I, an aboriginal Catholic, against the decline of our ethnicity
Sun Da Chuan, 62, is a Taiwanese aboriginal politician. The island’s tribal cultures have been targeted by colonisers since the 16th century, most recently by the Japanese and the Chinese. The attempted revival involves educating young people and strengthening their faith.
Taipei (AsiaNews) – Sun Da Chuan (孫大川 副 院長), 62, is a Taiwanese aboriginal political leader. He belongs to the Puyuma tribe. He was minister of the Indigenous People’s Council from 2009 to 2013, and is still a government adviser. He holds a degree in Chinese literature from the National Taiwan University and one in philosophy from Fu Jen Catholic University. He has a doctorate in Sinology from the Catholic University of Louvain. In this piece, he tells AsiaNews about his experience as a citizen and a Catholic.
Often marginalised, aboriginal tribes have been caught up in Taiwan’s industrial development, with the consequent urbanisation and cultural impoverishment of migrants in the cities. Sun Da Chaun fears that aboriginal people will disappear, assimilated by the dominant culture. In Taiwan Aborigines make up 2 per cent of the population.
As a child I followed the traditions of my tribe, the age-old customs that have marked the lives of many an ancestor and that unite us as Aboriginal people to our origins. In recent years the government has recognised us many rights that we were denied before. If we think about it, it is something paradoxical because we are the ones who have inhabited these lands for centuries.
Our elders say that nothing and no one can destroy our deep indigenous education. All the children grow up touched by it. When we grow up we wonder what we can do, how we can contribute to society. In any case, we cannot rest on our laurels because, in my view, we are now in a phase of decline as an ethnicity, although there is still a lot of hope and many talents among the new generations.
When we were little we were afraid that our language and our culture would be lost, that all our festivities and our tribal initiation and cultural traditions would be extinguished. It would be like losing our identity as Aborigines.
This threat to the old traditions began about 400 years ago with the arrival of foreign conquerors from the mainland and Europe. Then 50 years of Japanese rule segregated us in the mountains without protection from the government, unlike today.
When I was little I really had this sense of insecurity, fear of loss of our traditions. Perhaps it was a personal feeling. I asked my peers, and they too had the same feeling in our community.
Our generation grew up learning Japanese: it was our first language. I grew up speaking Japanese with the adults of our tribes along with our aboriginal language. Then I started learning Chinese from scratch. This experience was not easy, having to learn from scratch a language to communicate with those who do not belong to the tribe.
The feeling that our culture was on the decline is unfortunately an important point. I am not exaggerating about what I am presenting here. It is a fact that we feel deeply. The dominant culture is something that threatens to engulf everything. This is also because young people can say, "let us become like the others and forget our roots."
There are people who, joking perhaps or maybe not, accuse me of being the ‘Taiwanese Nietzsche’, of being too pessimistic about the future of aboriginal culture. My friends tell me: "Nietzsche said that God was dead, and you say that our culture is now dead."
But I believe that I am presenting truthful points. However, history goes on, and in many cases we cannot help it but take note of the situation and adapt. But we cannot simply acquiesce to the simple will of the government of the day. We cannot erase a culture, first of all because it is a human right and secondly because it is a treasure for the whole society.
With respect to my affiliation with the Christian community, I would like to emphasise two important points.
On the one hand, we who are at the helm of civil society groups or in the Church hierarchy must consider the rights of each individual, because if we respect the rights of people, the quality of life of each improves and together we can overcome many challenges.
On the other hand, we have to meet the needs of others in an evangelical spirit, especially if, for now, society is unable to take charge of that. I speak especially of those who may feel marginalised because they belong to minorities or because they are in difficult situations.
This is why in 1993 we launched a new cultural magazine (Mountain and Sea, 山海) to show aboriginal traditions in a spirit of openness and understanding. We needed to breathe new life, and learn about our culture. The new generations have to respect and remember our culture; otherwise, many elements will be lost.
The government allowed us to open a TV channel; Aboriginal television is also very important. Without a TV channel and a printed magazine to disseminate our traditions, nobody would have listened to our voice. We have produced a number of programmes and made agreements with aboriginal broadcasters in other countries. This has strengthened us a lot and brought to us other important experiences.
One of the people who has helped us a lot is our own aboriginal bishop, Mgr Tseng (曾 建 次 輔 理 主教), who is retiring this year. He is a great friend of our family. He is very simple and accessible, and deeply embodies our culture.
The missionaries educated all of our generations, broadening our horizons. Thanks to the efforts of Mgr Tseng and many missionaries, a third of Taiwanese Aborigines are Catholics.
They were able to penetrate our tribal language with the stories of the Bible. We prayed a lot to have one of our own as bishop, and with Mgr Tseng this wish has come true.
This has brought our concerns and our expectations to the top echelons of the Bishops’ Conference, and especially highlighted the richness of our contribution to the Christian community and society as a whole. Moreover, thanks to the dictionary that he compiled and his translation of the New Testament we have been able to feel more as ours the message of Jesus and the Church.
Together we launched many activities for the Catholic aboriginal community, especially the biennial meeting for all pastoral workers, beginning in 1999. Undoubtedly, this has kept alive the sense of unity of believers and found great support from the Bishops’ Conference.
As for the civil society, relations with the government have improved tremendously. I, as vice president of Taiwan’s Supervisory Institute (監察 院副院長), and many other Aboriginal people of my generation, we have reached important positions in the central government. This would have been unthinkable 60 years ago.
As for the Church, we are very active, but perhaps not as active as in the past. We want to work to regain energy as in the good old days. All the conditions are there: in my diocese of Taidung-Hualien alone, there are 40 aboriginal diocesan priests, who speak our language, and can communicate very well with our young people, and understand the needs of our families and our seniors. Our mountain communities especially need to feel that our energy is also present in the cities and main centres of the Christian community.
As a representative of the government and the aboriginal community, I try to offer the best example to pass on the baton to our young people. I am convinced that they too will give the best of themselves in the Church and civil society, especially in defence of the voiceless, following the example of what is written in the Gospel.
(Xin Yage contributed to this article)
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21/07/2005
