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Stainton (2002) describes the role that the Presbyterian Church has played in the support of indigenous peoples and their rights. Unlike their Catholic counterparts, all indigenous Presbyterian Churches have indigenous people serving as ministers. They preach a Christianity that is indigenised and incorporates many of the structures and functions of traditional culture. For many indigenous people religious and ethnic identity are overlapping constructs. Conversion was a means of deepening rather than changing identity. In the 1970s the Presbyterian Church began to preach about and promote the rights of both Hoklo-speaking Taiwanese and indigenous people against the KMT rule. The church resisted oppressive government policies by denouncing them as violations of God-given human rights.
2.4 Indigenous rights movement in Taiwan
In the early 1980s, before a broad based political movement of indigenous peoples emerged, indigenous peoples lived under the same government system as all Taiwanese. The KMT dominated all political institutions and there was no
organisation at the national level or of a single ethnic group that acted as a pressure group or represented indigenous interests. There was a growing sense of relative economic depredation among indigenous peoples. Culturally there was a sense of lost identity amongst the educated. Martial law discouraged the expression of cultural pluralism or the promotion of new ideas (Chiang, 2004: 40-41).
The 1980s and early 1990s were a period of intense political and social change in Taiwan as the nation emerged from Martial Law to become a democracy. This change reverberated among Taiwan's indigenous peoples. Taiwan missed out on the
decolonisation process that took place in the 1950s and 1960s because of the Chiang Kai-shek's influential role in the United Nations and US support for his regime in the fight against Communism. When Taiwan began to democratise in the 1980s this was also the moment when international and transnational legal institutions were
developing ways of promoting group rights. Both the Taiwan independence movement and the indigenous rights movement were able to tap into this discourse and activity to promote their rights and agendas (Simon, 2007: 234).
Chiang (2004: 33) refers to an “energetic surge of ethnic awareness” among the Austronesian-speaking indigenous peoples. Hsieh (1994a: 408) refers to a “pan-ethnic
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identity movement among Taiwan aborigines.” Concerned about the future of their people, young indigenous intellectuals united to search for a new identity and to enhance their power. The publication of the Gao Shan Qing magazine in 1983 and formation of the Alliance of Taiwan Aborigines (ATA) in 1984 are recognised as the starting points of the modern indigenous rights movement in Taiwan (Chiang, 2004:
41-42; Hsieh, 1994a: 408-410).
The ATA was founded on 29 December 1984. It was the first pan-ethnic organisation of indigenous peoples made up mostly of intellectuals and graduates of Christian schools. In its early years it focused on opposition to policies of assimilation, criticising the Forestry Department, accusing Han people of invading indigenous peoples' lands and asking for land in the cities for urban indigenous people. In 1987 the group's focus shifted much more to the issues of land and territory. On 26 October 1987 the ATA released a “Manifesto of Taiwan Aborigines”. Six of the seventeen articles were related to land and territory. The demand for recognition of territory was based on consciousness of rights the indigenous peoples should naturally have (Hsieh, 1994a: 410-412).
Although the movement developed in this period, it failed to challenge the power of the KMT and the incumbent elites the KMT supported. Members of the movement contested elections, but were unable to win. They were seen as being a group of elites without people (ibid.: 413-414). The strength of the KMT in indigenous communities is further illustrated by looking at the case of the Presbyterian Church. From the 1970s to the present the Church has strongly opposed various policies of the KMT and more recently has been strongly linked to the DPP. In the 1970s many clergy and church elders were KMT members. This was necessary for the benefits it offered through patronage, even though the church met with state repression and actively campaigned against the state for rights. In 1998 the DPP recruited two Presbyterian ministers to run for seats in the Legislative Yuan. Even though every indigenous Presbytery passed resolutions supporting them, both men lost. Furthermore the centrality of the church in the indigenous movement has weakened groups that are independent of the church.
They, along with the DPP, often fall back on the church rather than develop independent organisational networks (Stainton, 2002).
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Hsieh (1994a: 413-415) says there were at least three elements limiting the ATA's capacity to expand its influence. First, the KMT and the state1 had firm control over the ethnic administration in indigenous communities. Second, the indigenous peoples are dispersed geographically throughout Taiwan. Third, there are many different ethnic groups that speak mutually unintelligible languages. Although many indigenous peoples can speak Mandarin, the concept of an ethnic political movement was not easily understandable for those peoples with different cultural traditions and languages living in dispersed locations. The resistance movement did however have the effect of making the existing elites who were connected with the KMT become more
outspoken. They started to criticise unreasonable government policies and discrimination towards indigenous peoples.
