|
||||||||
FRUSTRATION︰While the Greater Tainan Government
has worked to preserve the tribe’s heritage, the
central government has not done anything, one Aborigine said
By
Loa lok-sin
/ Staff reporter Fri,
Dec 07, 2012 - Page 3 Siraya Aboriginal activists,
accompanied by Greater Tainan City Mayor William Lai (賴清德)
and a number of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers, yesterday
called on the government to grant them official tribal recognition. “We hereby urge the Council of Indigenous
Peoples [CIP] to legally recognize the Siraya as an
official Aboriginal tribe, in accordance with the Aboriginal Identity Act (原住民族身分法)
and the Aboriginal Basic Act (原住民族基本法),” Uma Talavan, spokeswoman for the Tainan Siraya
Cultural Association, told a news conference at the Legislative Yuan. “It’s
not only about the pride of the Siraya, it would also become a shared historic moment for all
Taiwanese.” The Siraya
are an indigenous tribe who used to inhabit the Tainan area. However, the tribe’s culture and
language gradually deteriorated after the arrival of Han Chinese from China
in the 17th century because of intermarriages and cultural assimilation. Although the Siraya
were still recognized as an official Aboriginal tribe by the Japanese colonial
government from 1895 to 1945, it lost recognition following the arrival of
the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in 1945. Responding to the movement for
recognition in the past years, the government said the Siraya
lost recognition as an Aboriginal tribe because they failed to register as a
tribe when urged to do so during the 1950s. “This is no excuse. Most Siraya people did not receive the notice from the
government to register,” Talavan said. “Besides,
our identity is something we’re born with. The government cannot simply deny
it because we didn’t register in time.” Cheng-hiong
Talavan, father of Uma Talavan,
added: “Whatever the government says, we are Aborigines. The government
should give us official recognition.” Lai said he felt frustrated that while
his city government works hard to restore Siraya
culture and language, “the central government is not doing anything.” He said the city government not only
granted official Aboriginal recognition to the Siraya
on the municipal level, it has also given its full support to the restoration
of its cultural heritage and language, including adding the Siraya language into the educational curriculum of at
least three elementary schools. “When the Dutch colonists brought
over the Latin alphabet in the 17th century, the Siraya
created their own Romanized writing system, which is probably the earliest
writing system in the country,” he said. “Forgetting about the Siraya is like forgetting an important part of our
history. The central government should show its support for the Siraya movement,” he added. Shih Cheng-feng (施正鋒), a professor
at National Dong Hwa University’s
Department of Indigenous Development and Social Works, panned council
officials and some critics of the Siraya movement for
citing loss of language as a reason for not recognizing the Siraya tribe. “If you apply the same
standards to other officially recognized Aboriginal tribes, I wonder how many
of them could pass?” Shih said. “Many older
Aborigines speak Japanese, while the younger speak Mandarin Chinese. This is
a historic tragedy.” The activists later delivered an
application for Aboriginal recognition to the council after the news
conference. * 《Taipei Times》2012/12/07。
|
