 Okay, so welcome to the SOAS Centre of Tower Studies summer school. This is the 11th SOAS Centre of Tower Studies summer school. We started these summer schools back in 2007. We've run them every year with one exception. We started off doing these summer schools in quite a brief session. Then we started off maybe a day and a half, but it's kind of expanded over time. So the last few years we've done five days. And what we try and do each year is to have a number of different themes. This year I think is probably one of our most focused themes. We're looking at issues related to Taiwan's contemporary indigenous people. That's our big focus this year. The project is something that, it's a two-year project looking at issues related to Taiwan's indigenous people. It's sponsored by the Shrini Museum. It's the third time we've worked with it. In the past we've done very historical projects with Shrini, but this time we're looking at contemporary issues. Okay, I think they're the main things I want to say. The other thing I would also encourage you to join is the student sessions. So one of the things we try to do in the summer school is to have student research presentations. And we'll do those on the Thursday morning. And it's a chance for our master and year one PhD students to talk about their research designs. And then the academics, but also the audience members will help give them feedback of how they can improve their research designs. We've had some slight changes to the agenda to take account of the World Cup football developers. Now I think Tuesday evening now is free. But the big change that we just made yesterday was that we cleared the agenda for the Wednesday night. So this year I've been trying to make predictions for the World Cup. My predictions have been fantastic. The one error I've made is predicting England. So I thought like if England are going to go out, first round. They will go out for sure. Well, hopefully. So now we will finish on time, more or less on time on the Wednesday. On that note, I'm going to hand over to my co-director, Dr. Dhambi. We kind of co-created this summer school back in 2007. And Abhi, you want to say a few kind of opening remarks as well. Thank you. I have to say this is not really expected. You guys don't supposedly to be being imposed upon with our remarks. Welcome remarks. But do welcome you. This is quite a special occasion for us because every year the figure grew. Or the days grew. The thing is last year we can expect a really bigger number. Because last year's topic was popular culture. Very popular music. And for us, actually in the last two years were mainly popular culture and popular music. This year we were pleasantly surprised when we see the registration figure. I know it doesn't look like it right now, but they welcome. Now it's over a hundred. And even with a niche market with a very concentrated topic, we now got this experience of actually attracting more concentrated audience. So this is quite a good experience. Actually I did prepare something sort of because I know I won't be repeating what Dhambi said. Because usually it has a very overall view on the summer school. So I would just like to say a big welcome to you guys. And I want to brag a little bit about the center. Because the center is the place that you can build up some sort of connection and also certain kind of friendship here. This is a place outside of Taiwan you have a certain kind of Taiwan study community. I wouldn't say it's just Taiwanese community. I would say it's still academically focused. But it's definitely a place that you can seek resources, ask advice and also make friends. So this is the place to be, like we always say. So thank you very much for joining us. And we welcome you to enjoy the next five days. Thank you very much. Yeah I suppose another thing I should say is that just to kind of follow up on B that one of the things we really like is for scholars to come here to science to speak. But also then to come back to give repeated school so I can see. And also we have former students. We have a number of former students who have also been speaking. So for example Nikki at the University of Central Lancashire is our former student and a regular speaker. And we'd like to welcome back Ian Insta, one of our research associates who's again someone who's worked with us multiple times. We're delighted that he's joined the teaching team. We have one of our, another one of our graduates Adam here who did MA talent studies. So he's just back, just graduated. And he's also Professor George Washington University. Georgetown University. Georgetown University, sorry. So he's going from being one of our MA students to actually one of our speakers. And of course we also have Darryl Sturck who's returning for his second science book. In his first talk he was based at National Tower Normal University. National Tower Normal University. And now he's at Hong Kong. Lean down. Lean down. So again someone else returning. But we also have, and we have a, let's see we have someone from Berlin, children around, who was in our audience last year. So he's here for the second time. But we also have a lot of speakers and audience members that are here for the first time. We really welcome you to the SOAS Tower Studies family. Okay, so we can move into our first speaker. Professor Aoi Mona from National Donghua University. When we were starting to set up this project, Aoi Mona was one of the first people on our list. And I should say that a lot of the credit for our list of speakers for this summer school goes to my wonderful co-worker, Juan Chagya. So she did the job of persuading speakers to come to SOAS, setting up the agenda. And she's not only our research assistant, but she's also a final year PhD student at UCL. So Professor Aoi Mona, his research area is law. So you did his PhD in University of Washington in Seattle. And he's someone like, I think, I would say a lot of our speakers over the last few years who combines academic life, but also involvement in social movements and also in governance. So for example, one of the areas that he's been involved in is the Presidential Office Indigenous Historical Justice and Transitional Justice Committee. And we also see the subcommittee is land claims. So a really super, topical and controversial area to be involved in. He did his PhD in law and was the first Indigenous person to actually get a PhD in law. Is that right? And he's going to be doing two talks. And this one here is a chapter talk on Indigenous movement that prospects towards Indigenous nation building. So let's give Aoi Mona a very big so as we open it up. Thank you, Dabbi. Good morning, everyone. I got my handkerchief here. I still get used to the temperature of the landing. So I'm sweating, but I'm not nervous. It's just too hot. Okay, so first of all, I would like to, thankfully, show us this invitation for me to London. And this is one of my dreaming cities, want to be visit, and this is my first trip to London. Because I spend most of my time in the America and South Pacific area. So I'm very excited and I did enjoy London so far. My wife, Lien, there, we came in early last week and we spent a week in London. See a lot of things. My talk here, because the Chairman has explained to me that we need to have two talks. One is more like introductory for the Indigenous people in Taiwan. And another thing is more like a research topic. At least I would identify it as an introductory for the Indigenous law of development in Taiwan. And I'm from the ethnic peoples. So Daryl, Daryl, Daryl, yeah. His many research at present is on our people's language translations. And actually I'm from the Arang Arubang, so I'm not sure any of you seen the movie, Static Balai. So that's the village I come from. Okay, so I'm from the Static Daya and my village we call Arang Arubang. And I'm right now teach at National Donghua University. Okay. So my talk today, I'll divide it into