Taiwanese Aborigines

Taiwanese aborigines are the original people of Taiwan. They settled the island over 6,000 of years ago. Today, most Taiwanese are of Han Chinese ancestry – the 569,000 aborigines are 2% of the population. They belong to around 20 different tribes.

The Austronesian language family began in Taiwan. In ancient times, settlers from Taiwan took to the sea. Their descendants became the modern inhabitants of Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Polynesia. Of the 9 subdivisions in the Austronesian language family, 8 are exclusive to Taiwan. The descendants of those who remained are the modern Taiwanese aborigines.

Taiwanese aborigines did not consider themselves a single people but as members of one tribe or another, such as the Truku or Atayal. Some lived in the island’s western plains, where most Taiwanese cities stand today, others in the wilder, mountainous west.

The plains tribes lived in bamboo villages. They grew millet, fished and hunted deer. When the Dutch colonised Taiwan (Formosa) in the 1600s, mass-scale Han Chinese immigration assimilated the plain tribes. The modern Taiwanese census does not recognise the 200,000 or so plains aborigines as a separate people.

The mountain tribes had little contact with settlers until the 19th century. Headhunting was a common rite of passage. In some tribes, if a man did not take an enemy’s head in his life, he would not pass into the next. Mountain tribes hunted wild game and had facial tattoos. They traded pelts and camphor to Han settlers in exchange for guns and iron.

In response to raids, the Japanese invaded Taiwan’s interior in the 1890s. They considered the aboriginals barbarians to be vanquished, and over the next forty years, cowed the indigenous tribes one by one.

When the Sediq rebelled in 1930, Japanese authorities bombarded them with artillery and killed 600.

Taiwanese aborigines fought as specialist jungle troops for Japan in WW2. One of them, Terumo Nakamura, did not surrender until 1974.

The Kuomintang dictatorship that ruled Taiwan from 1945 – 1987, pushed a vigorous assimilation campaign through interrmarriage and education.

Bunun people, c.1900.

The Yami people live on Orchid Island off the coast of Taiwan. In 1982 their government dumped nuclear waste on the island, which the Yami have protested since.

Aborigines have been a minority since the 1700s. In modern, democratic Taiwan, they face higher mortality, poverty and unemployment than Chinese-Taiwanese. Of their twenty known languages, ten are now extinct, the rest endangered. Those who move to the cities risk losing their culture, those who stay face poverty.

In the 1860s, European missionaries exploited aboriginal animosity for the Han colonial system to win converts. Today, most aborigines are Christian.

In the 21st century, Taiwan has begun to embrace its aboriginal heritage as a means to distinguish it from mainland China. Aboriginal groups have made been slowly reviving their culture through tourism and education.

In 2016, Taiwanese president Tsai-Ing-Wen, herself of aboriginal descent, officially apologised on behalf of the government for historic oppression of the aboriginal community. She declared August 1st Indigenous People’s Day.

Sources: Cultural Survival, Jared Diamond – Guns, Germs and Steel (1997), New York Times, Taipei Times.

See Also:

• Taiwan
• The Ainu
• Ruc People
• Polynesian Migrations
• Taiwanese Negritos

Turanism

Turanism asserts a common Inner Asian identity with racial overtones. Born in the 1800s, it was Hungary and Turkey’s answer to pan-Slavic and German nationalism. Turanism assigns racial identity to the (now debunked) Ural-Altaic language family, as Aryanism did Indo-European. At best it promotes exploring cultural and linguistic ties between varied peoples, at worst genocide and hate. Though long fallen from grace, Turanist thought still lives in the far-right corners of Turkish and Hungarian politics.

Turanism was born in Europe’s nationalist zeitgeist. In the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, old empires and principalities were redrawn along ethnic and linguistic lines. Prussia and Russia emphasised pan-Germanic and Slavic heritage respectively and the discovery of the Indo-European language family led to a supposed ‘Aryan race’. Hungarian, however, is not an Indo-European tongue; its speakers descend from the Eurasian Magyars. Slavic nationalism threatened Hungary’s hold on Eastern Europe and promoted worrying ties with rival Russia. As ethnic kinship came to supersede religious ties, Hungary needed new friends.

