term `ethnic group' has become
more and more complicated in recent years, hence today sometimes even anthropologists
refuse to use it.
However,
things were quite different in Taiwan: Here, the term 'ethnic group` was
introduced no earlier than in the 1980s. Though one had made use of the
Japanese term 'minzoku' (`minzu` in Chinese) to refer to
the 'Chinese people / nation' (zhonghua minzu) as well as to `ethnic
Chinese' (hanren minzu), people in Taiwan avoided to use the term
'minzu' for differentiation within Taiwan`s society itself. The
only exception were Taiwan`s Aborigines: For their classification, Taiwan`s
anthropologists had adopted the category of the 'Clan' or 'tribe` (zu)
from the Japanese after the second world war. Nevertheless, they had never
tried to define or to explain the meaning of `zu' in the case of
the Taiwan`s Aborigines, nor had there been any attempt to take over the
Western concept 'ethnic group' to classify Taiwan` Aborigines. After
1980, however, the term 'zuqun' was more and more often used to
replace 'zu' in anthropological literature.
The
first definition for 'zuqun' – a term that was unknown in the PRCh
until the early 1990s - was made by Xie Shizhong, a representative of Taiwan`s
younger generation of anthropologists. After a stay with the Dai-Le in
Yunnan, Xie contends in an article on China`s ethnic politics published
in 1989, that the main difference between 'people/nation' (minzu)
und 'ethnic group' (zuqun) in the Chinese context is that a 'minzu'
in most cases is an etically determined group, that is a group that
has been – in most cases artificially - determined by the state. On the
contrary, 'zuqun' is a group that reflects the actual living conditions
and the point of view of the analysed. Hence, it is an emically
determined group that is authentic and still full of natural power. On
the basis of this understanding, Xie suggests that 'minzu' should
only be used when one talks about a state-determined, juristically defined
group of people, in all other cases one should better use 'zuqun'.[7]
Definitions
of `zuqun` (ethnic group) und `minzu` (people/nation) according to Xie
Shizhong (1989)
Ethnic
group(zuyi qunti)Initial
nation(chuqi minzu)
|
1.
A group of individuals living together in natural cohesion;
|
1.
An artificially composed group of individuals;
|
|
2.
characterized by a primordial and innate feeling of solidarity;
|
2.
lacks a primordial and innate feeling of solidarity;
|
|
3.
a group of individuals that defines itself on the basis of a subjective
feeling to the outside;
|
3.
a group of individuals that has been defined by others(i.e.,
scholars engaged by the state) on the basis of objective characteristics
(language, territory, economic life, mentality);
|
|
4.
emotional joining together;
|
4.
a group that has been composed in the course of scientific classification;
|
|
5.
a group that also exists in the inner world of its members;
|
5.
a group that exists in the hearts and minds of its creators (i.e., the
Chinese scholars that were in charge of the classification in 1955);
|
|
6.
an actually existing group;
|
6.
an officially registered group;
|
|
7.
a group with common interests;
|
7.
a group whose members don’t
have common social interests;
|
|
8.
a group with the potential to develop a contemporary ethno-political movement.
|
8.
a group with no latent potential to develop a contemporary ethno-political
movement.
|
A
less general, more Taiwan related explanation for the reasons of the increasing
preference of the term 'zuqun' instead of 'minzu' is given
by anthropologists of the Academia Sinica: They argue that the use
of the term 'minzu' doubtlessly is very suitable to distinguish
Han und ethnic minorities because of the strong differences of geographical
origin and cultural characteristics; the use of 'minzu', however,
would make a distinction of different socio-cultural variants and ethnicities
of the Han-Chinese of Taiwan difficult. For this reason, the term 'zuqun'
instead of 'minzu' finally seemed more adequate.
4.
From the `question ofprovincial
origins` to `Taiwan- versus China-consciousness`
These
accounts make us wonder why people in Taiwan might have felt such an intense
need for distinction or demarcation from other Han-Chinese groups. The
analysis of Zhang Maogui – a sociologist from Academia Sinica - provides
us an insight how the `ethnic question` in Taiwan developed.[8]
As Zhang makes clear, there also existed distinctions between different
groups of Taiwan`s population before the lifting of martial law in 1987.