many five parts. So the first, I would start with the historical background. And this historical development, how does the different colonial, even the governing regions has interacted with Indigenous peoples. And based on this development, which triggered a number of different phases of Indigenous movement in Taiwan, which led to the emerging and involvement of Indigenous rights. And especially what I'm looking at is, after two years ago, the right now President, Cha Yingwen, she gave the National Apology to Indigenous peoples. And a lot of peoples, including myself, see this will be a turning point, might be another opportunity for us towards the self-government as a nation. That's why I gave this topic as an Indigenous nation building. So everything from my point of view, because I was trained in law and I mainly teach, study and research in Indigenous law in general and also in other field of laws. So, but to start with the core issues, we have to identify what is Indigenous peoples. I think it's every country which has Indigenous people, we always have to debate what's the concept and idea of Indigenous peoples. So how do we conceptualize Indigenous people has always been a controversial debate in Taiwan. And I will come to this point in the end of my talk. So a lot of different, let's say in academia, someone from a social field or a cultural aspect or economic or political, we all have different aspects to define or position how does the Indigenous people in the structure of Taiwanese societies. And once you take one aspect that might influence the rights which can be attached to Indigenous peoples. But any of these, I mean social, cultural, economic and political always have to be constructed by law. So in each event, from my point of view and also from history from the Indigenous people with the different phases of governing regimes, different, I mean colonial government always develop or create a legal fiction. How do we understand Indigenous peoples? And this legal fiction has a very detailed discourse based on the colonial legal source. So I mean this is the, I think I would explain with this chart here because in Taiwan, even right now we call ourselves as Indigenous peoples, Yuan Zhongming. But this term was only started to use, started in 1994. But in 1997, the constitutional reform added Zhu, added S to the Indigenous peoples. So we can say in Taiwan, legally speaking, Yuan Zhongming who only exists only 20 years. Right? It's 2018. So from 1997 to 2018, legally speaking, Yuan Zhongming who only existed for 20 years. But before that, we as the government has used the mountain compatriot or the San Di Tong Bao. Use this term to identify Indigenous peoples as San Di Tong Bao for half century, 50 years. And before that, they were very short period during the Japanese occupation. They used Takasoku Zoku, Gaosa Zu. But before that, we can see since the first count until the pre-1930, the year the Uxia accident, Ushesijian, different colonial regime, they only used savage people to identify Indigenous peoples. So there is an untaught story hidden behind all these names. And all these different names have led to different outcomes for Indigenous peoples, especially on their rights development. So let's have a discussion here. So how or what do you think different names or different legal positions in the national legal structures? How does that influence Indigenous rights protection? Like the Fan Ren, Xiao Le Jing, Gaosa Zu, San Bao, Yuan Zhongming Zu. All these different names has different outcomes, like I said before. But if we compare to other countries, especially those common countries, it's very weird because my first time to England, my wife and I visited the Nature and History Museum. There's a Charles Darwin Center. And when I went to the college hall, I saw a wall saying that Charles Darwin used to live here in one of the units in another building. So in the common old countries, Charles Darwin's theory has actually influenced the colonial regions, expansion to Americas, to Africa, across the globe. So what does that theory has brought to the Indigenous people across the globe? The idea of wild men and other tales. So the colonial regions, they identify Indigenous people as wild men and they create a number of different tales. And all these, my conclusion is, all these different names are the pervasive political languages. The government wants to classify others, like wild men, barbarians, savages. And even in the 16th or 1800s, we can see other countries although they discard these kind of symbols, but they still develop a different series like status of development. So savage people has noble and economical differences. And once this has been completed and then the government incorporates international law, like the production of discovery and conquest, this has been incorporated with the identification of Indigenous peoples. So once we identify you are a savage people, you are a barbarian, which means you don't have a right to be a human. As a human, then you can have a right to own property. So doctrine of discovery used by the colonial regime when they expanded to the Americas. They said, those lands are terrenuous, no man land. This theory has been used in Australia. So this is one of the early theories for the colonial regimes to occupy Indigenous lands. And in the later stages, other countries used the imperialism to colonialism, even the cultural colonialism. So all these different theories like in Taiwan, when we compare the different stages of the names which was given by the government, the San Di Tong Bao Yuan Zhu Min Yuan Zhu Min Zhu, we can see naming as a legal tool with the political aim. Because in Taiwan, during those 50 years when the ROC government, when the Taiwanese government identified us as the San Di Tong Bao, which means we are in the early stage of civilization. So during those 50 years, the government carried out a number of different assimilation policies, make the mountains like the plains. So they want to make the people living in the mountains just like the people living in the plains. So what's the justification for the government to do that? That's the only thing is because they identified us as the early stage of the civilization just like Australia, New Zealand and America. So this cultural imperialism, if we take Australia as an example, international law was a form of cultural imperialism. So like Australia is morally illegitimate to the extent that it is founded on European denial of the continent's prior ownership by indigenous peoples. So they kind of classified Australia people. So Australia aboriginal people started to turn the situation around once the marble decision was granted in 1992. So combine all this together. The government, why they want to name indigenous people? They use the idea of progress, progress. So it's like Charles Darwin. So the idea of progress, they have three different stages. The first is the government started the denial, narrations of indigenous culture. And then they assert the white people all the governing races is more superior. And then the government sticked by the indigenous cultural differences which if you guys understand the history of Taiwan during the 1960 to 1990 which is the indigenous movement. A lot of indigenous people during that generation is like the, how to say it in English, 认同的污名, understand? Anyway, it's like if you admit you are indigenous peoples, you will be tagged inferiority so which makes the people don't want to show his identity as indigenous peoples because the government has already shown that if you were like indigenous people talk like indigenous people eat like indigenous people and you are inferior. So that's why our president when she delivered the National Apology she has the following lines. He said the Dutch and the 國興也 kingden massacred and exploited the Pingpu ethnic group and the Qing Empire presided over bloody confrontations and suppressions. Colonial