The CSB's case - either what he did or didn't do, or the way the Taipei judiciary system fixed the case - has been haunting Taiwan in the past whole year. People with justice in mind couldn't stop asking why it could be possible, or wondering how the KMT could pull out the conspiracy so successfully to persecute the officials (and their families) of previous government in such a blatant way (see J. Michael Cole's Mobilize Now!).
From my understanding, one of the answers - a very critical one - lies in nowhere else but the green camp itself.
We Taiwanese haven't quite get to know how to be masters of own fates yet. Most still think like servants in the old time, that we go to the voting booth to "pick the Savior." Hoping that the Savior alone can right every wrong for us, we all go back home to wait for out dream to come true, without paying much attention to watch if the Savior does follow the promises he made.
Or even some do pay attention, they keep silent because they insist on "solidifying the leadership," based on the belief that not criticizing the Savior is the only means for the Savior to lead us to the promised land (I pointed this out in a post (in Chinese) when discussing the case of DPP's controversial pick of Tainan County candidate back in April, 台灣派的枷鎖：鞏固領導中心).
So, in contrary to the continuous attacks coming from the blue camp on very single policy our the Savior made, we keep very low profile, making it look like that we can take it whichever way it goes. As a result, the leader will only see and feel mounting pressure from the blue camp.
It won't be hard to picture what a person in the position of the Savior will do under that situation.
It thus drifts, step by step, farther away from our dream, until one day the situation is rotten to a point of no return.
Even at that point, we fail to recognize that the failure is the result of aggressive attacks from the blue camp, of our silence in response to those attacks, and of our ignorance thinking that the fate of a country relies solely on the shoulders of a single the Savior.
One man rises, the country is saved; one man goes down, we are all dead. So we all rush out to blame the Savior for all the fall. We claim that the so-called Saviorlied to us, that the Savior is not a savior at all. We forget that when one goes to the public announcing that he was lied to, he is announcing that something goes wrong in his intelligence.
As such, by laying all blames upon the falling guy, we wipe out the guilt of choosing a wrong leader (which in wrong), and free ourselves from the responsibility of letting the situation go worse and worse without intervening with the mind of masters.
This is probably the primary mentality of all those "anti-Bian" hatrid in the green camp -- coming from people ranging from general populate to highly educated elites, including some pronounced scholars and professors, domestic or overseas.
Very very few Taiwanese realize that, when things go wrong in a democracy, people -- the masters -- are those who are responsible. Because Taiwanese are unwilling or unaware of the need to play the role of a responsible master, that we have no courage to carry the burden, upon failure we blame everyone -- the non-green voters, the KMT, and their own falling leader -- but ourselves. That mentality is the key reason KMT is able to play the CSB card so well --- they must have known that if they pull CSB's legs to an extent, the green camp will follow up with much harsher attack against our own leader all by ourselves. In that sense, I would argue that we somehow conspire with KMT to allow the judiciary operation to go down so quickly.
Wandering around forums/blogs of both Chinese and English, I witness how much effort the English circle put on the judiciary injustice on CSB's case in the past year -- analysis, criticisms, open letters, endorsements ... one after one. In contrary, the attention of green camp on CSB's human right is almost none -- most major players or elites were dwelling in the anger of "we are cheated; we are hurt; it's all his fault." The attention from the green camp to care about the justice in CSB's case didn't show up until early May this year, when DPP politicians suddenly woke up and went to visit CSB in jail one by one during the week before DPP's 517 protest. It is at least 6 month of total negligence on the judiciary unfairness that will definitely hurt all Taiwanese in the future. Even after then, the hatred and anger keep coming from the green elites (hey, I just got one email of this sort today). It is so intense that it looks like wiping out CSB from our memories is the only thing pan green cares in the world, and as long as we do this but nothing else, we will reach our wonderland automatically.
The unbelievable ignorance toward the immediate danger right in front of us, and the shocking contrast between the Taiwanese and English circles lead me to a painful realization that the real source of major failure of green camp is most probably embedded deep in the green camp itself, not in the blue camp. Without fixing those internal problems, pan green will not gain any advantage even Ma government and the KMT fare much worse then what have done now.
But how? I am not quite sure, yet.