But these distinctions were perceived within the category of 'province
origins' (shengji). The most important distinction was made between
'people from the external provinces' (waishengren) and the 'people
from Taiwan Province' (benshengren). The former group, whose members
comprised approx. 12% of the
island`s population,
consisted of Han-Chinese from at least 35 provinces on the mainland; the
latter group consisted mainly of Hoklo-speakers und Hakka-speakers in Taiwan,
who were Han as well and hence were also members of the Sino-Tibetan language
family. A further often neglected part of the last mentioned group were
the Aborigines who were called 'mountain compatriots' (shandi tongbao)
who split up into at least 12 different groups with distinct languages,
all of them belonging to the Austronesian language family. These different
kinds of origin were inscribed in the people’s
identity cards (the origin from one of 35 mainland-provinces existing prior
to 1945, or the 'origin from Taiwan-province', or the `origin from the
Mountain-area of Taiwan-province'). While the KMT strictly denied the existence
of any ethnically, culturally or socially unequal treatment, this measure
guaranteed members of the second and third Mainlander-generation in the
agnate line to have privileged access to professions in the military as
well as in the state- and the educational sector (jun gong jiao)
until far into the 1980s.
The
first public articulation of essential cultural differences between the
group of the Taiwanese and the group of Mainlanders occurred in 1983/84
in the course if the dispute on 'Taiwan-consciousness' and 'China-consciousness'.
Those who organized themselves under the symbol of 'Taiwan-consciousness'
now were increasingly concerned about the question how they could abandon
their inferior status as a person from `Taiwan-Province'. For them, the
label of descent from different `provinces' was not a satisfying criterion
anymore – the idea of a 'Taiwan nation` or `Taiwanese people' (Taiwan
minzu) at this time began to take shape, though the open articulation
of this idea was still avoided and another concept still took its
place
for the time being.
5.
The discourse of
`Taiwan`s four great ethnic groups` and Taiwan`s Aborigines
a)
Gain of trust in front of Taiwan`s non-Hoklo electorate
After
its legalizing in 1989, the opposition party DPP had to find a way to please
and to convince those groups in Taiwan who were different in language,
culture, social needs and problems and for whom a direct identification
with the Hoklo and their understanding of national identity was difficult.
Not only the members of the Hakka, but also members of the Aboriginal groups
were afraid that a sudden seize of power of those people who used to call
themselves 'Taiwanese' would only bring about another period of suppression
and domination. In order to convince these groups of the common nationalist
project and to win them as an electorate, the DPP introduced the concept
of `Taiwan`s four ethnic groups` (Taiwan si da zuqun) in 1989. This
concept not only emphasized cultural differences, differences in experience
and the particularities of the different cultural groups in Taiwan, but
also pointed to the multitude of common grounds especially in terms of
historical experience.[9]
b)
Demarcation against Taiwan`s Mainlander-Han
This
attestation of recognition of their existence and the expectation for more
attention to their specific needs in the near future was really suitable
to increase the willingness of members of non-Hoklo-groups to side with
the propagators of the new societal order. But the new concept still had
further political functions that went beyond the gain of trust. The concept
had also the potential to overcome the dichotomy of provinces in Taiwan
(a dichotomy that had been crystallized in the categories `descent of external
provinces' and 'Taiwan-province') in a terminological way. Quite differently
from the earlier terms people `from the external provinces` and people
`from Taiwan-province`, the new term `Taiwan`s four great ethnic groups`
did not suggest anymore that the people on the island just differed with
regard to their regional origins in a common nation `China`.[10]
On the contrary, it suggested that each of the groups differed from each
other in terms of language and culture. From now on, it proved to be much
more difficult than before to contend that an the `cultural entity was
congruent with the political entity`.
c)
Challenge of China`s nationalistdiscourse
Additionally,
the concept of `Taiwan`s four great ethnic groups` also had an important
function from a foreign politics –point
of view: The idea of the `Chinese Nation / People' (zhonghua minzu),
that suggested the genealogical and cultural relationship ofall
people in Taiwan and mainland China, could be challenged most successfully
by redefining the elements that constituted the 'Chinese Nation / People'
on Taiwan, using a terminology that differed from the PRCh-terminology.