Japan put in place comprehensive savage policies and the post-war ROC government undertook assimilation policies. For 400 years, every regime that has come to Taiwan has brutally violated the rights of indigenous people through armed invading and land seizure. For this, I apologize to the indigenous people on behalf of the government. So you can see the black letters I emphasized. So this is that the question is why the government can do these things to indigenous peoples. Anhuaguan, especially in the post-war period it's already 20 centuries. The international has already in place. I don't have time to make the translation for this map but this map is from my work with the presidential office on the indigenous traditional and historical committee. So this is what I have done the research from different periods. So this map shows the Qing dynasty for the Green Park is controlled and managed by the indigenous people. And the second one is during the early Japanese period you can see our land has been drained down a little bit but until right now our land has been protected under the law it's all lost already. So it's only like 300 years only and so it changed to that. So the next part is based on these past discussions the indigenous movement has led to the constitutional reform and legal constructions. But all this we can see is like an international trend so Taiwan is not working along. Indigenous people in Taiwan are working together with international indigenous peoples because in 1972 the UN launched this comprehensive research The topic for the research is on the problem of discrimination against indigenous populations. So under this topic, under this title the discrimination against indigenous people is not a domestic issue. This is an international issue. And when this report completed in 1986 we can see a lot of research outcome from this report has been brought to Taiwan indigenous movement. Like we started to claim not only for reservation land we started to claim the government should sign a treaty with indigenous peoples. In Taiwan we are not only a claim for social welfare we claim we are independent nations. We have the right to self-government we have the right to self-determination. So based on this international trend we can see the three wave indigenous movement in Taiwan. The first wave is from the 1980s to 1990s. And during this first wave indigenous movement the outcome is the government finally made the constitutional reforms. But this is not only by indigenous peoples. If you understand the Taiwan's history the martial law was lifted in 1987. So indigenous peoples are co-work with the general social movement which completed the comprehensive constitutional reform. And because of the constitutional reforms we have the first indigenous legislation enacted in 1987 which is the Education Act for indigenous peoples. And the second wave indigenous movement is from the first changing power in Taiwan history the year 2000 through 2016. So for the first turn of the changing power we can see the then president the president from the DPP he signed a new partnership with indigenous peoples. And the president also declared that the Taiwan government has a national-to-national relationship with indigenous peoples. A lot of peoples making fun of this political commitment because they think it's just a lip service. There's no use for that. But in fact those political agendas those political documents actually led to the outcomes in 2005. The legislature has enacted the indigenous peoples' basic law which is the most important legislation for indigenous peoples right now in Taiwan. And because of the indigenous peoples' basic law which comes following a series of legal constructions and the third wave of indigenous movement I observed is the 2016 onwards because the national apology was delivered to indigenous peoples and we are on this way to see what's going to happen. So from these three different phases of indigenous movement we can observe that the rights to protect indigenous people are from the equal protection and anti-declination of individual rights towards indigenous self-declination and self-government because of the basic law. The basic law introduced a new legal paradigm for indigenous peoples which includes indigenous peoples' rights to self-government which in article 4. And also in this period we can see the law started to actualize indigenous legal traditions in other ways, customary laws because of this development we can see a lot of indigenous cultural practices can be non-guilty because the indigenous legal tradition has been actualized and has been applied in the court so a lot of indigenous cultural practices used to be conveyed as a coin against the law right now is it non-guilty. And the third phase is if you see the past few years Taiwan society has a lot of discussion on the new constitutional reforms and we are also putting our agenda we want indigenous rights to be constitutionalized and this is also laid out in the political agenda but the point is we started to focus on collective rights rather than individual only but nothing comes easy so if we look back to the history this year is already 30 years since the first indigenous rights allocation was established 30 years already passed and it's already 20 years since the constitutional revision is already passed and it's over 10 years since the enactment of the indigenous people's basic law why I want to say this because especially the last part the basic law has already lay out just like I said before it's a new legal paradigm for the rights of indigenous people especially on the rights of self-government 10 years already passed but we are still on our way to our nation building to carry out our right to self-government so where is the problem or what's the issue here but before that because of this indigenous movement we can see a lot of emerging and involvement of indigenous rights talking about the legal constructions but we have to identify a multi-cultural dimension to see this indigenous rights social, cultural, economic and political always has been constructed into the law so like the social aspect we can see there is the trend the legitimization of indigenous legal traditions just like I said before and also in the social aspect we are toward to develop a mechanism of free private consent for indigenous peoples so that's the social aspect and the cultural aspect we can see the implementations of cultural manifestations expressions and practices and also another thing is self-governance on indigenous cultural heritage in a political field we have already established indigenous et cetera tribunal to deal with indigenous legal issues and also we are on the way but it's already written in the law to establish the tribal council and to recognize the indigenous public juristic persons that will be my second talk tomorrow because the public juristic person is more, I mean bellicate legal issues so there are a number of different things going on emerging and evolvement but all this all this even though we don't see the self-government this turn in this area but if we combine social, cultural, political things together it is another form or model of indigenous right to self-government if we can have all this finalized so last part the national apology but two years ago when the president delivered this national apology that year from August to December I was invited to a number of different occasions to talk about the national apologies but the most common question I receive from the audience just like why the president want to say sorry to indigenous peoples why? the second question is can you tell me exactly who are the indigenous peoples? so this two question has make me think about how does the general public see indigenous peoples? because in a lot of in a lot of area people think indigenous people just like this advantage minority peoples so the key turn is this advantage but if we start to