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KMT hostile to
Taiwanese literature
By Chiung Wi-vun 蔣為文
Director Wei Te-sheng’s (魏德聖) movie Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale, which
tells the tale of the 1930 Wushe Incident, is proving very popular with the
public, whether they be pan-blue, pan-green or swing voters.
If the media buzz surrounding the film helps people to learn more about the
history of Taiwanese Aborigines and Taiwan in general, it can hardly be a bad
thing.
The fear is that various interests will play on the theme for a while to get
what they can out of it, and then they will throw it away and forgotten it.
Seediq Bale means “a true man” in the Sediq language. The movie tells the story
of how Sediq chief Mona Rudao and other members of his tribe confronted the
armed might of their foreign rulers.
Determined to preserve their own culture and dignity, they were willing to give
up their lives rather than submit.
This spirit is similar to that of the many Taiwanese literary writers who have
steadfastly resisted foreign colonialism by establishing a Taiwan-centric
literary current.
As well as supporting the movie by buying tickets, we should also think about
how to express this spirit in our educational and cultural establishments.
Let us take a recent major event on Taiwan’s literary scene as an example.
Taiwanese author Chung Tie-min (鍾鐵民) passed away last month, and his funeral was
held on Sep. 10.
His family and friends were there to bid him farewell, but President Ma Ying-jeou
(馬英九) and Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) also sent representatives to deliver official
eulogies in honor of Chung’s great achievements.
A lot of people in attendance had mixed feelings about this gesture, which was
reminiscent of the fable of the weasel who, with ulterior motives, visited a
mother hen to wish her a happy new year.
What kind of support did Ma and his government offer when Chung was preparing to
set up a memorial hall in honor of his father, the writer Chung Li-ho (鍾理和)?
As everyone knows, after Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) accepted the surrender of
Japanese forces in Taiwan and the northern part if Vietnam on behalf of the
Allied Forces in 1945, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which had come to
Taiwan from overseas, tried to suppress Taiwanese languages, literature and
culture.
Taking departments and institutes of Taiwanese literature as an example, it was
not until 2000, 55 years after the KMT takeover, that the authorities approved
the first master’s course in Taiwanese literature at a state-run university —
National Cheng Kung University — followed by the establishment of an
undergraduate department in 2002.
During the period when Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) was minister of education under the
Democratic Progressive Party administration, he encouraged the
internationalization of research on Taiwan at universities, and he actively
promoted the teaching of native languages to elementary and high-school
students.
However, following the KMT’s return to government in 2008, these policies have
been scrapped bit by bit.
Now, the government offers encouragement and funding for Chinese academics,
students and literary writers to come to Taiwan.
In May this year, the Council for Cultural Affairs sponsored a seminar on the
theme of “ a century of novels.”
The list of invited participants was full of Chinese writers, while writers who
use the medium of Taiwanese native languages were completely excluded, along
with their works.
In June, Taiwan-centric civic groups went to the Ministry of Education to demand
the inclusion of Taiwanese languages in the formal curriculum of schools at all
levels.
The ministry did not accept this request, instead announcing an additional
mandatory course in senior high schools based on textbooks on basic Chinese
culture that accounted for four study credits.
In light of this, who can say that the KMT has changed its anti-Taiwanese
nature? Rather than conferring posthumous eulogies, it would be better for the
KMT to sincerely face up to its past wrongdoings and turn over a new leaf.
What the authorities should really do is change the system in a way that will
uphold the rightful status of Taiwanese literature and culture in education and
the media.
Chiung Wi-vun is an associate professor of Taiwanese literature at National
Cheng Kung University.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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