Former `people from the external provinces' as well as `dialect-groups`
(fangyanqun) as `people from Taiwan-province' or 'mountain-compatriots'
(etymological meaning: 'mountain dwellers originating from the same uterus')
– terms that had suggested the close interrelationship of these groups
before – now all became members of distinct `ethnic groups` (i.e., waisheng
zuqun, minnan zuqun, kejia zuqun, Yuanzhumin zuqun), that not only
spoke different `dialects`, but different `languages` and that obviously
were of different descent. This impression was still enforced by adding
the English translation 'ethnic group' to the Chinese term `zuqun`
– as I already mentioned an extremely ambiguous term in which `descent`
and `origin` seemed to play an important role, but which – due to the multitude
of different definitions - left it open to what degree 'racial` criteria
were involved. By adding the label `ethnic group` to the groups of Malayo-Polynesians,
whose 'genealogical' difference from the Han had been proved already by
phenotype analysis and other methods of physical anthropology, as well
as to those groups whose members originally had come as Han from mainland
China to Taiwan, one succeeded to blur the opaque and ambiguous boundaries
between 'genealogical` and 'non-genealogical' relationship completely:
Even in the case of Taiwan`s Han-dialect-groups there were now called up
associations – by putting the label 'ethnic group' – of some kind of genealogical
difference between Hoklo, Hakka, Mainlanders ... and people from the PRCh.
At
the same time, it was emphasized that members of 'Taiwan`s four great ethnic
groups' lived together in cultural and genealogical intermixture. Under
these conditions, the possibility of their reconstitution in a common 'Taiwanese
Nation / People' seemed more possible than ever before.[11]
The following explanations of the Hakka Luo Rongguang – a church minister
speaking up for Taiwan`s independence – at a DPP-conference on the problem
of `name-correction in Taiwan` in 1994 can serve as a representative example
for the discourse described above:
"I admit that I’m a Han, my ancestors come from Canton. Hence, I can say that I’m a Han and that I belong to the Han nation / people. However, my ancestors here in Taiwan may very well have a blood relationship with the Pingpu-Aborigines. Perhaps I am not a pure Han anymore, I might very well be a new Han who has melted together with the Aborigines … just a new Han. If we are eager to make ourselves distinguishable from China and from the Chinese, it would be from this perspective of some help for our internationally recognized scope of existence as well as for a better recognition of our status from the outside to call ourselves `new Taiwanese`. I often explain that the Taiwanese and the Chinese are brothers: They may have the same ancestors... on the other hand side, I recently heard that in Taidong they once again found another one of Taiwan`s original inhabitants who is supposed to have lived here more than 10 thousand years ago. If this is true, this would be much longer ago than the 5000 years of the Yellow Emperor. Thus, it must be evaluated again whether we are really Sons and Grandsons of the Yellow Emperor (yanhuang zisun)."[12]
Luo`s
point of view was supported by the findings of a couple of well known Taiwanese
anthropologists: They contended that there were no genocides known in the
history of the interaction of Han and Aborigines, what made it very likely
that the people in Taiwan really still had the blood of these peoples flowing
in their veins.[13]
Nevertheless,
the discourse about the significance of Taiwan`s Aborigines for the construction
of an autonomous Taiwanese identity was not limited to arguments about
genealogy and descent. Aborigines were also believed to be important for
the reorientation of Taiwan`s cultural and historical status. As Wu Micha
(1994), a member of the oppositional organization Taiwan Association
of University Professors (TAUP), contends in an anthology of the TAUP
with the title `Taiwan nationalism`, the Taiwanese were not well advised
just to take over the recipe of earlier colonies in order to overcome the
internal and an external colonialism affecting their island: However hard
they tried, they would not be able to put themselves into antithesis to
their colonial suppressors China und Japan by means of reconstruction of
an own national culture as it had been done by former
colonies like India.