see indigenous peoples by taking this approach as disadvantages then we will lose the whole picture the picture of what I have already explained to you because you don't have to care about what happened in the history we only focus on right now but why the people will see indigenous peoples as disadvantage peoples because in a number of social indicators every year economically, educationally health jobs employment that kind of things indigenous peoples more than 50% are lower or we can say is like in the poverty line all below so the people will see you are a disadvantage economic disadvantage educational disadvantage health disadvantage and another thing is government has poured a lot of resources to support this social development which make the peoples think what is the differences between indigenous peoples and non-indigenous peoples in my just poverty issue in my just the allocation of resources if we deal with the resources allocation appropriately then we might say we have done a good job on indigenous peoples then we don't have to care about the land issues we don't have to care about the cultural issues we don't have to care about everything so just like this when the president deliver the national apologies just like I said a lot of peoples don't get an idea why and how because they are stuck in these issues if we think indigenous peoples is just like disadvantage group or minority group and then we can actually use the theory of equality socialization socialization of equality by taking approach like the affirmative action or majors to make it right to make it transform to improve the disadvantage status so once this status the disadvantage status vanishes then what's left but we still don't see the indigenous peoples so what's the difference between the indigenous peoples and non-indigenous peoples is the core issues I would like to share with you today what's the nature the nature of the indigenous differences let's kind of jump to this maybe we can start with this so like I said we have the indigenous peoples back to the old in place since 2005 and since then we have a number of different policies majors laws has been constructed culturally, socially, politically and all this led to the indigenous self-government but how can indigenous self-government come to success so we have to focus on the indigenous differences which manifested through our cultural characteristics the cultural distinctions because we said the concept of good governance the good governance it is very important it is compatible with our cultural characteristics because basic controls of indigenous rights were determined by the historical practices customs and traditions interwoven to the culture of the particular indigenous peoples just like politically development like I said before indigenous peoples basic law has already said that we could form our public juristic person we can be identified as a juristic person so if you understand the law you can understand why that is so important so but do we want to be just like other public juristic person or we can have our own because in Taiwan in a show version public juristic person only have three types the first type is the nation state the second type is the government central government and local government and the third type is right now we call it the Xingzheng Fanen a demonstrative juristic person so these three types of juristic person is already in place but our law doesn't say what kind of juristic person we could be so either way we can choose three of them or we can create our own but by choosing three of them can we be nation state then we can collect independence then we can be nation state but we can also be central government or local government Taiwan is such a tiny land and our people only occupy 2.3% I believe some of you might visit Taiwan let's say there is a very famous tourist spot we call Samong Lake Samong Lake Samong Lake is the traditional territory of the South people the South people has only like less than 600 people a few weeks ago the government announced to proclaim the traditional territory of the South people which not only include the Samong Lake area also include the neighboring counties and the neighboring counties government they want to protest to the central government saying that how could our land be claimed by less than 600 people saying that that's their traditional territory so can we choose to be a local government we can but my view surely will be a lot of political confrontations and then can we be Xing Zheng Fan administration jurist person we couldn't because different types so actually in Taiwan from the stand of the government they actually want our community to be the far end of the government the very very far end so we have central government county government and also we have Chun Li they want us to be lower than the most lower administrative bodies of course we refused and then what choices we have so my point of view is since the law does not limit our imaginations and then we can use the law to create our own public jurist persons and then what kind of public jurist persons we should be I have I don't have the final model yet but we must consider these as the first priorities because I believe the indigenous governance has to be compatible with our cultural integrity like we have 16 indigenous nations in Taiwan 1,700 tribal communities do we want to be all of the same or you want to be your own and then you have to use your imaginations but at least we can come back to our cultural characteristics because a lot of things going on in Taiwan, indigenous peoples we are followed by our historical practices customs and traditions we should go to the culture of particular indigenous peoples so our visions of governance is this a kind of nation building but by saying the nation building we are not thinking about western model of nation building we have to find out the attributes of governance attaching to those practices because a formation of a cultural match governing system and in the ongoing function of that system will be our job to create our self-government model our vision of governance so back to this chart here because in our constitution saying that the additional article 10 paragraph 11 and 12 saying that the government respect the multiculturalism and the government should foster the development of indigenous languages and cultures and the paragraph 12 to the additional article 10 saying that the government should follow or should respect the will of indigenous nations to self-government to a number of different areas like social, cultural, education development so the idea in the constitution has already expressed the self-determination for indigenous peoples but how could we, how can we how can the Taiwan as the nation state to complete the idea of multiculturalism Taiwan is not only Taiwan does not only have one racial group Taiwan has a lot of different ethnic group which make us a diversity society when we talk about indigenous peoples we are not force non-indigenous peoples so we have to find balance so this idea of multiculturalism I think once we have, if we want to have this complete the inner circle is that each nation should enjoy substantially equal and completely effective self-government and in the middle we have to legitimization of so-generous rights and its full realizations it's not only for indigenous peoples we have to find a particular ethnic group what kind of so-generous rights they should attach to their practices so like Taiwan we have, just like I said, 16 indigenous nations we have Hakka people we have Minan people right now we even have newcomers Xinzhu men so in the middle area we have to find out just like in Taiwan I think the best example might be the language courses which has been carried out in primary and secondary school each student at school have the right to learn his or her own languages so we are not only to learn Mandarin or English or others so