Urban aboriginal communities driven away from home

The Shijou Community (溪洲部落), located by the Hsindien River in Taipei County, is close by Bi-Tan (碧潭), a tourist attraction. Since the 1970s, aboriginal laborers have began to build simple shafts and lived on this high ground. Over time an aboriginal community was established, of Amis construction workers and miners from Hualien and Taitung.

The emergence of Shijou Community is the testimony of the structural problem of Taiwanese aboriginal people: becoming cheap and disposable labour as a result of land and economic exploitation. The lack of steady employment kept them from purchasing apartments, and forced them to make do with makeshift homes on riverside high grounds, even grow vegetables or raise animals to avoid dependence on markets and currency. Therefore, this kind of riverside communities can be seen all over Taiwan.

However, the land occupied by these communities all belong to the government, making their homes naturally ''illegal construction.'' The Shijou community has been torn down several times in the 80s and 90s, but its residents would still come back to rebuild their homes. When Chou Shi-Wei (周錫瑋), the current magistrate of Taipei county inaugurated in 2007, he thought hard on how to make a better use of Shijou's land, and recycled the discourse of ''illegal construction,'' saying the community is located on a dangerous zone on which water will be running, and asking its people to relocate themselves to nationally funded housing projects in Longenpu, Sanshia, for their own sake.

Both presidential candidates paid little attention to the community's survival; instead, they care more about looking for support rather then really looking into the issue. The KMT candidate, Ma Ying-jeou visited the community on Dec. 8, 2007 and made the following much criticized comment: "You've come to our city and that makes you our people. You are in Taipei so you are Taipei citizens. I treat you as human beings."

What's more, Ma also said that he made an effort to educate the aboriginals and offer them opportunities. He thought that the aboriginals should adjust their mentalities and play it by the rules. Ma was Taipei City Mayor for 8 years and in his opinion the aboriginals should abide by the laws if they want to stay in the cities.

Though Shijou is safe for the time being, with support from social activism groups who organised workshops since January, the Taipei County government seems firm on the decision to tear down Shijou sooner or later. Meanwhile, the other urban aboriginal community, San-Ying Community (三鶯部落) under the San-Ying Bridge (三鶯大橋) has already been forcefully eradicated on Feb 28, leaving dozens of homes homeless. Now the residents could only put up with sleeping bags and makeshift houses, preparing for a joint-force battle with the government.