Taiwanese retested in Kaoshiung
But, the way Kaoshiung City handles Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer's documentary "The 10 Conditions of Love" in the Kaoshiung Film Festival is a "CSB government in a smaller scale" that provides us a real chance to relive what happened before, as well as to rehearse what is to come in the future. (See Kaoshiung Folds under China's Pressure to Kick Rebiya's Film out of the Festival)
Every single administration head has to face public opinions, and act accordingly. There's no doubt that pro-China power will be very aggressive to give pressure to stop the screening of Kadeer's movie. If we don't play the role of asking what should have been done with at least the same caliber of pressure the pro-china voices asking Chen Chu （陳菊, Mayor of Kaoshiung City, who approves the decision to exclude the screening of the film from the Festival) to stop filming it, then Chen Chu will only face one-sided pressure from the pro-China camp. She will have no choice but follow what "the louder voices" wants. The compromising on the free speech issue will encroach further step by step, as what happened during CSB's era.
Some argue that although it's not an ideal solution by rescheduling the film to a date 3 weeks ahead of the Festival, we won a little by filming it anyway. To me that argument makes absolutely no sense.
If the case happens in a blue district, we could argue that because the administrative power is in blue's hand, we expect that Kadeer's film be prohibited, so we will "win a little" if we get it screened, even it's not screened during the Festival.
But this is in a green district !!! Screening Kadeer's film DURING the Festival is the rightful state we should have been in. Any other approach is a "loss", thus can only be a question of "losing small" or "losing big." It will never be a "win."
Mistaking a "small loss" as a "small win," simply because what the blue camp wants is a "big loss" from us. This sort of forgetting where we should be has been happening again and again in the past.
That's why I emphasize that it is a "fold" to pro-China's power. We all understand that Chen Chu is taking huge pressure from pro-China camp. But, we will go toward very different directions by choosing from the following two choices: trying to explain away the losing move as a winning one, or trying to build up the pressure from the green side to balance the pressure and help Chen Chu make a real winning move.
From my understanding, one of the answers - a very critical one - lies in nowhere else but the green camp itself.
We Taiwanese haven't quite get to know how to be masters of own fates yet. Most still think like servants in the old time, that we go to the voting booth to "pick the Savior." Hoping that the Savior alone can right every wrong for us, we all go back home to wait for out dream to come true, without paying much attention to watch if the Savior does follow the promises he made.
Or even some do pay attention, they keep silent because they insist on "solidifying the leadership," based on the belief that not criticizing the Savior is the only means for the Savior to lead us to the promised land (I pointed this out in a post (in Chinese) when discussing the case of DPP's controversial pick of Tainan County candidate back in April, 台灣派的枷鎖：鞏固領導中心).
So, in contrary to the continuous attacks coming from the blue camp on very single policy our the Savior made, we keep very low profile, making it look like that we can take it whichever way it goes. As a result, the leader will only see and feel mounting pressure from the blue camp.
It won't be hard to picture what a person in the position of the Savior will do under that situation.
It thus drifts, step by step, farther away from our dream, until one day the situation is rotten to a point of no return.
Even at that point, we fail to recognize that the failure is the result of aggressive attacks from the blue camp, of our silence in response to those attacks, and of our ignorance thinking that the fate of a country relies solely on the shoulders of a single the Savior.
One man rises, the country is saved; one man goes down, we are all dead. So we all rush out to blame the Savior for all the fall. We claim that the so-called Saviorlied to us, that the Savior is not a savior at all. We forget that when one goes to the public announcing that he was lied to, he is announcing that something goes wrong in his intelligence.
As such, by laying all blames upon the falling guy, we wipe out the guilt of choosing a wrong leader (which in wrong), and free ourselves from the responsibility of letting the situation go worse and worse without intervening with the mind of masters.
This is probably the primary mentality of all those "anti-Bian" hatrid in the green camp -- coming from people ranging from general populate to highly educated elites, including some pronounced scholars and professors, domestic or overseas.
Very very few Taiwanese realize that, when things go wrong in a democracy, people -- the masters -- are those who are responsible. Because Taiwanese are unwilling or unaware of the need to play the role of a responsible master, that we have no courage to carry the burden, upon failure we blame everyone -- the non-green voters, the KMT, and their own falling leader -- but ourselves. That mentality is the key reason KMT is able to play the CSB card so well --- they must have known that if they pull CSB's legs to an extent, the green camp will follow up with much harsher attack against our own leader all by ourselves. In that sense, I would argue that we somehow conspire with KMT to allow the judiciary operation to go down so quickly.