once the inner circle and middle circle has been complete from the outlook we can see there is recognition and manifestations of multiculturalism as a constitutional value otherwise we cannot saying that the constitutional value has been implemented in Taiwan so I always say that the value of Taiwanese constitution want to complete the only way is to protect, to foster to implement indigenous rights of self-government but to finalize that I think in the future there is since the president has delivered the national apologies for the past two years we have seen a lot of things going on and I said that is a reconciliation among tribalism constitutionalism and cultural pluralism will be a new phase of constitutional reform is at stake so the goal of this presentation is to study how indigenous communities come to be imaginesced as the nation and creating a society in which such independent nations within past modern states can share power in the spirit of mutual respect so this concludes my talk today and last words Mahua Manu Balai thank you okay thanks that was a fantastic kind of overview it's actually the kind of thing we were looking for so I have a lot of questions but let me just kind of start with one or two and then we can come back otherwise take it it's about a new phase of constitutional reform and that made me think about something that a couple of our previous speakers have touched upon and that's a political representation of indigenous people so I was thinking about the electoral system to what extent is that something that you feel needs to be addressed in this next phase of constitutional reform because proportionally indigenous people have a higher level of political representation in the Lifa Yuan but a number of our speakers have suggested that this doesn't actually serve the interests of indigenous people particularly well many of the reforms that you've talked about over the last 30 years don't actually come from those indigenous elected politicians they come from indigenous social movements so it seems are there any kind of proposals on how this element of constitutional reform might actually be addressed a second question I had was you talked about a number of these three phases of constitutional reform over the last 30 years could you comment a little bit about the drafting process so where do these reforms come from are they from indigenous activists so for example let me just take one example you talked about the text of the apology how was that actually drafted to what extent was there any dialogue in the draft of that text so that question really applies not just to that speech but I think also the content of many of these pieces of legislation who's actually doing the design of these reforms so I think the the idea about the electoral system from one of my friends okay yes he probably devoted most of his academic life in this area so of course I agree with your question about the political representations because just like you said proportionally speaking our seat is more than our population ratios so the idea is if we have more seats I think the core issue is not how many seats you have it's more like what kind of power or decision making authority you have in the legislatures so on one end some people propose that we should have the ethnic representations like we have 16 indigenous nations then we surely can have 16 seats in the legislatures but that is very very challenging and might not it might not happen so another thinking is that like me, myself and other colleagues we are not creating another thing is like in the central legislative room we can have the indigenous commissions like we have the social cultural commission we have the national defense commission because the commission decided what kind of bills they can start to discuss so another thing is we are trying to create the indigenous commission mainly for indigenous representatives they have the final say so there is another way of thinking that once we have the constitutional reform or rewrite we want to create a new relationship saying that you have your own legislature we have our own legislature but we have to find out how do we allocate different powers or sororities and affairs that kind of thing so it's like the Canadian has assembly of first nations but it's not like legally constructed but in Taiwan we are actually thinking to create a legal body just like the indigenous assembly to kind of parallel with our central government so and the second question is how does this all the strife come out like national apology I think in Taiwan it's very interesting to see for the past two or three years a lot of things actually a lot of people participate in the political activities from the sunflower so I can say the national apology was drafted mainly by the the member can we say member, the sunflower member or activist from the sunflower so a lot of indigenous activists especially for the not use by the young people like around 30 to 40 they are being invited to participate in the draft of national apologies and then once they finish and we move on to another group of people like I am one of them and to discuss but the draft is mainly so what I say is that a lot of things happening in Taiwan actually really has to go back to the the sunflowers but if we go back to the 30 years ago the first wave of indigenous movement is actually there was a debate on how can we advance indigenous movement from the tribal speaking or the urban speaking because a lot of things going on was in urban area but back that time indigenous community was not that open just like right now so many of our indigenous leaders in the community they will criticize saying that the people advance the indigenous movement in the urban area they are the elite away from tribal communities so back that time there is an inside debate and do you have that challenge now so for example if you go back to your home village do you feel out of touch because you have been in Taipei at least in the university actually for myself my experience so you want me to come face right now actually because my village is very small but I actually live outside of the village since I went to college so before college because my parents work around the village so we kind of regularly back to the village it is not that it is not that distance but you bring another issue 30 years ago I just said there is a tribal thinking and urban thinking right now we have a lot of young people participate as activists to advance the indigenous movement but they have been criticized also but they have been criticized by elders tribally and also in the city area the thing is one of the reasons might be because those young people who participate as activists they were born in the cities they are more like they receive they see themselves as indigenous people in the late period as they grow up so the people will say that because they are in the forefront of this development so they kind of like cause interest parties so they have been criticized by that okay let's go up to some questions oh yeah be you thank you very much it's fascinating I'm sorry I have to I would like to ask because the way it was conducted the apology and I wonder from your perspective what did it do what's the significance for the indigenous people themselves and many people criticized the way it was done it was not really a true apology but for you what do you think okay actually in the beginning of the national apology even when they drafted the test of the apology I feel at times I feel they are not doing they are not really doing this thing they are not really doing the apology they are doing the political agenda okay gesture yeah especially when we compare to the Australia and the Canadian Canadian prime minister delivered the apology in front of the parliament and Australia also delivered the apology in the parliament and they have a national broadcasting right by in Taiwan if you but you can still