Herman Vambarry, Hungarian orientalist and the Ottoman Sultan’s former advisor, drew on the work of Finnish linguists to propose Hungarians and Turks shared a ‘Turanian’ origin – a master race heritage of their own – and therefore Hungary should look east, not west, in its alliances. The notion gained steam after 1918 when the western powers stripped Hungary of 72% of its territory and far-right thought took hold. Turanians comprise of not only Magyars and Turks, but all others supposedly descended from Central Asian conquerors. These include:

• Turks (both Turkish and Central Asian)
• Hungarians
• Bulgarians (considered ‘Slavicised Turanians’)
• Finns
• Estonians
• Japanese
• Koreans
• Mongols
• Tatars
• Manchus
• Sami
• Indigenous Siberians

Turkey had its national awakening in the end days of the Ottoman Empire. Reformers stressed ethnic identity over religious: Turks were distinct from, even superior to, the Arabs, Kurds, Greeks and Armenians which they ruled.

Though pan-Turkism promoted solidarity with the Tartars and Central Asian Turks under Russian rule, Turanism went further. For Hungarian and Turkish nationalists, it provided a uniting ideology to counter the European powers, particularly Russia.

Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire fought on the same side in WW1, as did Hungary, Bulgaria, Finland and Japan in WW2. Both the Young Turks, who took over in 1908 and perpetrated the Armenian genocide, and Hungary’s Arrow Cross, who murdered 10,000 Jews and Roma in WW2, were committed Turanists.

Japanese Turanists advocated cooperation with Hungary and the takeover of Manchuria and eastern Russia.  The High Command disbanded Turanist societies after 1941 however, to pursue a pan-Asian stance instead.

Turanists believe their race is superior. Like the Nazis, they twist science and history to suit their needs. 20th century Turanists claimed:

• Ancient Rome, Egypt, Greece and Sumeria were Turanian
• Prophet Muhammad was a Turk, not an Arab
• Native Americans are Turkic descended
• A Turanian Empire once stretched across Inner Asia and should be recreated

‘Turan’ is the old Persian term for Central Asia. In Iranian literature, the Turanians were fearsome warriors and the nemeses of Persian heroes. They were likely Iranic Scythians, however, not the Turks who migrated later.

After WW2, Turanism died out in Finland and Communist Hungary. Modern Turanism, however, is an ideological staple of the Grey Wolves, a Turkish ultranationalist group, and far-right Jobbik, Hungary’s second-largest party.

Sources: American Political Science Review, Armenian Genocide.org, The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies, Hurriyet Daily News, Jobbik.com

See Also:

• Hungary
• Falangism
• Turkic Migrations
  • Crimean Tatars
• Steppe People
  • The Xiongnu
  • Attila the Hun
• The Armenian Genocide

Ainu

Ainu are the indigenous people of Japan.  25,000 live on the island of Hokkaido and a further 1,000 in the Russian territories of Sakhalin and Kuril to the north.  The Ainu are descendants of the Jomon people, who settled Japan over 20,000 years ago, long before the Yamato (ethnic Japanese) first arrived in 300 BC.  Like indigenous people worldwide, centuries of institutional discrimination have critically endangered the Ainu way of life.

Ainu have pale skin, a robust frame, deep-set eyes, and thick wavy hair. Traditionally the men grew long beards while the women tattooed their mouths. Until the 1990s scientists speculated they were a long lost tribe of Caucasians but genetic testing has revealed they are closer to other East Asians, despite their physical differences.

Most Ainu men, like their Jomon ancestors, have haplogroup D in their Y chromosomal DNA, shared with Tibetans, Andaman Islanders and Okinawans. By contrast, roughly 10% of Japanese ancestry comes from the Jomon.

Ainu mitochondrial DNA suggests common ancestry with Okinawans and indigenous people of the Russian Far East. Their ancestors were Ice Age hunters from southern Siberia who deviated from their East Asian cousins millennia ago and crossed a land bridge to Japan. They likely developed their distinct appearance from centuries of isolation in a cold, wintry climate.

Today most Ainu look Japanese, their mixed ancestry the product 20^th century assimilation campaigns. An unknown number of Yamato – possibly up to 200,000 – have Ainu ancestry though many do not know it themselves. In the past, people concealed their heritage for fear of discrimination.

Traditionally the Ainu were hunter-gatherers. They hunted deer, foxes, seals, otters and other animals, fished salmon and grew vegetables and millet. One custom involved raising bears from cubs then, after a year, sacrificing and eating them in a public ritual. Bears were central to the Ainu’s animist faith. The Ainu believed spirits inhabited every aspect of the natural world, including animals, streams, mountains and trees, which were to be venerated and respected. The Ainu crafted clothing from furs, fishskin, cotton, bark and woven grass.