Wandering around forums/blogs of both Chinese and English, I witness how much effort the English circle put on the judiciary injustice on CSB's case in the past year -- analysis, criticisms, open letters, endorsements ... one after one. In contrary, the attention of green camp on CSB's human right is almost none -- most major players or elites were dwelling in the anger of "we are cheated; we are hurt; it's all his fault." The attention from the green camp to care about the justice in CSB's case didn't show up until early May this year, when DPP politicians suddenly woke up and went to visit CSB in jail one by one during the week before DPP's 517 protest. It is at least 6 month of total negligence on the judiciary unfairness that will definitely hurt all Taiwanese in the future. Even after then, the hatred and anger keep coming from the green elites (hey, I just got one email of this sort today). It is so intense that it looks like wiping out CSB from our memories is the only thing pan green cares in the world, and as long as we do this but nothing else, we will reach our wonderland automatically.
The unbelievable ignorance toward the immediate danger right in front of us, and the shocking contrast between the Taiwanese and English circles lead me to a painful realization that the real source of major failure of green camp is most probably embedded deep in the green camp itself, not in the blue camp. Without fixing those internal problems, pan green will not gain any advantage even Ma government and the KMT fare much worse then what have done now.
But how? I am not quite sure, yet.
Taiwanese retested in Kaoshiung
But, the way Kaoshiung City handles Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer's documentary "The 10 Conditions of Love" in the Kaoshiung Film Festival is a "CSB government in a smaller scale" that provides us a real chance to relive what happened before, as well as to rehearse what is to come in the future. (See Kaoshiung Folds under China's Pressure to Kick Rebiya's Film out of the Festival)
Every single administration head has to face public opinions, and act accordingly. There's no doubt that pro-China power will be very aggressive to give pressure to stop the screening of Kadeer's movie. If we don't play the role of asking what should have been done with at least the same caliber of pressure the pro-china voices asking Chen Chu （陳菊, Mayor of Kaoshiung City, who approves the decision to exclude the screening of the film from the Festival) to stop filming it, then Chen Chu will only face one-sided pressure from the pro-China camp. She will have no choice but follow what "the louder voices" wants. The compromising on the free speech issue will encroach further step by step, as what happened during CSB's era.
Some argue that although it's not an ideal solution by rescheduling the film to a date 3 weeks ahead of the Festival, we won a little by filming it anyway. To me that argument makes absolutely no sense.
If the case happens in a blue district, we could argue that because the administrative power is in blue's hand, we expect that Kadeer's film be prohibited, so we will "win a little" if we get it screened, even it's not screened during the Festival.
But this is in a green district !!! Screening Kadeer's film DURING the Festival is the rightful state we should have been in. Any other approach is a "loss", thus can only be a question of "losing small" or "losing big." It will never be a "win."
Mistaking a "small loss" as a "small win," simply because what the blue camp wants is a "big loss" from us. This sort of forgetting where we should be has been happening again and again in the past.
That's why I emphasize that it is a "fold" to pro-China's power. We all understand that Chen Chu is taking huge pressure from pro-China camp. But, we will go toward very different directions by choosing from the following two choices: trying to explain away the losing move as a winning one, or trying to build up the pressure from the green side to balance the pressure and help Chen Chu make a real winning move.
2 comments:
Taiwanese should have vision for their own destiny and refuse short-term temporary temptation of monetary value; otherwise Taiwanese will never be the master of their own future.
Active involvement in national and community affairs and monitoring current KMT administration’s policies should be everyone’s responsibility.
Only through active involvement can one claim that he loves Taiwan.
See the comments below about the Kaohsiung film festival from a German blogger, justrecently :
http://justrecently.wordpress.com/2009/09/20/kaohsiung-each-of-those-standpoints/#comment-4957
Some excerpt from the comment that should be emphasized:
I believe that trading freedom of expression in for business is stupid. If all Taiwanese involved showed responsibility for their own freedoms, no business would be hurt. Compromise in these matters, on the other hand, amounts to feeding blood bottles to insatiable sharks.
The tragic case about CSB was the fact that many DPP gods knew about his and his wife's shady dealings but did nothin .
Those few brave ones who did were fiercely attacked by the DPP and thrown out of the party.
This kind of 'Pan Green Mentality' is the cancer that the DPP has to cure.
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