see on the YouTube we have been invited inside the presidential office one of the conference room and we do have a national broadcasting but only for indigenous TV television only for indigenous television we do the national broadcasting but the thing is actually on that day the fee is late they broadcast not in a lifetime yeah it's very interesting yeah so in that time I feel it's like just politics because we during we have done a lot of negotiations how do we do this national apology in where to whom in what in what form everything we said has been we understood and we take in considerations but in the end they still doing these things but after that since our first presidential I mean the indigenous community indigenous community our first session of meetings I was amazed because the president sit there with us for more than almost four hours yeah for almost four hours sit there and talk to us to explain how she cannot run this and in the first meeting I was invited to give the first talk to to talk about indigenous self-government and how can we pursue and to give to give the committee some suggestions so since then I can feel she commit to this work but the government is big machine she might not be able to oversee everything but once she decided to focus on that and then we see we see a slight change over time right now but since it is not a legal body this committee is not a legal body it's like a consulting group president so we are using this channel negotiation channel for the indigenous people with this government yeah but a lot of people they just can't wait they just can't wait so we receive a lot of different criticize even right now I'm leading the subcommittee on Lankans when I just complete 19 sessions of tribal community visit and all these 19 visits I was in complaint can you be faster can you do this, can you do that yeah so if if I don't promise anything then they say it's just a political gesture yeah just like that but I think it's all we have to see the president's commitment okay yeah you bet okay just a quick comment before I ask the question I was in Paris last week and amongst the exhibitions I saw was one on Yandertal now one of the curators of the exhibition said in a newspaper interview that for sapiens I hope well maybe I hope not because it would be nice if one of the other human species had survived but for sapiens sapiens Yandertal is the original other and in one of the exhibition rooms there was a quote from Claude Lévi-Strauss which states there's no such thing as a primitive culture there's no such thing it's an unloved culture there's just different responses to recurring and identical problems and I think that's a very interesting idea that he's put forward and it's very relevant to what we're discussing this week but my question concerns more pressing issues countries like Scotland, a bus country a couple of other places around the world the question national question is relatively straight forward because most of these places are clearly defined and contiguous geographical areas now that's not the case with the indigenous nations in Taiwan any longer although your map clearly shows that very recently it was so maybe the stage is set for some serious innovation now the word democracy is widely used but very rarely defined and you mentioned the idea of 16 assembly members 16 assembly members can't do very much can they and there's no concept of sovereignty there so I think democracy is very often mistaken for majoritarianism majoritarianism is not democracy so my question is what do you see as a way forward in establishing some kind of effective lasting national sovereignty for the indigenous peoples of Taiwan sorry it's a nasty question I think I'll start with the idea of democracy once I actually forgot what I got these lines about democracy but I recall it says democracy is a very open leaf or a system of government democracy so if we see democracy is a very open leaf we believe in and then we should do my when we when we deal with the indigenous issue based on the value of democracy and then we might have another result but we see democracy is a system of government and then we just count the head so the way we want to claim the national sovereignty for indigenous people like I just said actually in a number of different indigenous people across a group a lot of people we must claim sovereignty first and for and complete sovereignty to be a start when we talk to government but in fact it might not it might just not gonna happen in reality especially in Taiwan because we are not only facing Taiwan government we are not just facing Taiwan government we are still a huge one on the other side of the Taiwan street but it is I always talk to my colleagues we could be we could be how to say it we could use the relationship of the Taiwan Strait to develop or to claim the most our southern status like there is one time there is some of the indigenous active group they say we want to claim we want to recognize China we want to refuse Taiwan we want to make friends China we don't want to belong to Taiwan and at other times we said we want to be friends to Taiwan not China so there is a very interesting relationship we can make use it for indigenous peoples but at this period actually next month focus first indigenous peoples from the government cabinet we are launching Australian foreign to collaborate with a number of different countries from the Pacific area to create a new international platform for indigenous peoples so I think I want to say this is how much or to what extent we can have our southern status to be established mine based on what kind of strategies we have and right now we are using the international platform because the US and China is not in the very yeah they are not good friends which led to a lot of different Pacific countries they can be friends with us and only for indigenous peoples so in August 1st there will be more than 10 countries to join this Australian foreign to advance indigenous issues across the Pacific Ocean so in that way I think we can have more foreign power for us to negotiate with the Taiwanese government but like I said in the end to what extent we can establish our southern status I have no answers or at this point thank you for your talk very interesting my question is more to do with going back to the indigenous difference talking about a bit more perspectives on the economic system so I'm wondering if you can comment a little bit about how you felt indigenous people struggling against corporate power in regards to land right question especially in the case with Asia Cement in Toronto you are very focused Asia Cement yeah once again I'm not nervous just don't understand why you can wear the long sleeve it's working now I think the development issues in indigenous land is the common issue across the globe for indigenous peoples like in Southeast Asia and also in Pacific islands and that's the same in Taiwan before the Asia Cement cases I think the earlier there another famous case is in Taitung area I know if you guys know there is one resort just on the beach just on the beach and that beach is the I cannot say it's the most but it is very very beautiful beach so the local government they just lease out to the corporate for 50 years but that project is gone already but how can we make it vanish because we first thing is we make use of our law our ecosystem and another thing is we work with our friends but a lost friend could be our enemy too so in Taiwan the indigenous issue we like the hunting issues on the other side is always the conservative bodies environmental issues right so we have to find a way to find a common ground for our common interest so like the Asia cement too because if we only focus on indigenous land issues nobody will care or we can only receive lower support because legally speaking a lot of people will say you indigenous people has already surrendered your right to the government