Notwithstanding whether one talked about such Taiwanese particularities
as the Taiwanese puppet show or the Taiwanese Opera: Once onecame
to the Mainland-province Fujian, one would discover that all these things
existed here in a very similar manner. Only by profound inclusion of the
`nutrient YZM' (YZM de yangfen) – i.e., the inclusion of the different
Aboriginal cultures – it could be clearly demonstrated in which way Taiwan
was different from China.[14]
To
what degree Taiwan`s Aborigines were also assigned an important role regarding
the construction of a new historical identity of Taiwan, became obvious
in the fierce struggle against the destruction of archaeological relics
sites of the Ketagalan.[15]
First protests of Taiwan-researchers against the destruction of supposed
testimonies of Taiwan`s Malayo-Polynesian past occurred in 1990/91, when
the relics site Shisanhang in the northeast of the island were to
be sacrificed in favour of the construction of a new sewage plant. Though
the relics had been discovered as early as in the 1950s, they had not been
given any attention to for 30 years. Hence, the excavation that started
in 1988 had not come to an end until 1990 and waited for a final evaluation.
Though most of the excavated specimens pointed to an earlier settlement
of Malayo-Polynesian peoples, there were also found some coins that dated
back to the Tang dynasty (618-905 AD). The coins provoked a fierce dispute
among the scholars: While those dedicated to Taiwan-consciousness were
convinced that the coins must have come to Taiwan through trade with mainland
China, another group of scholars argued that the pieces must have been
brought along by Taiwan`s Aborigines themselves, who (or whose relatives)
perhaps still lived on the mainland at that time. Chen Fangming, one of
the most important cultural politicians of the DPP, commented the significance
of the excavations of Shisanhang for the history of Taiwan in 1991
with the following words:
"The 'relics of Shisanhang' are cultural relics of the ancestors of the Pingpu groups in Taiwan. If one would make research on these relics, one would discover the cultural truth of the island before the immigration of Han to Taiwan. Such a research would not only lead to a correction of the 400 year old history of Taiwan that took the Han as its centre, it would also lead to the resurrection of the culture of the Pingpu, what might result in a prolongation of Taiwan`s history for some thousand years."[16]
The
site Shisanhang was destroyed in 1991 as a result of the construction
of the sewage plant. But the controversy arose again in 1994 when on the
planned site of the fourth atomic power plant (Hesi), that was also
situated in the north of the island, there were found further relics of
the Ketagalan. Among those groups that participated in the struggle against
the further destruction of the site this time, there were not only DPP-politicians
and Taiwan-research- scholars, but also different groups of the Aboriginal
movement as well as groups of the environmental movement. When it became
clear that the sites with Ketagalan relics were further endangered by the
greed of the big companies as well as by the KMT-government where Mainlanders
were still influential, the DPP finally resorted to another method to engrave
Taiwan`s Malayo-Polynesian past into the memory of Taiwan`s people: The
advocates of Taiwan-consciousness and independence of the island celebrated
their greatest triumph on march 12, 1996, when the newly elected Taibei
city mayor Chen Shuibian renamed the 'Long live Chiang Kai-shek-Street'
in front of the president`s palace in Taibei into 'Ketagalan-Alley'.
In an article with the title "Is the reason for the 'Promotion' of the
hardly pronounceable street name not clear yet?", the China Times
comments on the event the following day:
"The
renaming of the 'Long live Chiang Kai-shek-Street' into 'Ketagalan-Alley'
by the Taibei city government in a manner that must have annoyed quite
a few people, as well as Chen Shuibian`s severe criticism of the opponents
as 'supporters of the egoistical cultural superiority thinking of the Han-people
/ nation', made it clear that the legacy of the KMT was to be abolished.
