Taiwan Curriculum Protests: Curriculum adjustments ‘undermine Aborigines’

Curriculum Protests: Curriculum adjustments ‘undermine Aborigines’

By Chen Ping-hung and Chen Wei-han  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

The Ministry of Education’s “China-centric” adjustments to high-school curriculum guidelines seek to undermine Aboriginal history and culture, Presbyterian pastor Omi Wilang said.

Omi, an Atayal, said that Aborigines are the most qualified to address Taiwanese history, and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) “government-in-exile” — which retreated to Taiwan from China after it lost the Chinese Civil War — is trying to reconnect with its Chinese roots at a time when Aboriginal peoples are seeking to re-establish their cultural traditions.

Taiwanese Aborigines have nothing to do with the Yangtze River and Yellow River in China, Omi said, questioning the ministry’s objective in educating Aboriginal students about Chinese and unificationist ideology.

The new guidelines are tantamount to Sinicization and aims to eliminate and assimilate Aboriginal students, which is an act of state violence, he said, adding that he was thankful to students participating in an anti-curriculum campaign.

Different Aboriginal peoples — be they Bunun, Atayal or Sediq — have different histories, cultures and customs, he said.

However, the ministry is using the state’s power to infiltrate the history and lives of Aborigines with its unificationist agenda, preventing Aboriginal students from living up to their ancestors’ legacies, he said.

Many Aboriginal peoples have lost their roots because of state violence: They know about the Yangtze River, Yellow River and Amur River in China, but do not know what the different mountains in Taiwan means to different Aboriginal communities — such as Dawu Mountain (大武山), which is sacred to the Paiwan, Yushan (玉山) to the Bunun and Dabajian Mountain (大霸尖山) to the Atayal, he said.

Those sacred mountains are where Aborigines have shaped their cultures and bred numerous generations, which should not be lost to later generations, Omi Wilang said.

Those who are educated in the new curriculum would become unrecognizable to their ancestral spirits and would be unable to cross the rainbow bridge to the hereafter, he said.

The pastor was referring to the Atayal belief that the souls of the deceased have to pass the rainbow bridge to where the spirits of their ancestors dwell, and those who do not have facial tattoos or other distinguishing marks would not be recognized by their ancestors and would fall off the bridge, unable to get into heaven or reunite with their people.

The new curriculum seeks to replace Aboriginal culture with a China-centric ideology, which is against Aborigines’ mission to pass down their history and cultural legacy, Omi said.

All people are created equal in the eyes of God, whether they are Chinese with a population of 1.3 billion or Thao — the nation’s smallest Aboriginal group with only 716 people, he said.

The curriculum should embrace pluralism and describe truthfully the history of different peoples, he said.

The Republic of China designates Oct. 25 as Taiwan’s Retrocession Day, but the date spells ruin for Aborigines, he said, adding that different peoples should respect each other and their points of view.