The Japanese began colonising Hokkaido in the 1300s. The wild frontier was appealing to restless Samurai and the fur trade was lucrative. The Ainu fought back in 1457, 1669 and 1789 but were defeated each time. Smallpox, tuberculosis and cholera decimated their population.

In 1868 the Meiji Regime formerly annexed Hokkaido, opening it to Japanese settlers, and started assimilating the Ainu. The 1899 ‘Hokkaido Aboriginal Protection Act’ forced Ainu to abandon hunting and fishing for agriculture and adopt Japanese customs and names. Speaking their native language and traditional practices like tattooing and animal sacrifice were banned. The law was not lifted until 1997.

The Ainu language has no relation to any other. Ainu means ‘human’ in their native tongue. Japanese assimilation campaigns were successful: out of the 20,000 Ainu today, only 15 still speak the language.

There has since been an effort to revitalize Ainu culture. Even so, the Japanese government did not recognise the Ainu as an ethnic minority until 1991 or an indigenous group until 2008. In February 2019 the Japanese government finally granted Ainu indigenous rights. The Russian government has yet to do so.

Sources: Akanainu, Akarenga, The Economist, Heritage of Japan, Japan Times, Minority Rights, Nature, Quartz, Tofoku, Washington Post

See Also:

• The Sentinelese
• Bears

Aum Shinrikyo

Aum Shinrikyo was the Japanese Doomsday Cult responsible for the 1995 Tokyo subway attacks. Cult members used sarin gas to kill thirteen people and injure a further 5,000 in Japan’s most deadly act of terrorism. Cult leader Shoko Asahara and six other members were hanged on the 6^th July 2018.

On the 20^th March 1995 during the morning rush hour five members of Aum Shinrikyo boarded Tokyo’s busiest commuter lines.  Each carried a spiked umbrella and two plastic bags full of 0.9 litres of liquid sarin. At coordinated stations, the cultists pierced the bags and got off the train to meet their getaway drivers.

Victims of the 1995 Tokyo subway attacks

Sarin is the most deadly nerve agent. Created by the Nazis, it causes a victim’s nervous system to destroy itself. Sarin is absorbed through the skin: effects include convulsions, paralysis, permanent brain damage and/or death. A pinhead is enough to kill an adult.

Shoko Asahara, a visually impaired acupuncturist, started meditation classes from his Tokyo apartment in 1984. He claimed to be able to levitate, and could help others achieve salvation by withdrawing from society and following his teachings. Like Charles Manson, Asahara was a New Age guru who manipulated others to evil. He would later declare himself the incarnation of Lord Shiva, the Buddha and Jesus Christ.

Aum Shinrikyo was officially founded in 1987, a year after Asahara found ‘enlightenment’ in the Himalayas. The cult’s name derives from the Hindu symbol of creation, Aum, and the Japanese word for ‘supreme truth’. Aum Shinrikyo combined Mahayana Buddhist teachings with Hinduism, Taoism, Christian eschatology and, to a lesser extent, the writings of Nostradamus and Isaac Asimov.

Asahara and his followers believed the Apocalypse would occur in 2000, after which the Third Buddhist Age of ‘Shoho’, when nirvana is attainable by all, would commence. Secretly, they believed it was their job to induce it.

In 1989 Aum Shinrikyo gained official recognition as a religious organisation. From their commune at the base of Mount Fuji, Aum exploited the spiritual void left by Japan’s obsession with work and materialism to proselytise disillusioned students and intellectuals. Asahara published several books and spoke at universities. At its peak, Aum had over 10,000 followers in Japan, and an estimated 30,000 in Russia. Many were graduates of Japan’s top universities, some of whom developed the chemical weapons used in 1995.

Few souls would survive the Apocalypse – only the members of Aum, and those they killed. Asahara’s disciples believed that by killing outsiders they would prevent them from attaining further bad karma, and therefore save their immortal souls. Everyone outside the cult was an enemy.

In 1989 Aum claimed its first victims; Tsutsumi Sakamoto, a lawyer investigating the cult, his wife and baby son.  Over the following years, they secretly amassed an arsenal of weapons, attempted to obtain anthrax and ebola samples and even a nuclear warhead. Chemical nerve agents proved more practical. In 1994, cultists used sarin gas to murder seven in the village of Matsumoto.

After the 1995 Tokyo Subway incident, Japanese police raided the Aum Shinrikyo commune. Inside they discovered stockpiles of LSD and other drugs, a Russian military helicopter and enough sarin to kill 4 million people.