By changing the street name one could in one go break the authority of
the new and the old KMT and please those socially weak groups like the
Yuanzhumin that have been neglected by the government for a long
time. It further makes clear: If the Taibei city government - in a time
when communist China incessantly emphasizes its unshakeable view of 'China`s
sovereignty over Taiwan' – uses a name of the Yuanzhumin- ethnic groups
of the Taibei basin as street name in front of the president’s
palace, then the meaning is - on a higher level - to demonstrate the political
conviction of the DPP that 'Taiwan is Taiwan and China is China' and to
make - for the sake of its national status - a demarcation against other
political influences. After the renaming, the president’s
palace now appears in a light symbolizing the `Taiwanese / Indigenous`
(bentu) and symbolizingits
affiliation to Taiwan."[17]
The
sudden rise of significance of Taiwan`s Aborigines for Taiwan`s own, autonomous
history can also explain the development of such strange subgroups of the
Aboriginal movement as the China Alliance for Taiwan`s indigenous culture
(Zhonghua Taiwan Yuanzhuminzu wenhua lianmeng): Though the story
composed by the self-appointed Ketagalan-descendant and head of the association
Li Junzhang about the encounter of his ancestors with extraterrestrials
10 thousand years ago can only be called blunt imagination, it received
some attention within the discourse of `Taiwanization`. However, the amusing
story got a rather embarrassing dimension for the members of the Aboriginal
movement when Li publicly read his manuscript at the 1995-meeting of the
'UN-Work Group of Indigenous Peoples' (WGIP).[18]
6.
Re-amalgation of `Taiwan`s four great ethnic groups` into `Taiwan`s fate-
and life community`
As
the discourse of `Taiwan`s great ethnic groups` was suitable to strengthen
the position of Taiwan`s Han in general, it soon was not only the logo
of the political opposition anymore: Even within the mainstream-wing of
the KMT-government around Li Denghui, it received increasing approval since
the early 1990s.[19]
Nevertheless, leaders in the KMT-government as well as of the DPP were
also aware that in a time when the homogenising national frame of the 'Chinese
nation / people' imported by the Mainlanders was undermined with all its
symbols, there should be also offered another solidarity-endowing, political
concept that was able to keep the people of Taiwan together and that could
encourage them to form a new 'nation / people`. A concept that seemed suitable
to unite the `four ethnic groups` was `Taiwan`s fate-community` (Taiwan
mingyun gongtongti). Shortly after its creation by the opposition party
in 1990, the term was taken up by president Li Denghui and slightly changed
into `Taiwan`s life-community` (Taiwan shengming gongtongti). A
couple of further directives and slogans of Li Denghui in 1993 and 1994
aimed at the same direction and intensified the impression that now even
the official side appealed to Taiwan’s
inhabitants to form an autonomous national community with an autonomous
national identity (Notably, the emphasis on the necessity of a `Management
of Great Taiwan and the Construction of a New Centre of Chinese Culture`
(jingying da Taiwan, jianli xin zhongyuan) or the appeal to form
a `New Taiwanese` seemed to leave no doubt about Li`s real endeavours).
Simultaneously, there were changes in the official cultural politics that
were determined to provide the infra-structural foundation for such a development.
Statements made by the minister of the interior and the educational minister
in 1993 indicated that the KMT tried to compensate for its faults in the
past and that it was now not only willing to recognize Taiwan`s multi-culturality,
but that it also wanted to offer opportunities for a further development
of the different cultures and languages in Taiwan. Specialists were appointed
to work out specific curricula for Hoklo- and Hakka-speakers as well as
for Aborigines. Furthermore, there were established long-term-projects
like the `Plan for reconstruction of the local communities`. The most important
aim of this plan was to `diminish the negative results of industrialisation,
cultural homogenisation und over-emphasis of individual development and
lead people back to a feeling of responsibility towards their fellow-citizens
and their community`. However, the politicians believed that the latter
would not be attainable without the individual’s
re-identification with its surrounding local culture. Just in this sense,
the government offered funds and resources that should encourage all communities
in Taiwan – ethnic, rural and urban communities, most of which where either
Hoklo, Hakka or Aboriginal – to participate actively in local cultural
life, to organize rites and festivals, and to engage in the preservation
of local culture and the collection of oral history.[20]
As Chen Hua (1998), historian at the National Qinghua-Unversity, explains,
these efforts `in a time of national identity crisis in Taiwan had the
main purpose to refocus people’s
identity on Taiwan and let the people’s
original collective memory reorganize and reappear`.[21]
7.
