During my first exposure trip to the Philippines in the summer of 2007, I met some Taiwanese exposurists with the Cordillera Peoples Alliance in Tabuk, Kalinga. Through our short conversations and laughter we learned so much about each others culture, the differences and similarities.
We would find ourselves over the years in the same rooms or activities having those same conversations. In Hong Kong 2009 during the International League of Peoples Struggle (ILPS) Assembly, they allowed me to dance and sing their Indigenous customs. We reconnected the following year in 2009 before the decentralized Cordi Days. They had cooked delicious meal for all the staff in the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) office. In 2010, the Taiwanese came back with 25 other delegates from different Tribes in Taiwan to learn about how CPA spearheaded the disaster relief and prevention programs in far flung Indigenous Communities with the Cordillera Admistraion Region.
The Taiwanese delegates shared how similar their struggles are to all IPs around the world: the colonists came and ruled over them. Today, the government of Taiwan uses the calamities from the Typhoon Disasters as reasons to displace the IPs and “integrate” them into Taiwan modern society.
Only 2% of the population is Indigenous while the majority 98% are Han Chinese.
Indigenous People of Taiwan
During Cordi Day 2010, I had the chance to understand the issues of the many tribes from Taiwan. Their struggle today is to promote the preservation of not just their culture about their tribe. They are no longer confronting the government alone-they are seeking each other out, finding other tribes people who are willing to stand for the Indigenous People. They are learning from the rich history of the Cordillera Indigenous People’s struggle against land-grabbing, large scale mining, forced displacement, discrimination, and much more.
Climate Change is a real issue affecting Indigenous People around the world. Many tribes in Taiwan and the Cordillera face the cruel reality forced upon by the advancing of capitalist nations emitting the greenhouse gases that destroy the O-Zone layer, allowing the sun able to penetrate causing the warming of the planet and in some cases, more natural disasters including floods, typhoons, and droughts.
Their will to educate and fight for a better future for all IPs should be emulated by governments all over the world who genuinely care about Indigenous People. We should emulate the delegates in striving to go beyond our day to day lives to learn about the issues and fight for what is just and what is right.