or to the corporations legally speaking but if we look back to the history lost surrender has been the case of deceived or by other by other means so we started to receive a lot of sympathy from the general public but sympathy cannot make things change so luckily we have the ziblin ziblin cheap worry oh yeah luckily we have his filming scene in Taiwan so that's the point we started to collaborate with the environmental group to deal with the Asia cement and the surface is we have this presidential office in indigenous community and then we make the case the president gave the not the orders he just saying that the government should invite indigenous peoples and corporations we sit on the table to discuss how we cannot deal with this so it is an issue going on yeah but all these development issues happening in indigenous land in the past we have no tools or we have no weapons to defend but since the basketball in 2005 article 21 saying that any development any land development taking place on indigenous land you have to consult first consult indigenous people the second after consultation you have to receive the consent from the local indigenous peoples if you don't do this then the project will not be carried out yeah so it is gone so that is the case right now for the salmon lake because the local government want to also if you guys ever been to salmon lake they are already you cannot count how many hotels around the salmon lake but the local government still want to build up a huge resort yeah so that project was in discussion for the EIA in EPA EIA environmental impact so that project has been in the process of EIA but right now because the government has already promulgate the south traditional territory which includes that area so even they already passed the EIA they still cannot stop the development they still have to go back to do the article 21 process what is the definition of consent how is that achieved is it a surrender or yeah actually it depends on the size of your peoples so just like the south people they have 600 people they have to vote yeah they have to do that kind of things but if you for Amis people it's like 200,000 people so it's not so we have another thing like I showed you they do the tribal council and representative of tribal council is from the village so it depends on how many communities you have so they kind of represent systems this is a follow up question about development I'm just wondering if there are any cases in Taiwan of Bu Luo led village community led development projects whether for natural resource extraction or for tourism if we haven't seen any such developments so far is it likely that we might see some in the next few years and I'm asking this partly because as a Canadian my main impression of Indian reservation in Canada was they had a hockey rink where we could go practice on the weekend I played hockey we went out to the mohawk reservation for hockey practice and it was one of the ways that the reservation made money as a reservation and the other impression I had was a casino on the same reservation where they had boxing matches I wasn't interested in this when I was 12 but later on I learned a little bit more about it and then it's fundamentally a casino that was built by a company that the reservation hired so is it likely that we're going to see such developments in Taiwan or would Bu Luo led develop in Taiwan take another form the simple answer is of course it is going to happen but the thing is it is very weird that you were saying the Bu Luo lend or lease out the land for the development right so the thing right now is the Bu Luo the community cannot be a proprietor of the land we cannot own the land because we are not the juristic persons yeah so anyone who can own a property either you are a human being as a natural person or you are a person to be recognized by law which we say juristic persons so right now we have this law already in place that's why I said it is going to happen but the thing is we still have to negotiate with the government how could we or how can we return the land to the Bu Luo it is all have to come to the issue is what is the public juristic person for Bu Luo yeah so either way just like I said three different types you can choose but either type is very weak for us either we cannot choose that like a state or we cannot be a local government because the county government will not tolerate that so if you as so then the only option you have is the far end is like a service delivery you will be a service delivery for the county government because you are in the far end of the government so if we choose that type I have no face that we could run our own land you have no face I have no face I don't believe that that's going to happen because if you are just a service delivery then how could the government will say that okay let's demarcate this land for you and you run it yeah so that's why I said we have to create an imagination to create a different type and that is the way we can find out how could we do that but before that actually under my work with the indigenous community actually I have already not myself our team has almost finalized a deal with one of the government agency they used to manage that land and right now they agree to return the land for the tribal community to use but since the tribal community is now recognized as the legal person so they will return the land for the indigenous agency for the cabinet the council of indigenous people so they will return the land for the council indigenous peoples and then the council will find a way to give the land for the community to run so it's more like under a contract so it is under a contract but it's still not it is still not a contract with the tribal community I mean Bulu the contract will be signed under one of the association one of the organization from the Bulu National Park no it's not in National Park it's in Taitung area it's a very beautiful coastal area so we almost finalized this deal so it's a mid success so regarding the concept of the juridistic person I wonder like how do the 16 tribes imagine this idea like how is this through tribal councils or like how are you going to reach sort of consensus on how we can imagine or conceptualize as nation because I think even for the general public in like for Minan people or Taiwanese people by saying that I'm not excluding indigenous people as Taiwanese people I just say like how are you going to discuss all these differences because I guess 16 tribes will have their own distinct cultures as well I think that's the reason I didn't give you a model of what the juridistic person should be for indigenous people because we have 16 nations and more than 700 tribal communities but for the government idea the easy way is I create a model and every one of you you just find a way to fit in yeah and I think it's just the period for the US when they doing the IRA indigenous reorganization act I create a tribal government and then if you want to be a tribal government and then this is the model you want it you fit in if you don't want it then you are excluded so right now in Taiwan 16 but we still have a way for the community to discuss public affairs it's like tribal meetings tribal councils so it is legally stipulated already in place but it is just a mechanism for the tribal people to discuss the final model for us to create our own juridistic persons so I think we have a way to negotiate to discuss but what kind of juridistic person should be it still depends on different different nations one time I actually proposed that for the smaller we cannot say smaller for the population fuel for the nation who have fuel populations they might just create corporations business corporations yeah they might just have because in Taiwan I think there are 4 or 5 indigenous nations they have less than like 600 peoples if we want them to create a government it's going to be huge everyone is government officials