Taiwan as the centre of the pacific world
Similarily
as the DPP, the KMT-government, that experienced a profound transformation
in its interior since the early 1990s, believed that Aborigines could fulfil
symbolic functions to two directions: To the inside, the particular acknowledgement
of their existence and their cultural achievements were suitable to support
the development of a new Taiwanese and the construction of a new cultural
centre. This also included the perception of their communities as being
vested with a strong feeling of solidarity among its members, a condition
that had to be protected and that could serve as a model to Taiwan`s Han
society. To the outside, however, the protection and the fostering of this
ethnic minority could not only signify the governments democratical and
multi-cultural attitude, but also the new cultural and political orientation.
This
also included a new orientation in Taiwan`s economical politics envisaged
by the reformers within KMT-government and enthusiastically welcomed by
the DPP. After travels to the mainland had been allowed by Taiwan`s government
in 1988, the Chinese mainland and especially South-China increasingly became
a favourable place for investments for Taiwan`s enterprises and private
investors: For instance, Taiwanese investors in 1990 already provided 1/3
of the whole foreign investment in Fujian-Province; in Canton-Province,
Taiwanese investments were on the second place right behind Japan. Though
these new investment opportunities proved to be very advantageous for Taiwan`s
industry and commerce, the government pursued a restrictive investment
policy after 1988, as it was afraid that Taiwan would become economically
too much dependant on the PRCh. Simultaneously, it encouraged investors
to become more active in the South pacific, where Taiwanese investors had
already begun to make good profits. In Malaysia, for instance, Taiwan with
24,7% of the total amount of foreign investment was just second to Japan,
in Thailand 10% of all foreign investments were Taiwanese. After a travel
of Li Denghui to several Southeast Asian countries in early 1994 for the
sake of the reinforcement of economical contacts, the so-called 'Southbound-Policy'
(nanxiang zhengce) began to take shape. At the same time, the ambitious
plan of Li Yuanzhe - the new head of the Academia Sinica – to make
Taiwan a research centre for the history Southeast Asia became public.
As a part of this project, researchers at the Academia Sinica had
already begun to make DNA-Analysis with Malayo-Polynesian Peoples in New-Guinea
and on Taiwan.[22]
The
most important support for the discourse about Taiwan being part of the
Pacific world came from Peter Bellwood, a well known Australian linguist.
In an article in Scientific American in July 1991, Bellwood confirmed
a hypothesis of Isodore Dyen in 1963 that presumed that Taiwan was the
origin of all peoples of the Austronesian language family (nandao yuxi
minzu): In detail, this hypothesis declared that so-called 'Proto-Austro-Tai'
had departed from the extreme South of Mainland China many thousand years
ago and settled on Taiwan, where they formed the Austronesian language
family about 6000 years ago. Shortly afterwards, first groups of Austronesians
began to spread out into the world of the Southeast pacific islands; to
the east, they spread as far as to New-Guinea, Hawaii, New Zeeland and
to the Easter islands, to the west as far as Madagascar. Attached to the
article there was a map that emphasized the autonomous development of the
Austronesian Peoples on Taiwan by means of a thick black line that separated
Taiwan from China; arrows showed how different waves of Austronesians then
had left Taiwan and moved to the Southeast pacific. The revelations of
the article as well as the map immediately attained extreme popularity
in the circles of the supporters of Taiwan-consciousness: Through the application
of Bellwood’s
perspective, Taiwan not only had the position as a member, but a central
position in the newly conjured pacific sphere.
