Understanding and Respect

In 1983, Sinorama began publishing articles on topics relating to Taiwan's indigenous peoples. Back then this was a new departure, for publications rarely turned their attention to our disadvantaged native peoples.

More than a decade on, we find that our decision was the right one. Although Taiwan's indigenous people only number something over 300,000, there are many things in their lifestyles, traditional cultures and religious beliefs which deserve to be valued and commended, and in the process of their adaptation to modern life there are many areas of pain, struggle and conflict in which they need the support and assistance of those around them.

Furthermore, the ideal we have pursued is to persuade our Han Chinese friends to cast off their "one-way" style of thinking in their dealings with aboriginals, and establish an interactive relationship of "two-way" communication and dialogue. Just as Sun Ta-chuan, secretary-general of the Taiwan Aboriginal Peoples' Cultural Association has said, many Han Chinese have begun to realize that the everyday wisdom inherent in aboriginal culture includes important human factors which have long been lost from their own lives. Such "two-way" thinking is gradually growing into a sound and mutually adaptive interethni relationship.

This issue's article "Indigenous Reporters: That's News to Me" focuses on a media topic. On 5 September the news department of the Public Television Organization Committee began a training program for indigenous reporters, "letting aboriginals hold the camera and the microphone," to prepare them to report aboriginal news in the planned "Indigenous People's News Magazine" program.

The aboriginals who have enrolled in the training program come from different professions, including civil servants, teachers, a legislative assistant, reporters, construction workers and artists, but they al l share a common desire: to open up a potential new path in their own lives, and to do something for their people.

Apart from curiosity about the scheme, outsiders have many questions: will indigenous reporters bring their own partisanship to their news reports? Will they become "tools of aboriginal nationalism"? Will their different ethnic backgrounds still result in bias or misunderstanding? Given their own media voice, might they "abuse" the media?...

In response to such doubts Sylvia Feng, a planner in the public television news department, explained in a newspaper article that the future "Indigenous People's News Magazine" will be a 30-minute program broadcast once a week. Compared with the situation whereby for decades indigenous communities have never had a voice in the media at all, the public television station "is merely creating a channel through which, outside the biased tradition of Han Chinese reporting indigenous news from a partial Han Chinese perspective, this disadvantaged group can gain some opportunity to express and explain itself in the media." They also hope that the program can promote respect for and understanding of the indigenous peoples in Han Chinese society, and at the same time encourage other media organizations to increase their reporting of indigenous affairs while respecting indigenous peoples' points of view.

In our report this month, you can read how these budding reporters were selected, how they have received intellectual stimulation and professional training, how through constant self-examination they have found their way from their initial bewilderment to an objective and fair perspective, and how after just three short months they should be able to bear the heavy responsibility of going out with cameras on their shoulders and microphones in their hands.

Perhaps we will not be able to judge the real results until their program goes on the air. But the twists and turns, both practical and emotional, on the road towards that goal, you can read about today!

An unexpected bestseller which appeared in Taiwan's bookshops recently has attracted the attention of Chinese around the world. Entitled T-Day: The Warning of Taiwan Strait War, in just three months it has sold almost 150,000. The book has become a topic of discussion in newspapers and magazines, in political circles and wherever people get together. When parliamentarians asked leading members of the government their opinions about the book's prediction of an impending armed attack on Taiwan by communist China, Premier Lien Chan commented that the author was overly pessimistic about his country's future, and we should not attach too much importance to his views. President Lee Teng-hui described the conclusions expressed in the book as "utterly baseless."

Nevertheless, it is worth reflecting on why the book should have aroused so much controversy and attention. Its main thesis is that looking from military, political and historical perspectives, the Chinese communists may well choose one of three periods--August 1995, the run-up to direct presidential elections in Taiwan in 1996, or the period immediately before or after the death of Chinese communist leader Deng Xiaoping--as their opportunity to attack Taiwan.

What do the book's readers think of this prediction? What view do academics and military experts take? And how has communist China reacted? In this month's book revue, we report on and analyze these questions in detail, and interview the book's author to ask what his real motive was in writing the book: concern for his country and people, or scaremongering sensationalism?

The "emigration effect" induced by this book has also become a focus of discussion both in the government and in the country at large. Some believe that emigration is a way of "voting with one's feet" which reveals the lack of a "sense of security" among the general public, causing people to look for a future abroad; others take the view that emigrants are simply seeking a larger space in which to live their lives, and should not be labelled "unpatriotic." But is the "emigration phenomenon" real or imagined? In coming issues, Sinorama will publish reports on this theme. If readers at home or abroad have any opinions or suggestions on this topic, please write and tell us about them.