在日本統治之前有沒有任何本土族群在其規則之下統一台灣的歷史記錄嗎？
殖民VS.反殖民
李敏勇: 殖民VS.反殖民 [自由時報 2014-2-9]
I must take exception to your assimilating Japan's administration of its territory, Taiwan to an arrested colonial project. From 1895 to 1945, the concept guiding Japan's development of its territory, Taiwan was territorial incorporation. The same process applied by the US on the territories it acquired or by France in Algeria.
To reach independence by their own means in such context, Taiwanese would have to first rely on a strong common Taiwanese identity that would have preexisted Japan's acquisition of the territory. Koreans can. Madagascans can. Are you able to claim that such apanage of sovereignty is available in the history of Taiwan prior to 1895?
Once a core ethnical or cultural grouping would have created the momentum needed to coalesce Taiwan towards an independence project, the proponents of independence would have to wrestle independence out of the Japanese state. The latter could be expected to use all available tools of coercion to thwart that project.
Pitted against the overwhelming power of the state, the independence movement would have no choice but to resort to armed rebellion. I only have to remind you of the protracted struggle for independence that pitted Algerians against France or the one that still smolders in Northern Ireland.
Now, nearly seventy years have passed since Japan was robbed of its territory, Taiwan. By the same token, the Taiwanese were robbed of the only legal identity available to them - that of Formosa-born Imperial subjects.
Even allowing for your view that the Japanese project of development of Taiwan was a colonial one, it seems weird that Japanese is not the official language of an independent Taiwan. It seems weird that the school system does not provide Japanese language education. It seems weird that the Taiwanese press offers not even one Japanese language daily.
Claiming one particular ethnical dialect as the language of Taiwan would require confirming that the one ethnicity whose dialect is adopted by the whole of Taiwan was also the ethnicity who would have built the sovereignty of Taiwan prior to Japanese administration of the territory. Is there any historical record of a particular ethnical grouping having unified Taiwan under its rule prior to the Japanese rule?
Why not first reclaim the language that secured Taiwan a bona fide identity on the world map while first uniting Taiwan across ethnicities?
Why not claim as Taiwan's first official language the language through which the sovereignty of Taiwan was first reached at?
J. M. B.