8.
Reaction of the PRCh
Of
course, the `Austronezation` that seized Taiwan since the early 1990s did
not stay unnoticed in the PRCh. The new kind of nationalist discourse in
Taiwan, that referred to the hybridity of Taiwan`s inhabitants and that
hence stayed caught in the category of `race`, was now again countered
with arguments stressing `racial origins`.[23]
For instance, an article with the title "Testification of the genealogical
(xueyuan) origin of Taiwan`s Yuanzhumin" in the foreign edition
of People’s
Daily on 16.2.1996 pointed to new archaeological findings, according to
which the so-called gaoshanzu-groups had originally come from the
mainland and partly even from North-China to Taiwan and hence must have
been Chinese.[24]
The author of the article contends enthusiastically, that these findings
should also have a direct impact on the important national question of
reunification of Taiwan and China. In his introduction to the article,
he remarks:
"The
question about the genealogical (lit.: blood-relationship) origin of the
earlier inhabitants (xianzhumin)[25]
of Taiwan has always caught public attention. Doctor Hou Jinfeng - Mongolian
and one of the representatives of genealogical anthropology of our country
who just recently returned from a research stay in Japan – has confirmed
after many years of scientific research: The genetic (yichuan) distance
in the blood-relationship between the groups of people in Taiwan and those
on the mainland is extremely close, most of them stem from the Miao- und
Yao-nationalities from the mainland. Hence, the discourse on the question
where Taiwan belongs to has got an even more profound scientific foundation
and consolidation now."[26]
9.
Conclusion
Since
the early 1990s, Taiwan’s
Aborigines suddenly received attention again. On the one hand side, this
was due to Taiwan`s attempt to show its democratical endeavours to the
inside as well as to the outside. On the other hand side, Taiwanese Han
elites in the DPP as well as in the KMT increasingly realized the necessity
of ethnic, cultural and historical particularity for the construction of
an autonomous, independent Taiwanese identity: By making the `Yuanzhumin`
– only 2% of Taiwan`s total population – visible as one of 'Taiwan`s four
great ethnic groups', they became a touchstone for the democratical development
of Taiwanese politics; the way how they were treated, indicated how social
and cultural minorities who were not Hoklo-speakers would be treated in
the future. Furthermore, the Aborigines - a group that was defined as genealogically
different from the Han and that carried a multitude of cultural traditions
that were totally different from the Chinese culture and tradition – testified
most impressively the absurdity of the myth of homogeneity of Taiwan`s
population that had been hold up by the Mainlander-KMT as well as by the
KPCh in the past, and highlighted an independent, over six thousand years
old Taiwanese history that was characterized by the interaction and intermixture
of a multitude of different ethnic groups and cultures. As the `cultural
architects` in Taiwan contended, it were these memories, experiences and
cultural condensations that were supposed to flow into the people’s
collective memory.[27]
For the first time in Taiwan`s history, there seemed to be the possibility
to let these different memories communicate and reconcile.[28]
Special
historical and external conditions, however, prevented that the memories
of all groups of people in Taiwan were treated equally. For instance, president
Li Denghui in 1994 appealed to Taiwan`s people to allow certain characteristics
of Aborigines` cultures - as parts of their clothing-, gastronomic- and
architectural culture - integrate into the main culture.[29]
Similar suggestions were rarely heard with regard to the cultures of the
Mainlanders or the Hakka. After all, the formation of collective memory
in post-martial-law Taiwan was subordinate to Taiwanese nationalism - itself
a reaction to the Chinese nationalism of the KMT as well as that of the
KPCh -, that tried to underline Taiwan`s right to be recognized as a nation
in a world of nations by pointing to the particularities of Taiwan. The
inherent dynamics that also had its impacts on smaller segments of the
society (e.g., on other ethnic groups) remind us of Immanuel Wallerstein`s
(1984) remark, that
"the
nationalisms of the modern world are the ambivalent expression of the desire
(...) for assimilation to the universal (...) and the attachment to the
particular, the rediscovery of differences. It is a universalism through