The idea of “self-government” developed during the period from 1987 to 1990. By 1990 the desire for self-government had moved into the indigenous mainstream and become an orthodoxy (Stainton, 1999: 423). The idea of self-government was a utopian ideal, but it provided a way for indigenous peoples in Taiwan to regain power over their lands and livelihood (ibid.: 433). There are many practical problems related to actually implementing indigenous autonomy, but it represents an aspiration of the peoples to reclaim their sovereignty and control over land and resources.
I-Chiang's 1991 statement to the United Nations in Geneva highlights some of the key issues facing indigenous peoples as Taiwan emerged from martial law. Indigenous peoples were deprived of proper political participation as the political system was under the control of the KMT and Chinese-speaking peoples. They were denied basic legal rights such as being able to register their own name. Outsiders undertook development projects on indigenous lands without consent and indigenous peoples were economically marginalised (Alliance of Taiwan Aborigines, 1995).
Through the 1990s the indigenous rights movement was unable to achieve its goal of autonomy but it made other important gains. Indigenous peoples were formally recognised in the constitution. These changes included reserved seats in the
Legislative Yuan and the now abolished National Assembly. The 1993 constitutional amendments replaced the word shanbao (mountain compatriots), which indigenous
1 At this time the ROC on Taiwan was governed under a party-state system. As a result there was
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peoples considered offensive, with yuanzhumin (aborigine or indigenous people). The 1993 amendments also guaranteed indigenous peoples right to political participation and government assistance for education, cultural preservation, social welfare and business undertakings. In 1997 this clause was further amended to include
transportation, water conservation, health and medical care, economic activity and land (Stainton, 1999b: 430; Simon, 2007: 226). Stainton (1999b: 430) points out that the earlier amendment was general in nature, while the later amendment included matters that would be central to the formation of territorial self-government.
Furthermore, Simon (2007: 226) notes that the use of yuanzhuminzu (indigenous peoples) in the 1997 amendments recognises collective rights in contrast to the previously used yuanzhumin (indigenous people) which is more concerned with individual rights in a liberal framework. In 1996 the Aboriginal Affairs Commission (now known as the Council of Indigenous Peoples) was established in the Executive Yuan. Although the powers of the Commission were severely downgraded from the original plan, its establishment acknowledged that Taiwan's indigenous peoples held a special position in the structure of the state (Stainton, 1999b: 427).
The most recent and substantial contribution to the field of indigenous rights in
Taiwan is Scott Simon's “Paths to Autonomy: Aboriginality and the Nation in Taiwan”
(2007). It explores the changes in policy that took place after 2000 when Taiwan experienced its first democratic transition of power from the KMT to the DPP. The DPP was the first party to pro-actively define a policy on indigenous rights. The indigenous rights movement made important gains under the DPP government, even though the KMT and its allies continued to garner a majority of the votes from indigenous peoples. The progress made by the DPP ensures that whoever governs Taiwan in the future they will find it difficult to retract any of the rights “granted”
under DPP executive rule (ibid.: 222-223).
In September 1999 as part of his campaign to be elected President, Chen Shui-bian signed a “New Partnership Agreement” with indigenous representatives. It recognised indigenous peoples' natural rights and as the original owners of Taiwan. This was followed by a DPP “White Paper on Aboriginal Policy” in 2000. This paper shows the way in which aboriginal peoples were incorporated into the DPP's discourse. In many ways it was progressive, recognising that indigenous peoples had been harmed by loss
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of territory and involuntary incorporation into the global capitalist system. The paper, written in a decolonisation framework had inherent sovereignty as a central concept.
However, even though it discussed indigenous sovereignty and self-determination, the main problem was reduced to Taiwan's independence from China. The Taiwanese nation envisioned in the White Paper was made up of a wished-for alliance of
indigenous peoples and “New Taiwanese”. The DPP's definition of “New Taiwanese”
differed from that of Lee Teng-hui and Ma Ying-jeou which was inclusive of post-1945 Chinese arrivals on Taiwan. Instead it defined it as meaning Taiwanese who were the descendants of indigenous women and male immigrants from China (ibid.:
230-232). In essence this is the Hoklo-speaking mainstream in Taiwan that makes up the majority of the DPP's electoral base. Although these people may have indigenous ancestry they do not explicitly identify themselves as indigenous. Hence, Simon concludes, the DPP tried to incorporate indigenous peoples into a national imagination not of their own making. Indigenous peoples were being used as part of a political discourse to construct a non-Chinese identity for Taiwan (ibid.: 232).
A number of pieces of legislation concerning indigenous peoples were passed while the DPP controlled the executive from 2000 to 2008. The most important of these being the Indigenous Peoples' Basic Law (IPBL) passed in 2005. This will be discussed further in Chapter Four of the thesis.