Aum Shinrikyo members executed last Friday. Clockwise from top left:

• Shoko Asahara
• Tomomasa Nakagawa –  murdered Mr Sakamoto and his family
• Seiichi Endo – head scientist
• Masami Tsuchiya – chief chemist, developed Aum’s sarin supply
• Kiyohide Hayakawa – ‘construction minister’, strangled a dissident cult member in 1989
• Tomomitsu Niimi – ‘minister of internal affairs’, getaway driver
• Yoshihiro Inoue – ‘head of intelligence’ and mastermind of the 1995 subway attack

Nine others await execution.

In 2004 Asahara and his inner circle were convicted of a total of 27 counts of murder and placed on death row. The last culprit, a getaway driver, was arrested in 2012.

Aum Shinrikyo survived and renamed itself ‘Aleph’ in 2000. The group has ostensibly rejected violence, but remains under tight police supervision. It currently has 1650 members.

Sources: Apologetics Index, Associated Press, BBC, Council on Foreign Relations, Japan Times, Rationalwiki

The Fall of Singapore

On the 15^th February 1942 the British Empire surrendered its most prized Southeast Asian possession to the Japanese 25^th Army. Churchill called it the ‘worst capitulation’ in British history.

Colonial Singapore was as strategically significant as it is today. Located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore commands the mouth of the Malaccan Straits, the causeway between the Andaman and the South China Seas and the prime shipping channel between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Aptly named the ‘Gibraltar of the East’, Singapore was a heavily protected island fortress. The British thought it impenetrable.

With her efforts devoted primarily to keeping the home island safe, Japan’s rapid expansion in Southeast Asia had come as a surprise to the Empire whose greater strength was bogged down in Europe and North Africa. Since Pearl Harbour the Japanese had invaded the Philippines, seized Hong Kong, northern Borneo and, led by the bullish general Tomoyuki Yamashita, steamrolled through the jungles and rubber plantations of British Malaya in a mere 70 days.

Yamashita’s invasion of Malaya

The British had vastly underestimated their foes.  Dismissed from the war’s onset as bucktoothed savages the Japanese were initially viewed neither as tough nor soldierly by their opponents.  Moreover, the colonies had utter faith in Britain’s renowned naval supremacy. The Japanese could not possibly beat them at sea.

Both assumptions proved false.

Defending Malaya was a composite of hastily formed Indian and Australian divisions, mainly 18 year olds who’d never held a gun. The invaders meanwhile, who included the crème de la crème Japanese Imperial Guard, were hardened veterans of the war in China to whom dying for the empire was the highest honour.

Japanese troops advance through British Malaya by bicycle in 1942

Though no less accustomed to the tropics then his Commonwealth foes, the Japanese foot soldier was conditioned for war by a lifetime of nationalist indoctrination and notoriously harsh discipline. Japanese soldiers carried lighter packs than their British counterparts and advanced through Malaya on bicycle, rather than foot.

No time was wasted taking prisoners and resistance was brutally crushed: after the Battle of Muar 200 wounded Australian and Indian troops were doused in petroleum and burned alive. The conquest of Malaya was swift and brutal.

While the British in Malaya were severely demoralised at the velocity of their downfall, the Japanese fought with growing confidence. The popular infallibility of the British navy dissipated instantly with the sinking of battleships Repulse and Prince of Wales on the 10th of December. The siege of Singapore began on the 8^th of February the following year. Although Yamashita had only 36,000 men to the British 85,000, Singapore’s defenders were severely battered and demoralised. Moreover they were surrounded on three sides. Facing starvation, heavy bombardment, fierce street to feet fighting and with no chance of reinforcement, the British eventually capitulated on the 15^th of February.

Australian POWs in Changi Jail, Singapore after their surrender in 1942

A total 130,000 British troops surrendered. 7,000 would go on to form the backbone the pro Japanese ‘Indian National Army’ that fought the British in Burma and India on the promise of creating an independent Indian state. Others would work on the infamous death railway. Never before had British soldiers surrendered on such a scale. After Singapore, the Japanese could swiftly complete their conquest of maritime Southeast Asia – Borneo, the Philippines, Melanesia and the Dutch East Indies followed in rapid succession. Many feared Australia and New Zealand were next.

The Fall of Singapore foreshadowed much. An ascendant Asian power, in remarkable speed, had defeated and humiliated history’s greatest empire.  The colonies realised their master was not invincible and, after the war, would quickly assert independence. Despite winning this war, by 1945 Britain, had clearly lost its superpower status, would cede world hegemony to the United States and begin dismantling its empire. The Suez Crisis of 1956 was the nail in the coffin. Britannia would never reach her former glory again.