particularism and a particularism through universalism".[30]
This
paper only dealt with Taiwan`s Aborigines in Taiwan`s political and cultural
discourses. As for Taiwan`s Aboriginal people themselves, we don’t
know yet whether the re-evaluation of their cultures and languages will
have positive or negative effects on the people. While ordinary members
of Aboriginal society in the mid-1990s usually still took a rather sceptical
stance towards the new development, young intellectuals of Aboriginal society
and Han society often acted as moderators in the process described. Especially
those elements that pointed to the particularity of Taiwan`s Aborigines
- including many aspects that were avoided by the ordinary people and that
were not openly referred to, for instance the former headhunting- and tattooing-culture
or the traditional naming-practices[31]
- now got newly staged and – equipped with the label of `authenticity`
- presented to the whole Chinese-speaking world by making use of the multi-medial
capacities of the internet.[32]
As I argued in earlier contributions, democratic ideals could be easily
undermined at this point. My fieldwork in Taiwan in the years 1994-96 showed
that not everybody in Aboriginal society wanted to be visible to the outside;
likewise, not everybody longed for the restoration of certain cultural
traditions that would re-establish inequality within their group.[33]
On
March 12, 1996, the newly elected Taibei city mayor Chen Shuibian announced
that the street in front of the president’s
palace in Taibei - `Long live Chiang Kai-shek Road` - had been renamed
to 'Ketagalan Allee.` The Ketagalan were one of those Aboriginal groups
in Taiwan that had assimilated to Han-society long before.
In
his reflections on the structures of collective memory, Jan Assmann (1997)
contends that after a period of 40 years the memory of a generation of
people with shared experiences comes to a critical stage. After this period
those who were witnesses of significant events as adults, gradually step
out of professional life. When they die, their memory - or better: the
`social frame` in which their memory was organized - vanishes, and certain
aspects that have not been transformed into cultural memory yet may fall
into – or may be left to - oblivion.[34]
If
we look at Taiwan, Taiwanese Han elites showed tremendous efforts to reconstruct
collective memory since the end of the 1980s – exactly those years when
Mainlander elites memory had begun to wither away and other memories had
the chance to take over. The notion of `Taiwan`s fate community` - a concept
that has been set up by Taiwan`s opposition party in 1989 - , as well as
the notion of `Taiwan`s living community` put forward by the central figure
of Taiwanese KMT-elites Li Denghui shortly afterwards, converged into a
long-term community renaissance policy after 1992, which `in a time of
national identity crisis in Taiwan had the main purpose to refocus people’s
identity on Taiwan and let the people’s
original collective memory reorganize and reappear` (Chen 1998).[35]
In this project, all communities in Taiwan – ethnic, rural and urban communities,
most of which where either Hoklo, Hakka or Aboriginal – where asked to
participate actively in local cultural life, to organize rites and festivals,
and to engage in the preservation of local culture and the collection of
oral history.
My
paper explores the role of Taiwan`s Aborigines in this process of memory
reconstruction in Taiwan since the lifting of martial law. The emergence
of the notion of `ethnic group` in Taiwan and the construction of `the
four great ethnic groups` were important steps in this endeavour: By shifting
the focus away from the `China nation` to distinct `cultural` and `ethnic
groups`, the framework in which people had forcibly organized their memory
for forty years was broken up and newly arranged; though the new framework
was not clearly articulated yet, DPP- as well as KMT-politicians conjured
ethnic integration of the people in Taiwan, which would finally either
crystallize into a `new arising nation` or into a `new Taiwanese`. In this
process, Taiwan`s Austronesians fulfilled an important role in political,
historical as well as in cultural terms: Not only could Taiwan`s history
now be backdated to a history of 8-10 thousand years, even longer than
that of the mainland; Taiwan’s
Austronesian heritage also served as a proof that Taiwan - in cultural
and genetic terms – had its own particularity and was much more connected
to the pacific region than to any region to the west of Taiwan.