right so another thing is we might create corporations and people could be share holders yeah thank you yeah so and the shareholder could become a family or come as an individual yeah so that's another way to do that but if we want the nation has 200,000 and more they have a corporation I don't think it's a good way for my thinking so different nations should have different strategies but we do have for your question we do have a mechanism to talk things but the result still depends on the different nations okay can I add a minute to it hi thanks I really liked I really enjoyed your talk especially the emphasis on imagination and creativity that's great I have two completely distinct questions the first you seem to say that one of the successes of movements for cultural autonomy was that indigenous children now can learn their own language to study that in school and my limited understanding is that there are real practical problems surrounding that literally not enough textbooks not enough teachers not enough people who are competent in the language to be able to to actually do that even at the basic level of not having a written codified entirely read-upon way of writing languages so my first question is basically about that my second question completely distinct is you mentioned that Tensho event had talked about a nation-to-nation relationship and that I believe you said a lot of people laughed at that at the time an empty political gesture but that became material reality in 2005 again speaking from ignorance here but when I hear that I'm thinking that that concept has nothing to do with indigenous people but is intended to establish Taiwan as a nation and so indigenous people are simply being used as a convenient metaphor for really something else and I wonder the same thing about you seem to be in favor of multiculturalism and it's hard to be against multiculturalism but one reason why President Tsai might make an apology or promote multiculturalism is that there's a more important issue from Taiwanese perspective which would be making Taiwan look like a democratic multicultural society that respects international good things and again the point of that has nothing to do with indigenous people but rather other politics so I suppose it produces material benefits who cares right but on the other hand I would also imagine that one could feel like one's being used somehow so those are my three questions who are you? that's very brutal comment thank you so I think Van the first question is about cultural autonomy and you say you are economic but I say you are very professional because you know very detail about these situations in Taiwan but that's the truth there because even last year we just passed the legislation which is indigenous language and development act since this act in place I think the indigenous language ability will be some some requirement for indigenous people to participate in public affairs so having said that I think you are very you are right even though we promote we advance on the indigenous language development but the text and teachers we have a gap right now and a huge gap so myself right now is also doing another position which is under the national academy for educational research and the director for the indigenous education research center it's weird right I found a low area by running this center so our center is not the only agency to responsible to make this language learning more complete but I just finalized a new version of education act for indigenous people who might which might be passed maybe later this year or early next year so one of the key reform is focus on the issue you mentioned so we are trying to do the teachers the teacher the teacher training and also the development of text so that's in progress but by seeing the cultural autonomy I like right now we have other legislations right now in place which is more like self government for indigenous peoples on cultural issues one thing is that we have we have act for indigenous peoples we can manage the traditional creations it's like the indigenous copyright yeah so this act is already in place so how does the people make use of indigenous intellectual creations like songs dances totems weaving so that law has already granted a power and authority for indigenous peoples when how the non-indigenous people can make use of our intellectual creations and another thing is that we have the indigenous cultural heritage act so which means because the cultural heritage has some kind of symbol for the national sovereignty and the indigenous people has been excluded from this area for the past for a long time so also 2 years ago we have passed this law so the indigenous cultural heritage is another category under the cultural heritage so a lot of things going on right now why I say you your second comment is 3 open or expose the reality okay you are very right even and I think it's a lot of people here I think you guys might have you guys might very knowledgeable on the political issues in Taiwan I mean the blue and the green so under the 10 years compared to former 8 years and right now the choice the turn you can see very different parties how they deal with the indigenous policies and it is true the DPP use indigenous people as another as a symbol or a political actions to declare or to demarcate the line between the Taiwan and China it's very true it is very true so like I said the August 1st we will start actually it is not it is not the opening for the Australian nation for it it is actually a reopen because the Australian nation forum was established on the last year of the chance administration so when his turn ends the KMT turns came in and they closed the Australian nation forum for the 8 years and right now the TPP want to reopen it yeah thank you very much for your informative presentation so the last question answered part of one of my questions which was a cultural one but it was also about on the cultural side I see a lot of commodification by governments and cultural organizations of indigenous activities around the world so is this something that is easy to manage because it's also an income stream as well that's one question the second one is three questions the second one is which indigenous groups around the world are you finding the best working relationships like Maori it's a cultural connection isn't it Canada Sami so I'm speaking from a re-screened indigenous film and I'm coming from a broadcast kind of exhibitor perspective of presenting cultures through film and what's the last one do you find from the non-indigenous organizations do you find of the United Nations groups that you find which one of those organizations seems to have the most action but there's more questions thank you so I think the last question is maybe I should say it this now because when the UN opened up the PFI permanent forum started in 2004 the early stage of the permanent forum on indigenous issues it is truly an open equal and friendly platform for the indigenous people to participate in the UN in the UN organizations but in the past let's say maybe five or six years it's become just like the UN assembly it's very very political even so that's one of the reasons I stopped participating as in one is the time issues and others because that area it's become the political competitions which means you have to be you have to be a major role internationally otherwise you won't have any say in that meetings yeah so in that case if you are from a marginalized community of the marginalized and then you won't have any place in that area but we can we can still see things going on internationally by a number of different documents decorations and actions carry out so we might say that UNESCO might because I think the issue is like a very soft one so in the UNESCO they focus on the international and indigenous cultural issues, education issues I think that there might be another organization we can look at